Treasure in the Field: Salvation in the Bible and in Our Lives by Robert A. Krieg (review)

In this concise book, Robert Krieg recasts the soteriological insights of the Bible in psychological-existential terms, for instance, by reflecting on salvation as God’s gift of one’s personal wholeness. Jesus’ parable about the person who finds “treasure hidden in a field” (Matt 13:44) constitutes the backbone of Krieg’s interpretation: God creates us as “treasures buried in the field” and thus discovering our true selves is the only way toward the “accomplishment” of God’s salus in our lives. Salvation thus comprehended involves both being released by God from whatever prevents or resists our maturation into the whole person whom God intends, and the completion of our personal existence through union with God in eternal life.

The book is arranged in eight sections, the first two of which deserve special attention as they provide a broad anthropological-theological background for the subsequent, more nuanced, analysis. In chapter 1, Krieg identifies existential challenges implied by the major anthropological facets of the human person created in God’s image, for instance, as an “I,” a “we,” and a “doer.” Then he examines two creation accounts found in Genesis and highlights their complementarity: the high point of God’s act of creation is described, respectively, in terms of its horizontal dimension (the man, ish, and the woman, ishah, “becoming one flesh”), and its vertical dimension (imitating God by “resting” on the Sabbath). This leads to the conclusion that the fundamental goodness of creation must always be considered in correlation with the human potential for self-transcendence. Finally, the notions of God’s creation and salvation are brought together in the realization that humans— as personal subjects, interpersonal beings, and self-agents—cannot be redeemed unless they meet God anew through these very facets of their personal existence.

Based on Merton’s understanding of sin as the pursuit of a “false self,” Chapter 2 looks at the misuse of personal freedom in one’s relation to God, oneself, other people, and the earth, which is driven by an often unconscious urge to be “like God.” Krieg argues that by imposing either our own egos or a compelling authority upon our lives, we displace God’s Word, Wisdom, at the core of our being. In this context, Krieg offers an insightful juxtaposition of heteronomy, autonomy, and theonomy as three modes of exercising God-given freedom. He insists that only theonomy challenges our tendency to be preoccupied about ourselves and thereby may eventually lead to the “decentring” of our ego and “recentring” of ourselves in God. Not only does theonomy generate one’s personal individuation beyond death, meaninglessness, and evil, but it also opens a person to new experiences of God’s presence as well as God’s absence, the latter of which calls for persistence in faith despite all pressing doubts (Newman). Lastly, the author reflects upon the dynamic interrelationship between freedom and love, pondering it not only in anthropological terms, but also through the prism of the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast,” and finally, he recapitulates it theologically in the light of the book of Job.

In the remaining chapters, Krieg examines: (3) biblical testimonies concerning conversion as the essence of our potential response to God’s gift of salvation; (4) threats to personal individuation inherent in various forms of suffering as seen in the light of the biblical-theological meanings of the human predicament; (5) God’s story of creation and salvation seen as an eucatastrophe, for instance, a potential disaster that ultimately ends well (Tolkien), and thus the utmost source of hope; (6) the person of Jesus Christ conceived of as both God’s sacrament to the world and the ultimate realization of our human “Yes” to God; (7) the Gospel portraits of Jesus and their existential and moral implications for Christ’s disciples today. While the whole book is centered on relation between the two meanings of...