www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Orthodoxy and Justification

I am disappointed, Fr Thomas, that you would cite am Amazon.com review an Amazon.com review as if this reviewer knew what he was talking about. He's an M.D., not a theologian or historian. Maybe he's very competent in historical theology, but we have no reason to think that he is. Heck, I have reviewed several books on Amazon.com, but I certainly hope no one will take me or them too seriously.

For the last twenty years Thomas Oden's theological project has been to promote what he calls a consensual reading of the Fathers. He has written a three volume Systematic Theology attempting to synthesize the consensual tradition, and is the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary series. He has been severely criticized by historical-critical historians, who do not believe that he properly reads the texts in their historical context, that he mutes differences, etc. Yet these criticisms have not slowed Oden down at all, because he is convinced that the Fathers are to be read as doctors of the Church who are inspired by the Spirit and therefore speak ultimately with one voice, despite differences in language, vocabulary, philosophical concept, culture, etc. This sounds like he is working from a Patristic hermeneutic rather than a modern one, doesn't it?

Actually, I have my own criticisms of Oden's Justification Reader, but it's still an interesting little book to read. The texts he cites are mainly from exegetical writings from the Fathers, many of which are not readily available to English-speaking readers. Now maybe Oden's thesis cannot ultimately stand up to scrutiny--maybe Harnack and others are right that the Fathers, particularly the Eastern Fathers, totally misunderstood St. Paul and thus lost the eschatological thrust of Paul's preaching on justification. But I for one am hoping that maybe Oden is right, though I'm not sure if he has made his case in this book.

The real question, though, is: Can St. Paul's message of eschatological justification be preached and heard in our churches today?

In an earlier post you stated that Orthodoxy could and would not subscribe to the Lutheran/Catholic Joint Declaration. Why not? Surely the fact that theosis is Orthodoxy's preferred conceptuality for salvation does not, in and of itself, mean that talk about grace and justification is alien.

I think that if you read my post again, you'll clearly see that I said that amazon.com was not a source for theological opinion, yes? However, barring any other reasoned review, it at least showed that Oden's approach, for this title, was a bit lacking, even from a lay POV. I own most of the ACCS, as well as his three volume Systematic Theology. It has it's flaws as well. But, it has it's usefulness. Regarding the ACCS, the Genesis Vol 1 is great, the Romans commentary is a bit misleading and relies heavily on Western writings.

My earlier point to you bears repeating. It is not even a plausable theory to say that Patristic soucres upheld justification by faith *alone* as THE theology of justification. Your question was regarding the Orthodox POV, and the Eastern Fathers (as well as some Western ones, like St. John Cassian) simply do not use this as a major theme. Please remember that for the Western Church, the Protestant Reformation was trying to recover something they felt was lacking. No such problem exists in the East.

I also posted on our clergy list if anyone had read Oden's book, and no one had. However, we all agree that a review is in order, and I'm hoping that St. Vladimir's Seminary will pick up on the hint. (Either Fr. John Behr or Jaroslav Pelikan would be up to the task.)

One comment by a fellow priest proved interesting. He said, isn't it strange that St. Athanasius' "On the Incarnation" does not take the juridical/forensic approach at all, nor is there any mention of justification by faith alone. His theology is THE Orthodox theology regarding the redemption.

Time really does not permit me a point by point review of the declaration that you posted. I think instead, if you're interested in the Orthodox POV, there is enough material to keep you busy for years. I would also recommend that a discussion with Fr. George Johnson [oca.org] who is also from your area, would prove to be of much greater value than an email debate on this subject.

Priest Thomas

Dear Reverend Father,

I don't know why some Eastern Christians bring this up, as if Western Catholicism endorses or supports this view. On the contrary, I have witnessed countless times when RCs went out of their way to rebuttle this "erroneous Protestant notion", as a few of them have called it.

This "God's Wrath" POV seems to be uniquely Protestant, and only confined to certain Protestant circles at that. I've never heard this POV from my United Methodist Church. Come to think of it, I haven't ever heard this view in "real life", if I may. Never encountered someone who held to it.

Logos Teen

I can tell you that many of the converts in my parish (as well as the catechumens and inquirers that we now have) have confirmed to me that this teaching is quite prevalent in fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant circles. No one has asserted that Roman Catholicism preaches such a message.

One of the most famous sermons on this topic is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God [jonathanedwards.com] by Jonathan Edwards.

Priest Thomas

Thanks for the sermon, Rev. Father.

Logos Teen

The substitutionary atonement is, I think, central in most evangelical preaching today. I don't think there is any question about that. But this theory of atonement would be misunderstood if it were interpreted as placation of an angry God. On the contrary. It is the love of God that that sends the eternal Son in human flesh to work out, through our Lord's self-oblation on the cross on our behalf and in our stead, this resolution between divine mercy and divine judgment.

Christ's reconciling and atoning work must not, of course, be reduced to the legal metaphor; but I don't think any one can deny that it represents a significant strain within the New Testament.

