The Salvation Controversy

By Jimmy Akin

Book Overview

There are times when you just know, as if by instinct, and often before you're able to say exactly why, that an argument you're hearing is fatally flawed; it gives off something like the hollow thunk... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1888992182
• ISBN13: 9781888992182
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Catholic Answers
• Length: 154 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.4" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Succinct and Clear

Jimmy (aka. James) Akin's strongest quality, in addition to his knowledge and high intellectual capacity, is his ability to write clearly and succinctly. As a former Protestant, he understands both the Protestant (especially Calvinist) viewpoints quite well, and articulates them in juxtaposition with the Catholic notion (especially as expounded by Thomas Aquinas). Although he does not diminish the differences, he explains that many points of contention are misunderstandings often resulting from the failure to define terms properly. Akin clarifies these terms and returns to the most debated Bible verses. He then defends the Catholic position using Scripture, history, logic, and common sense. He also explains how some common sense notions such as "middle salvation" (eg: one man's preaching leads to another's salvation) and "temporal atonement" (eg: returning what was stolen) have been left out of the Protestant vocabulary. The result is that instances in Scripture that refer to these types of salvation are often mistaken for eternal salvation, thus creating more confusion. Other topics he writes about are penance, indulgences, TULIP, boasting, and ecumenism. My only disappointment is that he only briefly touched on the belief of "eternal security" or "once saved always saved." I would have liked to have seen a whole chapter dedicated to that. Nevertheless, I believe the book still deserves 5 stars.

Precise, Concise, Accurate

If you want a thorough exercise in the issue of salvation here it is! I've not read a better explanation and analysis of this very central to Christianity topic. Mr. Aiken challenges-forces-the reader to think. If you can refute his analysis, you thoroughly know your material. This kind of book is a great advanced text for small group study.

An Advanced Study that Anyone can Read

This book jumped right into the topic at the get-go; when you read it, you're gonna hit the ground running. Yet, if you don't know much about the topics of salvation, justification, santification, redemption, and many related topics to salvation, the book won't be 'over your head', so to speak. Akin's most powerful tool, other than the intense Bible studies he's done to write this book and his command of logic, is his ability to make analogies that make the topic easier to understand. His many analogies are always on-time, too, as in he always brought one up at about the time I thought he'd lost me. And even with these methods for making it simple, it's still useful for advanced readers. He dives deep into salvation; first pointing out the controversy that comes from all the points of view, discussing all of them and their relation to the Bible (without being confrontational), their relation to each other, their relation to other facets of salvation, and, of course, making a strong case for the Catholic perspective. Overall, this book is well worth reading. And, even though it can be read by anybody, it is hard to absorb after just reading once. There is much information in here, but, given the book's readability, it's not torture to read it more than once.

Charity and Clarity are Akin's 2 best points!

This is perhaps the most clear and most charitable explanation of the Catholic view on Salvation. It is easy enough for the layman, and even the veteran Catholic scholar will walk away with some new insight into the Church. Akin does a great job of highlighting the key distinctions between Catholics and Protesants, especially Calvinists (he was a Catholic convert from Calvinism), yet does not resort to religious indiffrentism as so many other scholars do today.Although I might disagree with his views on Paul and the Law, just about everything else is a great explanation of the Catholic faith. Highly recommended!