Grace

CRITICAL: فضل (an Arabic-derived term for favor/grace, attested in Islamic vocabulary) must be explicitly taught as unearned favor apart from human merit, guarding against two distinct wrong frames at once. In mainstream Islamic soteriology, divine favor is understood as responsive mercy weighed against a person’s deeds. In Kashmir Shaivism, shaktipat is the moment a guru or Shiva-consciousness ‘awakens’ divine power already latently present within the recipient — a real, currently practiced concept in Trika devotional life, and a strikingly close but ultimately different parallel: Christian grace grants a righteousness the recipient does not have and could never have on their own, rather than awakening a divinity already dormant within them. Romans 4:4-5 and 11:5-6 must be taught against both frames explicitly.