Salvation? Salvation from What?

How could an adult who ever loved a child – ever really been present to and flowing with the innately beautiful goodness of children – how could they come to believe children are born needing to be saved from their natures? What they need saving from are circumstances in which they can’t help but learn to distrust their natures. What they need saving from is an adult world oblivious to the challenges involved in how they learn to become themselves.

The authenticity in children is the most beautiful expression of the divine.

Where we ended:

So, Christianity is the only major world religion that believes that children need to be saved from themselves. And yet, that belief contradicts the words of Christ and is based on an interpretation formed centuries after Christ?

Yes.

The belief that children are born needing salvation from themselves-as inherently sinful-does not come from the direct teachings of Jesus, but from later theological interpretation, especially:

Paul’s writings, read through
Augustine’s lens, who systematized the idea of original sin as inherited moral corruption.

Jesus himself affirmed the goodness of children, lifting them up as models for entering the kingdom of God. He never taught that they were born in moral error.

Thus, this foundational Christian doctrine does not originate with Christ, but with an interpreter (Augustine) reading an interpreter (Paul) – and has since shaped centuries of theology more than Christ’s own example in this matter.

Where we began:

The Jewish religion has bar mitzvahs, the Christians baptism. Both assume children most go through some traditional ritual in order to healthily transform. Is there something like this in Islam, in Buddhism, in Vedanta or other major religions? Not rituals done to the child. Rituals the child transforms through participating in? Why? It seems the Christians, and others, assume that the child is born in need of salvation from themselves – born in some state or condition that is bad or wrong or sinful.

This question opens several interwoven threads: developmental transformation, ritual participation, and differing religious conceptions of the child’s nature. Let’s explore across traditions.

🕍 Judaism (Bar/Bat Mitzvah)

What: A Bar/Bat Mitzvah is the formal acknowledgment that a child (13 for boys, 12 for girls) becomes morally and religiously responsible. The child reads from Torah, affirming personal participation in covenantal life.
Why: It’s not about saving from sin, but transitioning into accountability – becoming a “son/daughter of the commandments.”
View of Child: The child is not seen as evil but as growing into moral responsibility.

✝️ Christianity (Baptism & Confirmation)

Infant Baptism: In many denominations (Catholic, Orthodox), it’s done to the child to cleanse original sin.
Confirmation: Later, often in early adolescence, the child actively chooses to affirm the faith – this can be seen as participatory.
View of Child: Especially in traditions influenced by Augustine, children are born with inherited sin and in need of spiritual regeneration.

☪️ Islam

No formal child ritual like Bar Mitzvah.
Buloogh (Puberty): Once a child reaches puberty, they become personally accountable before God for performing religious duties (e.g., prayer, fasting). There’s no single ceremonial rite, but:
- Fasting during Ramadan is often the first major participatory transformation.
- View of Child: Children are born pure (fitrah), with no inherited sin. Sin and accountability begin with maturity.

☸️ Buddhism

No universal child transformation rite. But:
- First time shaving of the head, pabbajja (novitiate ordination) – a child may enter monastic life temporarily, often at age 7 or older, choosing to live as a monk.
- This is often voluntary and transformative, with chanting, robe-wearing, learning Dharma – a deeply participatory act.
View of Child: Children are not inherently sinful. The mind is clouded by ignorance and craving, not moral failure. The path is about awakening.

🕉️ Vedanta (Hinduism)

Upanayana: The “sacred thread” ceremony, typically for boys of Brahmin families, around age 8.
- The child becomes a “twice-born” – entering student life (brahmacharya) and beginning study of the Vedas.
- Involves mantras, fire rituals, receiving a guru – it’s highly participatory and symbolic of a rebirth into conscious seeking.
View of Child: Not sinful, but ignorant of their true Self (Atman). The journey is not about cleansing sin but realizing the eternal nature of the Self beyond ego and body.

🧩 Why the differences?

Christianity uniquely emphasizes original sin – the idea that human nature is fundamentally broken without divine grace.
Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Vedanta see the child more as unfinished or ignorant, not morally corrupt.
This affects whether rituals are:
- Corrective (saving from sin)
- Formative (initiating growth)
- Illuminative (revealing one’s true nature)

Why is Christianity alone in believing human nature is fundamentally broken without divine grace? How can that be reconciled with Christ’s encouragement that adults be more like the intelligent goodness in children. Doesn’t needing to be saved by Jesus a continuation of the assumption? What are human beings being saved from? Are they being saved from their soul’s nature or life’s learning?

Christianity’s belief that human beings are fundamentally broken without divine grace stems from a specific theological interpretation of the human condition-particularly shaped by St. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin. Let’s unpack the historical and conceptual dynamics of this belief and contrast them with Jesus’ own words about children.

