Throughout Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress Bunyan tries to show that the search for salvation is not a straightforward progression. The belief in the effectiveness of good works is one of his greatest temptations. It would be reassuring to be able to climb a ladder toward God, and it would certainly give his autobiography a more systematic structure and a clear sense of development leading to a happy ending.

If achieving salvation were merely a process of satisfying a specific set of moral guidelines or requirements, the authors of the texts discussed in this book would be able to tell their readers exactly how to get to heaven. Instead, these works claim that the gradual effort to achieve virtuous living has no value without the conversion experience that results from God's sudden intervention in the life of the passive individual. This experience of redemption is beyond human understanding. It is therefore impossible to express it to the reader in a way that will allow the latter to participate fully in the experience.

Crusoe, the travelers to Felsenburg, Simplicius, and Christian attempt to understand their experiences by documenting and analyzing them; they seek one set of meanings according to which they can interpret their observations. Tensions and paradoxes accompany their attempts. Language cannot express the inexpressible. If the story ends with a vision of salvation that is transcendent, it leaves behind its reader and, indeed, its author.