Date
5-22-2024
Department
Rawlings School of Divinity
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Chair
Page Matthew Brooks
Keywords
Assurance of salvation, Evidence of assurance, Johannine Literature
Disciplines
Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Recommended Citation
Adu, Derick A., "The Evidential Problem of Assurance: Textual Approach from the Johannine Literature" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 5691.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5691
Abstract
Assurance of salvation is an existential issue that has occupied the center stage of theological deliberations in the Church's history. This dissertation is a quest for epistemic justification. The dissertation examines the conditions that justify and validate claims of assurance of salvation. The research is partly an epistemological quest as well as a textual inquiry. This study utilizes evidentialism, the epistemological concept that what provides epistemic justification is evidence, to reach a reasonable conclusion. The data for the analysis consists of the Johannine literature, that is, the Gospel of John, the three Epistles of John, and the book of Revelation. The research examines all the relevant linguistic and thematic data in the Johannine literature and concludes that (1) believing, (2) new birth, (3) discipleship, (4) abiding, (5) obedience, and (6) overcoming provides epistemological criteria for validating claims of assurance. Since assurance pertains to the current and future spectrum of salvation, the evidence must be a continuing experience. A person holds a false assurance when these validations are absent.