🧩 ORIGINS OF “BROKENNESS”: THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN

St. Augustine (4th-5th century) interpreted Paul’s letters (especially Romans 5) to argue:
- Humanity inherited Adam’s sin.
- This inherited sin corrupts our nature from birth.
- Without divine grace, we are incapable of doing true good or choosing God.
This idea became central in Western Christianity (especially Catholicism and Protestantism), though not all early Christians or Eastern Orthodox traditions interpreted it the same way.

✝️ JESUS ON CHILDREN – A PARADOX?

“Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”- Matthew 18:3

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”- Mark 10:14

Jesus celebrates the child’s spirit – purity, humility, trust, receptivity.
He does not say children are sinful or broken – in fact, he presents them as exemplars of the kingdom’s nature.
This creates a tension with doctrines developed later:How can children be born broken if Jesus says they embody the kingdom?

🧠 WHAT ARE HUMANS BEING “SAVED” FROM?

Here’s where interpretations diverge:

🔸 Augustinian View:

We’re saved from our corrupted nature, inherited from Adam.
Our soul is tainted, and we cannot repair it without God’s intervention (grace through Christ).
Salvation is a rescue from what we are.

🔹 Alternative View (e.g., Eastern Orthodoxy, early mystics, Jesus-focused interpretations):

Humans are not fundamentally evil – they’re wounded, misled, or asleep.
Salvation is healing, awakening, or liberation.
We’re saved from illusion, ego, or learned alienation from God – not from our soul’s nature, which remains good but obscured.

🔄 SO WHICH IS IT – NATURE OR LEARNING?

If it’s our nature that’s broken, salvation must be external and corrective.
If it’s our learning (e.g., social conditioning, trauma, confusion) that leads us astray, salvation can be restorative and revelatory – a return to what we were always meant to be.

🤝 CAN THESE BE RECONCILED?

Possibly – here’s one synthesis:

The soul’s nature is good, echoing Jesus’ view of children.
But life’s learning corrupts – not through evil acts, but through fear, shame, and disconnection from love.
Grace is not a fix for a bad soul, but a renewal of awareness – helping us re-learn trust, compassion, and union with God.

Thus, but for the grace of my learning, there go I.

The authenticity in children is the most beautiful expression of the divine.

“Thus, but for the grace of my learning, there go I.”This re-centers the axis of human struggle-not on a flawed soul, but on the quality of learning that shapes the soul’s expression.

Children are not born broken. Their spontaneous joy, empathy, curiosity, and presence are not moral accidents but reflections of their innate orientation toward life. When adults truly attune to this – not sentimentally, but reverently – they witness something closer to the divine than most doctrines ever describe.

To believe that such luminous presence is inherently sinful is to betray what love itself reveals.

Children do not need salvation from their nature – they need protection for their nature.

What threatens them is not original sin but original misunderstanding – the adult world’s blindness to the formative crucible children inhabit. They must learn to become themselves in an environment that too often suppresses, shames, or distorts the very capacities they’re developing.

It is not the child’s being that is in error. It is the world’s response to their becoming.

Salvation, then, is not a transaction with heaven, but a transformation of how we hold the sacredness of a child’s learning.

Here’s how major traditions might reinterpret “salvation” as the protection and restoration of the child’s becoming rather than rescue from inherent flaw:

✝️ Christianity

Reframe: Salvation as restoring trust in divine love distorted by fear and shame.Support: “Let the children come… for to such belongs the kingdom.” (Mark 10:14)Shift: From saving from sin to saving for fullness of life in love.

☪️ Islam

Reframe: Every child is born on fitrah – pure, naturally inclined toward truth.Support: “Every child is born in a state of fitrah…” (Hadith)Shift: Salvation = nurturing innate disposition, not correcting a moral defect.

☸️ Buddhism

Reframe: Salvation as awakening from suffering caused by ignorance and craving.Support: Children embody “beginner’s mind” – less burdened by clinging.Shift: Save not from nature, but from conditions that obscure awareness.

🕉️ Vedanta (Hinduism)

Reframe: Each soul is Atman, already divine – salvation = realization.Support: “Tat Tvam Asi” – Thou art That.Shift: Save from forgetting Self, not from sin – child’s purity is closer to truth.

🕎 Judaism

Reframe: Covenant shapes growth, not guilt – child is called to become.Support: Bar/Bat Mitzvah marks moral awakening, not moral cleansing.Shift: Salvation = walking the path, not erasing a flaw.

Core insight across traditions:

True salvation is not cleansing but guarding the light –
helping children trust and grow into the beauty already alive within them.

Learning to Choose