Salvation

Dallas Willard has had a bigger impact on my faith than probably just about any other human being. I thought briefly that there could not be anything more genius than his posthumously-published Life Without Lack, but then I back-tracked to his earlier book The Divine Conspiracy. And my mind was blown.

Which explains why I have been so bothered by something that Dallas Willard supposedly said in the last few weeks of his life. According to John Eldredge in his book, Resilient, Dallas made the remarkable statement: “What I have learned in this last year is more important than what I learned in the rest of my life. But I have no time to write about it.” Willard goes on to elaborate that his end-of-life epiphany is that our salvation is the formation of a new attachment to God.

The idea leaves me with so many questions. And the frustration of needing access to a carefully thought-out Dallas Willard book to provide the answers. But, sadly, it is a book that does not exist.

Over a half century ago, Quaker teacher/writer/pastor Elton Trueblood wrote about how the world desperately needs sharp minds willing to search for answers to life’s biggest questions. Trueblood recommended approaching theology in the same way that we approach science. Slowly and methodically testing evidence against theory to see if the theory holds.

I find myself thinking that the Advent season supports Willard’s theory of salvation as a renewed attachment to God. When the angel Gabriel is sent to speak with Zechariah and Mary, it is the first time God has spoken in hundreds of years. And while this long period of silence at first seems antithetical to relationship, perhaps it is better viewed as God capitalizing on a little human phenomenon we know as ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ By withdrawing His felt presence for an extended period of time, couldn’t God have been cultivating a deeper hunger in the souls of His people?