Soteriology in Christian philosophy. Orthodox soteriology as a theological teaching: its essence, objective and subjective sections
military man orthodox soteriology theology
First of all, we emphasize that soteriology (Greek uschfzsYab “salvation” + Greek lgpt - teaching, word) is the theological doctrine of the redemption and salvation of man, and is part of dogmatic theology. The doctrine of salvation exists in many religions: Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Jainism, Bahaism.
P.A. comes to a rather interesting conclusion in his publication. Butakov, who believes that “The Christian worldview is more consistent not with the classical concept of God with its principle of maximum perfection, but with the one that is based on the principle of maximum salvation and which we called the soteriological concept. In this concept, the saving activity of God is the starting point, and no other premises about the nature of the Deity should precede the thesis that the salvation bestowed by God is the maximum possible.
It should be noted that the main good for man, according to Orthodox teaching, is unity with God, the beginning of which should be made here, in man’s earthly life. But between man and God, since the fall of the first people, there has been a mediastinum, a barrier - sin. Sin blinds a person and closes the path to communion with God, just as rain clouds cover the sun. Therefore, the main task for a person on the path to the goal is the fight against sin, getting rid of sin in oneself. This process in Orthodox soteriology (soteriology is the science of salvation) is called “salvation.”
The essence of the doctrine of salvation is as follows. From the time of the fall of the first people until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth, people were under the power of sin and were unable to resist it. The incarnation on earth of the God-man Jesus Christ, His suffering, death and resurrection opened the way for humanity to overcome sin. Since the ascension of Christ into heaven and the founding of the Church on earth, humanity has again gained access to communion with God by fighting sin with the help of the means given by the Church. The advantage of humanity of the Christian era is that “The Lord Jesus Christ has given us the power with which we overcome the attacks of the Devil who attacks us, and remain free from our former passions.” Thus, “from the Orthodox point of view, the essence, meaning and final goal of man’s salvation is to deliver him from sin and to grant him eternal holy life in communion with God.”
Salvation, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Church, based on the teaching of Holy Scripture, is achieved through faith and works. Faith in Christ, or rather, the initial awareness of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world and a personal attitude towards Him as God is given to man by God. This is the so-called “calling grace,” which plants the seed of faith in a person’s heart and serves as the initial impulse that encourages a person to live according to the Gospel. Life according to the Gospel, just like faith, serves as a means to a person’s salvation, the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven. To understand these spiritual axioms, it is necessary to first define the concepts. What is faith in Christ? Just a mental awareness of Him as the Savior of the world, who suffered for us, brought a ransom for us to God and thereby opened for us access to the Kingdom of Heaven? Then the Orthodox teaching is no different from the Protestant, life-affirming “I am saved by the merits of Christ,” for in Protestantism the self-sufficiency of just such a faith is proclaimed. And what role do deeds, gospel commandments and church life play in the matter of salvation? If these are only means to earn eternal life from God, then our understanding is no different from the legal understanding of the relationship between God and man in Catholicism, where a person brings to God the “sum” of faith and works and God becomes “obligated” to reward a person with eternal bliss.
Speaking about the soteriological tasks of the Orthodox mission, I should especially emphasize that the Mission of the Church is aimed at the sanctification of not only man, but also the created world, all spheres of life: “ The creation itself will be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now; and not only [she], but we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, and we groan within ourselves, awaiting adoption as sons, the redemption of our body"(Rom. 8:21-23).
The theological understanding of the Orthodox mission is based on its trinitarian dimension: the source of the mission is in the Most Holy Trinity, which expresses itself through the sending of Jesus Christ by the Father and the sending of the Holy Spirit to the apostles (John 20, 21-22). The message of Jesus Christ is included in the plan of the Economy of our salvation, “ For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"(John 3:16). Holiness, as a category of “salvation”, a Christian can perceive only in the Church, which is the “Body of Christ”, sanctifying human nature with love and unity of its “members” both among themselves and with the Savior Himself, carried out through prayerful combination in a mystical life of grace . Salvation is possible in the Church due to the fact that “Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her, in order to sanctify her, cleansing her with the washing of water through the word; that he might present it to himself as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5.25-27).
