Comparative Philosophical Approaches to Salvation: An Examination of a Particular Instance of Interreligious Experience

This paper explores the functional approaches to religion of the modern Jewish and Christian thinkers, Mordecai Kaplan and Robert Neville, who attempt to bridge the gap between their particular and universal conceptions of salvation. They view salvation as a process of reintegration by the individual with his or her community, other civilizations, and nature in a sanctified, heterogeneous whole. By redefining the term "covenant," Kaplan and Neville each attempt to preserve the soteriological purpose of his religion without endangering its connection to the outside world. However, by drawing upon common theological motifs, these religious thinkers tend to perpetuate an ongoing Jewish-Christian dialectic in which each religion is both attracted to and repulsed by the other. Nonetheless, Kaplan and Neville lay the groundwork for a Jewish-Christian relationship in which self and other remain intact.