OC,
I do believe Seraphim is wrong in the position he takes with respect to Western soterioloogy - and John Meyendorff is a ready resource to illustrate.
The West has had its particular soteriology in place for a long time, as Meyendorff shows with respect to the struggles with Arianism and Eutychianism.
And yet it produced the same Iconographic depictions of Christ on the Cross as the Orthodox East did throughout all that time.
I think the problem here, is that there is confusion amongst Orthodox Christians about what the Orthodox understanding of Golgotha is, besides the other issue of what exactly is faulty about the later (and I stress
later) Latin view.
Due to excesses in speach, there are some modern Orthodox thinkers who teach every aspect of the Latin teaching is incorrect, including it's teaching about the Cross propitiating God's justice. Such a view, is overstatement, and not genuinely Orthodox. My own, personal reading of the Fathers underlines this fact, as do the words of more responsible modern teachers.
What
is different between the two views (and I'll submit, it is in this that the Latins changed - I simply do not observe the big "difference" between the "western" and "eastern" Fathers on this subject), is the later Latin over-estimation of the value of analogies. It is such an over-estimation that which not only cemented, but deepened, and multiplied the matters which came to seperate Rome from the other Orthodox Patriarchates.
For example, it's an analogy to be found in no less a place than Sacred Scripture, that Christ propitiates before God as High Priest for our sins. There is a debt there, and Christ gratuitously removes that debt. To reject this is to not simply take issue with Catholicism, but with the Holy Scriptures.
However, when the west began to move towards a view that took analogies "too far", such statements could be perverted. You see this most in the popular piety of the Latins from that time onward - whether it be gory portrayals of a Christ in His agony, or prayers in little books approved for the laity, which clearly leave the impression that God is nothing but hateful towards men, and in continual need of having His "rage" averted.
The Orthodox Church, otoh, has maintained a certain reservation about analogies. For example, we do not believe the Theophanies mentioned in the Scriptures are "creaturely analogies" for the Divinity, but energetic expressions of God Himself - while God "as He is" (His essence) is in fact unknowable. The Latins have long come to reject this - while they taught that knowledge of God is by analogy, they in fact (while placing confidence in such things beyond what is proper) also taught that these things were creaturely. This brings up the good question of whether it can be said that, even in their own teaching, the Latins receive God in Holy Communion or the Sacraments at all - for if His "essence" is mediated by a creaturely grace, then what one is receiving is a created analogy for God, not God Himself. It all seems very convoluted, but it is certainly an important discussion.
But getting back to my main point. The Orthodox, held all sorts of didactic analogies (found in Holy Scriptures) for the work of Christ, yet all the while recognizing the limits of each. Thus, there is the Priestly/Propitiatory dimension. But then there is also the idea of Christ as Ransomer, and despoiler of the devil, or as Life/Light that death/darkness cannot contain. None of these by themselves tells the whole story, and arguably none "as words" convey what really can only be experienced (as a wise Bishop once wrote, the multiplication of words is often just an opportunity for heresy).
Thus, the problem of latter Latin thought, isn't the "judicial" element of itself - rather, it is the lop-sided emphasis on it, coupled with a confidence in analogies that have the end result of perverting one's opinion of God, and altering the praxis/popular piety of the Church. For example, knowing full well that kneeling is a penitential posture, many traditional RC's take great exception to "standing" in Church, save for a few moments. Yet, it is precisely because it's a penitential posture that Orthodox consider "standing" normative during services, and even outright forbid it (kneeling) on Sundays.
Such, I submit, is just one small example of a popular mindset about God which is incorrect, and I believe stems from these deeper theological issues.
Seraphim
I did not say this on the board on this thread. There are TOO many people using the avatar! Maybe we can create a different St Seraphim one just for me :p