A missionary who brings the light of the Gospel teaching to the world must, first of all, be enlightened by this light himself, be free from those vices and pagan attitudes that he will call to fight, so as not to turn out to be a “blind leader”, since “if The blind lead the blind, then both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15.14). Of course, within the framework of the research problem under consideration, it is impossible not to point out some important details. Namely: “The doctrine of salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ is one of the most important parts of Christian dogmatic theology, and the corresponding section is called objective soteriology (from Ushf?s - Savior, l?gpt - word, teaching).
“Objective” - this soteriology is called because salvation was accomplished by God in Christ regardless of our will, from human consent or disagreement; it is given to us as a gift (Eph. 2:7-10), as a manifestation of God’s love (John 3:16), which exists objectively, regardless of whether we love God or not, whether we desire His love, or whether it is indifferent to us (1 John 4:10-19).”
Along with the objective, there is subjective soteriology, which constitutes the most important, basic part of moral theology. Subjective soteriology can be defined as the doctrine of the Christian’s attitude to the salvation of himself and those around him. And if in relation to the objective salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ, a person’s positive activity can find expression only in accepting it by faith (John 1:12), then subjective soteriology directly determines the personal behavior of a Christian, dictating to him his personal contribution to the matter. the salvation of himself and his neighbors, showing him the purpose, meaning and nature of his behavior, his entire Christian formation in life, in his relationships with God, with people and with himself.
SOTERIOLOGY- this is one of the most important sections of systematic theology, since it studies one of the most important problems of the human race - the problem of sin and its resolution. Soteriology is a Greek word that means the doctrine of salvation and it comes from two Greek words - soteria, which means salvation, deliverance, healing and logo- word, teaching, etc.
Despite its clarity and apparent intelligibility, the word “salvation” is understood differently not only by different world religions, but even by related Christian denominations, because the question “what is salvation?” immediately acquires a whole series of other questions: salvation from what, for what, salvation of whom or whose salvation, salvation by whom and by what means. The Christian Church has historically given different answers to all these questions. I will now try to show you the variety of these answers. Let's look at several aspects of salvation.
1. Temporal dimension of salvation. When does salvation take place? How does salvation relate to time?
Christians answer this question differently:
a) some believe that salvation occurs at the moment when I accept Jesus Christ into my life, i.e. at that specific moment in history, when I meet Jesus Christ, when I accept him into my heart - this for me means final salvation. I am accepted by Christ - I am saved. Many representatives of Baptist churches, evangelical churches, and charismatic churches understand salvation precisely as a specific moment in their lives when they met Christ and experienced the experience of conversion.
b) many Christians believe that salvation was accomplished on the cross, that is, I was saved by Jesus Christ 2000 years ago, when Christ was crucified on Calvary. I only accept the salvation that was accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
c) still others place salvation even further, beyond the boundaries of human history. In their opinion, salvation was predetermined by God from the beginning. Those. God initially predetermined salvation for some, and for others - eternal condemnation and destruction. And we are powerless to change anything in our destiny. If I am initially predestined by God for salvation, then I will be saved, but if I am predestined for condemnation, then I am destined to perish. This is the kind of strict soterological determinism that is inherent in many Calvinistic Protestants.
d) a significant part of Christians associate salvation with the moment of death, i.e. While I live, I still cannot consider myself saved. My fate is decided when I die. Those. salvation is in the future. The Roman Catholic Church adheres to this point of view: after death, some go to heaven, others to hell, there is a category of those who go to purgatory, but in all cases, salvation is a matter of the future.