In Christ,
Fr Kimel+

The John 3:16 that is so much quoted by all evangelicals (and if fact should be by all Christians) "For God loved the world that He sent His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever shall believe in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.", says nothing about substitution. Aren't both Fathers that posted on this thread right in the point that the Son's Death (and of course, Anastasi) was not mere placation of an angry God. It couldn't be, because Orthodox Scriptural Theology tells us that God Is Love. Doesn't John 3:16 imply that the Son of God was sent by Our Heavenly Father, and would have come anyway? Our Apophatic Theology stresses the unchanging and incomprehensible God who chooses to be weak in His Heart (our of His infinite love for us). Genesis tells us that God walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve. So the question arises, did Our Heavenly Father really want anything but that?

Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti! Alithos A Kyrios!

Christ Is Risen! Truly He Is Risen! Truly He Is Lord!

Three Cents

But it's not sufficient simply to say that God is love, without also acknowledge that this love is holy and righteous that will and cannot accept evil and sin. This love has a hard, terrifying edge, to which the prophets and Jesus himself witness. How can the God of love embrace sinners without compromising his holiness? The answer of Scripture and the Fathers, I believe, is the cross.

The substitutionary atonement is not an invention of evangelicals nor the Reformers. Nor is it a Western perversion. It has deep roots in the Bible and deep roots in the Western Fathers, who of course belong to the East as much as to the West. And if Thomas Oden is right. It also has roots in the East as well. Consider the following citations: The mistake evangelicals make is by restricting our Lord's substitution for sinners to his death on the cross. But in fact, the Incarnation in it entirety is substitutionary and vicarious. The two great theologians here are St. Athanasius and St. Cyril of Alexandria. I cannot commend too highly Thomas F. Torrance's The Trinitarian Faith, which is TFT's exposition of the Nicene Faith, with particular attention to the Eastern Fathers. Also see TFT's seminal essay "The Mind of Christ in Worship," Theology in Reconciliation. Torrance studied the Eastern Fathers deeply. Indeed, his contributions to patristic studies were recognized by a Greek Orthodox bishop who actually made him a protopresbyter! How such a thing was possible, I cannot fathom. But it actually happened. Yet he is remarkably ignored by English-speaking Orthodox scholars. Torrance was a powerful mover behind the Reformed/Orthodox agreement on the Holy Trinity [reformiert-online.net] .

Bless me a sinner, Father Kimel,

The substitutionary atonement is certainly a legitimate tradition within the Christian Church of the first millennium, as Fr. John Meyendorff and others readily admit.

In fact, this Western view of Christ's Atonement was instrumental in the defeat of a number of heresies etc.

But it is not the only interpretive framework for Christ's Atonement, as I know you appreciate.

Once we accept it, however, we interpret the rest of the New Testament via this prism.

The substitutionary atonement assumes that Christ died to make satisfaction for the offense given to God the Father (let's leave "anger" out of this ).

And only Divinity can make an adequate satisfaction to Divinity etc.

Orthodoxy sees the Death of Christ more in terms of reestablishing the broken link between God and humankind, the reestablishing of the process by which we can, once again, attain our final end - union with Christ in God by the Spirit, Theosis etc.

Of course, Christ offered Himself as our High Priest to the Father through the Spirit, as St Paul writes.

But this immolation related to our sinful condition, our spiritual disability, rather than to any "satisfaction" required by the Father.

Disobedience to God or sin brings about death as its "wages."

Christ died to bring death to death and sin as we sing in the classic Eastern hymn of the Resurrection: Christ is Risen from the dead, having destroyed death by death, and giving life to those in the tombs.

Satisfaction of any kind is notably absent in the Eastern Fathers or Orthodoxy as a whole.

So the premise of your original post and that of the document you cite are both quite removed from the salvific paradigms of Orthodoxy.

Alex

Dear Teen Logo,

I did NOT say that faith or works weren't important to salvation - only that the Eastern Church emphasized a third element as the most important and the ground for the growth of the other two - Theosis and union with Christ in the Spirit.

Without the Life of Christ, we cannot have the faith that saves nor perform the virtues that God requires.

Without the Vine Who is Christ, we cannot do anything, as we read in the Gospel of John.

Alex

An interesting article: Salvation in Christ [orthodoxinfo.com]

Bless me a sinner, Father Kimel,

It is an excellent article and its treatment of propitiation is very good as well.

I am happy you are coming around to the Eastern way of thinking!

Alex

The fact that authentic biblical and Western Orthodox themes are "removed from the salvific paradigms of Orthodoxy" is precisely the problem. It assumes that Orthodoxy is a nicely packaged--and closed--spiritual and theological system that can integrate within itself neither the whole of Scripture nor the legitimate theological and homiletical developments of Western Orthodoxy. But if Orthodoxy is truly the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, and not an Eastern sect, then it cannot exclude those portions of Holy Scripture that challenges its system, and it cannot exclude those Western theological expressions that seem so alien to it. The Church cannot be "Eastern," just as it cannot be "Western." It must be truly catholic.

