And so we move into the first round of responses and reactions to the responses and reactions of the extraordinary group that is gathering here to discuss and explore the greatest mysteries in the Universe.
We began our Sunday School All Week with a look at the eternal question: What is life?
And did we get some responses!
The one that moved me the most, however (as you might guess) was the one that appeared to have little to do, directly, with the question. And that was the response of Kristine. It was a lengthy entry, and a good one, in that it relayed to all of us a genuine, an authentic, experience of one human being.
As you know if you read Kristine’s post, she experienced meeting Jesus, in person, in physical form, in her own house, when she was 21 years old. Understandably, this experience changed her life. Kristine then shared with us her deeper understandings about our relationship with God and with His Son. Finally, she ended her wonderful post with some awesome Bible verses that surely open the human heart.
So thanks, Kristine, for your entry here. I am wondering if you — or others who think and believe as you do — might be willing to answer some questions. One was posed by one of your fellow classmates here in the Sunday School All Week, a person posting as “Peace Love.”
This person began by quoting you, Kristine, when you said…

“Salvation is a free gift, undeserved and unearned, that one need only humbly accept by faith. It is not earned by good deeds (even the most extraordinary deeds are of no account to God if we do not do them in faith and with love, for even our most righteous actions are as filthy rags compared with the glory and perfection of the Living God.)”

Then your classmate posed an interesting query:
Let us suppose that a Buddhist monk performs the most extraordinarily amazing deed of great merit on a daily basis. Do you mean to say that God, when looking down from Heaven, will only scoff at this poor Buddhist monk who had the audacity to perform such good deeds without believing in God’s only begotten son (Jesus Christ, of course)? While he showers all his blessings on a Christian of good faith who righteously believes in Jesus and prays umpteen number of times a day, but generally doesn’t go out of his way to perform any good deeds?
Wait, why do you pray to such a God again? I’m confused …
Now I am hoping, Kristine, that you will return to the front of the room and respond to this question, because it is one that comes up for me as well — and, I feel sure, for lots of people.

You have given us ample testimony to the truth as you know it, Kristine (and thank you for that, again), but I am wondering now if you might help us with an understanding of the reason for all this. Why has God set it up this way? That is, why does what we actually do in life have nothing to do with our salvation, and why is it that only the way in which we believe, the person in whom we believe, can guarantee us Paradise, and that if we believe in the ‘wrong’ person or path, we are ‘choosing’ hell?
And these few further questions, Kristine…
Why is ‘salvation’ required in the first place? What have we as a species of sentient beings done that is so bad that God condemns each of us, in a sense, before we are born, leaving it to us to seek ‘salvation’ from this condemnation?
Now, to the rest of the class: If we are not careful, it could seem as if Kristine’s long and wonderful posting here had nothing to do with the question of the week, “What is life?” Yet in truth, it has everything to do with it. For Kristine, in her response, raises a key question: Is Life a Process by which we are given an opportunity to return to God — which we can all fail to do if we are not careful? Is that what Life is?
In short, were we put here — separated from God and put here — in order to have the opportunity to end the separation from God? Is this what Life is? A process by which we may seek to achieve salvation?
Or is Life a process having nothing to do with what some define as ‘salvation’ of the soul and everything to do with what some call ‘evolution’ of the soul?
With thanks to all of you others in the class who offered remarkably insightful and well thought out contributions to this discussion yesterday and Sunday (some of which I hope to be able to get to, if we have time, before Friday), this, right here, is the real question. Because of everything that Kristine said is right, if she is accurate, then the very reason and purpose and function of Life is up for deep discussion theologically.
Kristine, I am moved to therefore ask you…
What is the reason and the purpose and the function of life if how we live it — the good deeds we do, or don’t do — have nothing to do with whether or not we achieve ‘salvation’? How did we, as souls, get here, and why were we separated from God and placed here in the first instance, if ‘getting back’ to God is the point of it all?