In a word, considering only the temporary dimension of the issue of salvation, we already see a scatter in the understanding of the meaning of this word. Those. some see salvation as taking place at a certain point in their personal lives, others understand salvation as accomplished 2000 years ago on the cross, others view salvation as an eternal decree of God even before the creation of the world, others place it in the future, etc.
2. Rescue application points. What is salvation aimed at, i.e. that there is salvation in its essence.
A) According to traditional position According to the traditional view, the main problem of man is the problem of sin and it is oriented vertically. This is the problem of the relationship between God and man. Sin broke this relationship and therefore salvation is seen as the restoration of this relationship broken by sin. With this approach, salvation is most often understood and defined in the light of biblical concepts and concepts as turning to God, as repentance, as atonement, adoption, etc.
IN lately The liberal position is becoming increasingly popular.
B) From the point of view liberal theologians, liberal Christian churches, the main problem of man is horizontally oriented. This is a problem of relationships between people. This is more of a social problem, a problem of relationships between social groups, between races, classes in society, etc. Salvation in this case is understood more as some kind of social activity, i.e. reconciliation of individual classes, nations, races, etc. When we eliminate relationship problems between people, we will build good life, a society where everyone will be equal and love each other. This is how many liberal theologians today understand salvation. We are talking about the millennial kingdom here on Earth. Salvation is understood as “healing” relationships between people, solving social problems, eliminating slavery, racial discrimination, problems of relationships between the sexes, nations, peoples, eliminating national enmity. Thus, salvation is nothing other than the restoration of equality, justice and unity among people.
IN) Existentialist approach- quite popular in Christianity today, due to the influence of existential philosophy on Christian theology. The main problem of a person is internal: feelings of guilt, isolation, fear. Salvation lies in overcoming all these complexes. Salvation comes down to self-affirmation, increasing self-esteem, self-esteem, etc. Many existentialist theologians are developing methods for overcoming these complexes.
3. Means of rescue, means of receiving and transmitting salvation. Christians also differ in their understanding of the means of receiving and transmitting salvation. How and by whom is salvation transmitted? For example,
a) in Roman Catholic, Orthodox In churches, salvation is most often understood as some kind of physical process; salvation is transmitted by a kind of physical object: a wafer - in the Catholic Church, prosvira (prosphora) - in the Orthodox Church. Thus, a person receives parts of the Lord’s body and with this wafer or prosphora he receives divine saving grace. This is how salvation is accepted. The transmission of saving grace is understood as a physical process. Since special words are spoken at the moment of blessing, these physical bodies, this bread, turns into the real body of the Lord Jesus Christ, carrying within itself saving grace.
b) among representatives liberal Christianity, salvation is most often understood as a certain moral action aimed at changing social conditions.
c) among evangelical Christianity understands salvation as transmitted by faith. By faith a person receives what God has already prepared for him. IN in a certain sense the believer acts here as a passive recipient of the salvation already accomplished for him.
4. Direction of movement in salvation. The question is this: does God first save man and through him the whole society, which changes only because its individual representatives are reborn, or, on the contrary, God first changes social conditions, the social environment, social structures and thus ennobles the members of society. Where is salvation directed?
A) traditional Christianity believes that, first of all, man must change. Change occurs in a person personally. Thanks to the fact that many change for the better, society changes for the better.
b) liberal Christians are radically changing the direction of salvation. In their opinion, it is first necessary to change the social environment, social conditions, and only after that can we talk about changing a person. Otherwise, if we do not change the environment, no matter how a person changes under the influence of God's grace, falling back into the same environment, he returns to hell.
5. Degree of salvation. Who will be saved? How many will be saved? And on this issue, Christian denominations have different understandings. There are 2 main historically formed positions:
A) particularistic position, which means partial (pariticular). Representatives of this movement believe that those who accepted God's salvation will be saved, and those who rejected it will perish. Those. salvation is defined here:
- or the choice of the person himself. In Orthodoxy, for example, a lot of attention is paid to the free will of man - a person is free to choose his own salvation. He also participates in his own salvation.