Let me return to justification, for just a moment. In my opinion, the Reformation is of abiding significance because it stumbled upon the Apostle Paul's eschatological understanding of our justification in Christ. To be declared righteous in Christ is to hear the word of the final future spoken to us in the present. It is this word that creates the new creation that is the Church. It is this word that delivers us from the power of sin and death regenerates us in the Holy Spirit. It is this word that cannot be superceded, because it is itself unsurpassable. It is this word that is indeed the Word of God.

Now the Reformers did not fully appreciate the eschatological nature of this promise of righteousness nor did they appreciate the recreative power of this word. To say that justification is merely imputative or forensic is to deny that God's Word surely creates what it promises. If God says we are righteous, then we are truly and really righteous and will become righteous.

The real question is, Will the Church of Christ, East and West, listen to, learn from, and be corrected by the Apostle Paul? Will preachers, East and West, preach the Gospel in such a way that the righteousness of Christ is freely bestowed in our proclamation, thus creating new life and a faith that depends on God for all things.

The problem for both East and West is that we understand justification/sanctification as a process in time. Perhaps it's unavoidable that sinners will understand it thus. Yet if justification is an eschatological event, then there is no process, for the future is given to us in the beginning! No wonder St. Paul was accused of promoting sin by his message of grace!

St. Paul's message of eschatological justification/sanctification cannot be systematized. It challenges all of our systems and theological constructs. And most of all, it challenges the self-righteousness of all of our hearts. It is not a surprise that all Christian traditions have domesticated and ignored this crucial aspect of the Pauline Gospel.

I do not see this as an either/or proposition. It is not either theosis or justification by faith. Both need each other, for it is precisely the Gospel of God's unconditional gift of salvation that creates our union with Christ and thus with God the Holy Trinity. Theosis is what happens when the Father cloaks us in the righteousness of his eternal Son.

In Christ,
Fr Kimel+

Polemics aside, the Protestant understanding of justification by faith, as I've said before, is, or has lead to, quite erroneous theology. No one in Orthodoxy denies justification by faith. What we deny as completely unbiblical and even unChristian, is justification by faith ALONE. Why? It has led to such heterodox beliefs as irresistible grace, eternal security, etc...

Yes, Christ has paid it all, and no one denies this, and while Protestants stop there, and do not tie justification to sanctification, Orthodox Christians insist that the words of our Lord is true: "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

Salvation is presented in the scriptures as both a past event (Eph 1:4-10), the working out of a present reality (I Cor 1:18), and a future hope (Phil 3:7-14). St. Paul says he "has not attained the goal" but "presses onward toward the prize."

Justification also involves obedience to God. Although the St. Paul teaches in Romans that "through one man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Rom 5:19) in the same letter to the Romans he speaks of "obedience to the faith" (Rom 1:5) and that you must choose either to be obedient to sin or "obedience leading to righteousness" (Rom 6:16). We must be "conformed to the image of His son" (Rom 8:29). Christ must be "formed in us" (Gal 4:19)

It must also be clearly stated the St. Paul was arguing in Romans against justification by obedience to the Jewish Law. Every example he gives in Romans is about the Jewish law - following it cannot save you. However, he never taught that salvation came by doing nothing. Our Lord was clear: "He who endures to the end shall be saved" (Mt 10:22; Mt 24:13; Mk 13:13)

"You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." (James 2:24)

Priest Thomas

Bless me a sinner, Father Kimel,

Yes, I agree with Fr. Thomas and it is not the first time that we are coming across this argument here or elsewhere.

My own view, and it is entirely my own, is that the entire discussion of justification that was raised on the eve of the Reformation is a subtle form of a "salvation by works" - just the thing the Reformers said they wanted to move away from.

The "faith" Luther and Calvin talked about was a "passive work," something that people had to do to be justified. It is something that people had to do consciously, with full understanding etc. which is why Reformers began to move away from infant baptism and even liturgy itself, while opting for more rationalist versions of worship based on mental exercise such as scriptural analysis etc.

But the "faith" that saves is not "my individual faith" but the faith of the Church relating to the communion of the saints.

Faith that works through love is the gift of faith that comes from God expressing itself in the virtues.

But all this requires Grace and the Grace that comes from being grafted onto and into the Life of Christ via the Church, the seeds of Theosis that are meant to bud to the complete stature of Christ in us.

When you mention St Paul the way you have - you appear to be saying that, on the one hand, there is what St Paul said, and, on the other, there is what the Churches say etc.

St Paul's writings are an integral part of the Tradition of the Church - Paul is in the Church, not above or apart from it.

How do I understand St Paul or the rest of Tradition? By the interpretive framework that the Church, inspired by the Spirit, has laid down for me as my teacher.

If St Paul's meaning is clear apart from Tradition, why is Protestantism so divided on it?

There is more than one interpretation of Paul that is Catholic and Orthodox, to be sure.

But to be "Catholic" does not mean that we are to be the same.

The West may hold to its own perspectives and be "Catholic" without feeling obliged to adopt Eastern ones and vice-versa.

Rather than use, as I believe you to be doing, Father, Western standards by which to measure Orthodoxy, let Orthodoxy be its own standard.

Respectfully submitted,

Alex