Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4, ESV)
Logical Problems of Common Views on Salvation and the Existential-Psychological Perspective as a Solution
In theological reflection on God, salvation, and human freedom, we inevitably encounter a series of paradoxes that often go beyond purely rational categories. This text seeks to explore these themes from an existential-psychological perspective, in which religious concepts take on a deeper, more lived meaning. Rather than interpreting them solely through a dogmatic or legal framework, space is opened for an understanding that includes the inner human reality and the need for meaning, reconciliation, and healing.
The Logical Problem:
If kindness and violence, or good and evil, are part of the divine order, then the concept of the fall and condemnation becomes problematic because it implies that the world was originally meant to be different — but why would it be, if everything is part of the divine order and plan? Furthermore, if God is truly sovereign, then nothing can be outside His will, not even sin or apostasy. This creates tension between the idea of the fall as something that wasn’t supposed to happen and the idea of divine sovereignty in which nothing occurs outside of His control.
Forgiveness and reconciliation also become illogical if everything is already within God's will. For if what we call “sin” is actually part of a larger plan, then it is unclear why anything would need to be forgiven — isn’t everything already in accordance with divine intent? In classical Christian theology, forgiveness is necessary because there is a violation of divine order, but if nothing can happen outside that order, then there is no real violation — only the manifestation of different aspects of that same order.
The only way for the notions of forgiveness and condemnation to make sense in such a system is if they are viewed more from a human perspective. Perhaps forgiveness is the way people subjectively restore balance in their relationships and community, while condemnation serves as a social mechanism of control — but ultimately, everything remains within a broader divine order that is neither moral nor immoral in the human sense, but simply is.
The Problem of Theodicy:
Accordingly, when we speak of God's goodness, we encounter a paradox: if God is good, but violence is part of His order, what then does this "goodness" mean? If it includes violence, it loses the usual meaning we associate with the concept of goodness (mercy, compassion, nonviolence). But if we insist that God is truly good in a human sense, then the problem of His sovereignty arises — for how can He be sovereign if He allows or even includes evil in His plan?
One way to resolve this is to redefine God's goodness so that it is not simply a moral category in the human sense, but something broader — perhaps in terms of cosmic harmony. In that case, violence and kindness are not moral opposites, but different aspects of one divine order that, from the human perspective, appears paradoxical.
However, if we retain the classical understanding of goodness, then God’s goodness would have to include a certain kind of limitation on His power — that He cannot (or chooses not to) include violence in His plan. But that would mean He is not absolutely sovereign.
So either God is not sovereign in the absolute sense, or the word “good” does not mean what we usually think it means. Both solutions have their own philosophical and theological implications.
The Solution:
I believe the solution is not to try to rationally eliminate all paradoxes, but to accept them and interpret them in a way that carries spiritual and psychological meaning. The key may lie in understanding that religious concepts such as condemnation, forgiveness, and reconciliation are more existential and therapeutic in nature than strictly logical or metaphysical absolutes.
If we do not see condemnation as a legal punishment that God must execute in order to be “just,” but as an existential sense of separation, guilt, and lostness that humans naturally experience, then forgiveness and reconciliation are not so much about a “legal solution,” but about inner healing and a return to wholeness. In that context, Christ remains essential because He symbolizes that path of return — not necessarily through some dogmatically defined transaction, but through a revelation of love that transforms.
As for God’s goodness, perhaps it is best to stop defining it in rigid moral categories. If, instead, we understand God’s goodness as the source of life, wholeness, and light, then Christ is not a savior in the sense of someone who fixes a legal situation between God and humans, but someone who opens the door to a deeper experience of reality in which love, reconciliation, and healing reveal themselves as fundamental truths.
In that way, Christ remains important — not as a solution to an abstract legal dilemma, but as a response to the existential human need for meaning, love, and healing — which does not contradict sound logic, but makes it deeper and more alive.
Author: Jasmin Koso
A dialogue with one’s own questions, aided by contemporary tools of thought.