- or God predestines some to salvation and others to destruction.
b) universalist position. Representatives of this direction believe that no one will die. Ultimately, God will save everyone. Even Origen, one of the early church fathers of the 2nd century, taught about universal salvation. According to this teaching, God will bring salvation to even the worst sinners. One of the representatives of the Protestants, the modern Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth, was also an adherent of this position.
6. The Ultimate Goal of Salvation. Will only man be saved or will all of God's creation be saved? Some Christians believe that when we talk about salvation, we are talking only about man, only man has fallen into sin, and we are talking about man’s return to the original state of paradise that he lost. Others understand salvation more broadly and talk about the cosmic or universal aspect (dimension) of salvation, i.e. salvation is the return of the entire universe to God, since the world, nature and animals suffer along with man. In addition, speaking about the cosmic, universal aspect of salvation, we are also talking about sinned angels. Are they coming back? According to the universalist position of the concept, even Satan, the devil himself, will be saved.
What is the official position of the SDA Church regarding salvation?
Salvation is understood in the context of the great controversy.
Salvation is understood as a process, not as a specific moment in history. Salvation is linear. We are talking about the history of salvation, understanding history linearly, as an unfolding process, not cyclically, like Plato, Nietzsche or modern representatives of the ideas of similar cultural-historical cycles (Danilevsky, Spengler, Toynbee, etc.). The process of salvation has a past, present and future.
Salvation, both at the individual and universal levels, is understood as the restoration of a person’s proper relationship with God, with each other, with the world around them, broken due to sin.
Salvation is the activity of all three persons of the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Salvation includes all aspects of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, beginning with His incarnation and ending with His intercessory ministry in the heavenly Sanctuary and Second Coming.
Salvation implies an element of man's free participation in it.
Salvation is a continuing act of grace, out of love toward sinful humanity, by which Heavenly Father, through the atoning death of the Son, His intercessory ministry, and the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, offers forgiveness of sins and reformation of character to those who answer the call of the everlasting gospel in faith. repentance and submission to God, and whereby the redeemed reflect the perfect image of God in the service of love; an action that will ultimately lead to the eradication of evil and sin from the universe and the restoration of perfect peace and harmony.
Evangelical theology
Evangelicals' understanding of salvation. What is evangelical theology, and who are evangelicals? In the middle of the 19th century, at the very height of liberal tendencies and the heyday of liberal schools, a certain part of Christians reacted to the penetration of liberalism into the Christian church. This reaction was manifested primarily in the return of the traditional understanding of the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, as Divine revelation, as well as to the traditional understanding of salvation as the restoration of man’s relationship with God, broken due to sin. Those. return back to the vertical plane. This movement was called evangelical. It included representatives of a variety of Protestant churches. At the time of the formation of this movement, the Adventist Church was just beginning. In its attitude towards the Word of God and towards salvation, our church is closer to the evangelical position, that is, to the conservative one. Although we do not agree with them on everything.
Evangelicals take it very seriously the problem of sin. They understand sin not as liberals do (i.e. as a problem in the horizontal dimension, a problem of relationships between people, a problem of oppression, enslavement, exploitation, etc.), but as a breakdown in a person’s relationship with God. Those. this is taking sin very seriously. Death is understood as a consequence of sin. As a result of the Fall, man has a constant tendency to sin. Man is sinful by nature and simply cannot be good, and therefore all human projects (humanistic in essence) aimed at solving problems, the desire to build paradise on Earth, are utopian and doomed to failure. The only salvation from sin and its consequences is Jesus Christ. Evangelicals conceive of salvation as justification. God justifies us in his Son, Jesus Christ. He declares us, sinners, righteous and adopts us, returns us to the bosom of his family as we are. And we accept this God's justification by faith. And faith is sufficient for our salvation.
Modern Orthodox theology.
