The Essence of Christianity

The primary purpose of religion is to provide salvation. More than any other religion, Christianity focuses on this essential aspect. In so doing, it also emphasizes the importance of suffering and sacrifice, through which individuals realize their need for salvation. Salvation attained through grace springs from what is good about nature; when nature becomes a conscious player and interjects itself between the individual and God, then religion begins to fade away.

The idea of nature is what draws human beings away from God and themselves: “One day there will be no Nature, no matter, no body, at least none such as to separate man from God: then there will be only God and the pious soul” (121). In heaven, the relation between God and the soul will be the only existing reality, which is what makes prayer an essential aspect of religion. This relational aspect of reality makes miracles essential as well, as they open up the individual to the subjective nature of existence:

Every true prayer is a miracle, an act of the wonder-working power. External miracles themselves only make visible internal miracles, that is, they are only a manifestation in time and space, and therefore as a special fact, of what in and by itself is a fundamental position of religion (123).