Salvation

Salvation is often applied to more religious and theological concepts. In the Abrahamic faiths salvation is granted by God. Regardless of how one receives salvation in these faith’s varying conceptions of it, there is an understanding that it comes from the outside to some extent or at the very least requires the participation of God to make it possible. I posit that in the Stoic conception of salvation, if one wants to use that word and concept at all, salvation is a self-driven, internal process. Salvation comes from within. One’s own effort and action determines salvation.

There is a way of living that best works with how God, Nature, the Universe, the Logos, has formulated the laws that govern the operation of the world surrounding us. Salvation then is working to best live in harmony with God’s will/according to Nature, which is to say, living virtuously.

As we understand God, we understand that “God’s Law”, the mechanisms for how this world best functions, are what they are. We must reason to figure out and understand how we fit into and must operate within this framework. Then we must act accordingly. God does not reach out to us in either literally or allegorically. It is better to say that we have within this life the opportunity to discover the world around us and to best live within it. It is our opportunity to use or lose.