Since we live in an Orthodox culture, we also need to become familiar with the soteriological trends that prevail in modern Orthodox theology. It should be said that until recently, until the beginning of the century, the same features and the same motives in the understanding of salvation prevailed in Orthodoxy as in Western soteriology. And although we cannot equate the understanding of salvation by the Eastern Church with Protestant or Catholic positions, nevertheless there was a lot in common in the understanding of salvation by Orthodox theologians starting from the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century, when the Orthodox Church, being on the territory of the Turks, could no longer exist freely and develop. Ideologically, it was forced to feed on Western theology, thereby adopting the scheme of a legal understanding of salvation, i.e. understanding of salvation as justification and redemption. This is not to say that this system is not biblical: Holy Scripture speaks of justification and atonement. Holy Scripture uses these categories to explain what happens to a person when he is saved. But nevertheless, even in the past and especially in our time, a number of Orthodox theologians began to emphasize that such a view of salvation is limited and insufficient. And this limitation is determined by emphasizing only the negative aspect of salvation, i.e. this view shows how the problem of sin is solved, but says nothing about what happens next. Salvation must necessarily include not only the element of justification and redemption of a person, but also a positive aspect: what happens to a person next - the subsequent growth of a person in God, his approach to God, his unity with God, etc. In a word, they try to expand the understanding of salvation and say that before Orthodox theology is captured by Western thinking ( Florovsky ), the Orthodox Church understood salvation more broadly, and now they are trying to use the so-called neopatristic synthesis (a return to the works of the holy fathers of the church, to the past) in order to offer a more balanced soteriological scheme, which would be devoid of the shortcomings of a narrow, in their opinion, legal understanding of salvation.
Famous Orthodox theologian, former Metropolitan and Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' , Sergius Stragorodsky in 1898 at Kazan University in his master's thesis entitled "Orthodox teaching on salvation" sharply criticized the Western scheme of salvation understood only as a legal justification. But what is interesting is that this dissertation did not propose any other alternative.
The subsequent generation of Orthodox theologians, such as John Meyendorff , lived and taught at an Orthodox seminary in America, Vladimir Lossky - Russian theologian, who also lived almost his entire life in the West (France), Georgy Florovsky , Russian theologian, Christos Yanaras - modern Greek theologian John Zizhoulas - a representative of the Greek Orthodox Church - express the soteriological position of the Orthodox Church in one concept, which in Greek is called theosis or, in Russian, "deification" person. This concept includes not only an element of justification, but also an element of internal transformation of a person. In the process of salvation, a person becomes like God, he becomes like God. Orthodox theologians like to repeat an expression borrowed from Athanasius the Great and concerning the mystery of the incarnation, “God became human so that man could be deified.”
IN early christian church Soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, was not defined as a doctrine or dogma. Issues of soteriology during the first two, three, four centuries of the development of the Christian church were practically not discussed or debated. Mainly, all theological discussions revolved around the person of Jesus Christ, His divine and human nature. Is Jesus the true God? How did two natures, divine and human, unite in Him, as a person? These are the questions that were on the agenda in the first centuries of the history of the Christian church.
Salvation was understood by the early Christians mainly eschatologically, i.e. as a future resurrection from the dead, as God’s intervention in earthly affairs, when God himself will put an end to death, when he will change our sinful mortal flesh. The main texts of Holy Scripture that were very popular among the early Christians are, for example, 1 Cor. 15:22-26. The Apostle Paul describes here the transformation that will take place at the appearing of Christ. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall live...death, where is your sting; hell, where is your victory?..” Salvation was understood in such categories as future deliverance from death.
The systematic presentation of the doctrine of salvation is associated with the name Augustine . Augustine is a famous father of the Western Church who had an amazing experience of turning to God. This is the appeal of a very sinful person, mired in vices, leading a life in secular entertainment. The Lord miraculously stopped him on this path of sin. They say that he allegedly heard the voice of God commanding him to read Rome. 13:13-14. His personal experience helped him realize how serious sin is. And this awareness of the seriousness of sin determines Augustine’s entire soteriological position. He begins with the problem of sin, emphasizing its severity and destructiveness.
It was Augustine who was responsible for the development ideas of original sin. This idea is that the sin of the first parents is not only their own sin. The sin of our first parents is the sin of all humanity. Sin changed the nature of all mankind. And this nature, changed by sin, is passed on from generation to generation. Those. a person is already born a sinner, not only because he is born into a sinful nature, but also because, according to the teachings of Augustine, he is also responsible for Adam’s sin, he also bears the guilt for Adam’s sin. Augustine took sin very seriously, i.e. the sin of our first parents is the sin of all humanity. And today each of us is guilty of original sin. According to Augustine, man has lost the freedom to abstain from sin. Before the Fall, Adam was free, he had this freedom not to sin; after the Fall, he lost this freedom. And although Augustine says that a person is free, free to choose, any choice of a person is sinful. Due to his sinful nature, man cannot choose what is good; his will is enslaved by sin. Augustine emphasizes the seriousness of sin and shows the helplessness of man without God to solve this problem. Without God, man is powerless to do anything good. Man is doomed to death. I think we can agree to some extent with Augustine in his emphasis on the seriousness of sin as a problem.
This position (Augustine) was very seriously criticized Pelagius , a wandering British monk who settled in Rome during Augustine's lifetime. He was an ascetic who throughout his life exemplified true piety and obedience to God and was more of a moralist than a serious theologian. So, his basic principle, which forms the basis of his entire soteriological scheme, is that man is born free. Man is free. Man is not born a sinner, as Augustine taught. A man is born innocent. Original sin is not passed on from generation to generation. A person begins his life here on earth with a blank sheet of paper, on which there are still no records. The basis of this idea is the doctrine that God creates the human soul at the moment of conception. The soul is not passed on from generation to generation, but as soon as it is conceived new person, God creates a new soul. That is, it cannot be that this new soul carries within itself some imprint of original sin. Everything that God creates is pure and undefiled.
Therefore, Pelagius opposed Augustine's teaching that sin is passed on from generation to generation, from parents to children, and the child is conceived and born in sin. Moreover, Adam's sin was understood by Pelagius as simply a bad example. It is not genetically transmitted and does not affect subsequent generations. This is simply an example of disobedience to God.
That is, we see that Pelagius no longer understands sin as seriously as Augustine. Original sin is the sin of only one Adam, this is Adam’s problem, each of us is born free, a person is not born with a tendency to sin. And if this is so, then a person is capable of doing not only evil, but also good. And a person has enough strength to do good himself. A person can progress in holiness by doing good deeds and already here on this earth, he can reach a state where he can not sin.
Having become acquainted with the teachings of Pelagius, Augustine attacked him with serious attacks. Thus, he deepens his own soteriological position, and this position finds its logical conclusion in the idea of predestination.
Augustine thinks as follows: a person has lost the freedom not to sin (i.e., any choice of a person is now sinful, this means that a person is doomed to death, since the penalty for sin is death). And God will be fair if He punishes everyone, because... all have sinned, all are doomed to death. No one has the right to accuse God of cruelty or injustice. All deserve the same fate, but in His mercy and grace God has chosen some (and this is His mercy) and endowed them with His grace.
In these arguments one can trace the idea of limited atonement, i.e. redemption is not for all, but for the chosen. And those who are predestined for salvation, they can no longer resist this grace of God. This is the so-called irresistible grace. These people can no longer lose their salvation because they were predestined to salvation from the beginning. And even if they resist it with all the strength of their sinful nature, they will still be saved. Grace has an irresistible effect on them.
This is how Augustine develops this idea, which will later be supported Calvin and will result in the idea of double predestination: some to salvation, others to eternal damnation.
The teaching of Pelagius, Pelagianism, was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431 as a heresy.
