Patristic Soteriology: Three Trajectories -- By: Donald Fairbairn

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 50:2 (Jun 2007)
Article: Patristic Soteriology: Three Trajectories
Author: Donald Fairbairn


Patristic Soteriology: Three Trajectories

Donald Fairbairn

Donald Fairbairn is professor of historical theology at Erskine Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 668, Due West, SC 29639.

In this article I will attempt to outline what I think is a needed corrective to a common and influential way of discussing patristic soteriology. It is typical among some scholars to speak of two basic patterns in the patristic period for understanding salvation: a juridical or legal pattern (strongly represented in the Western Church) that focused on forgiveness of sins, and a more Eastern pattern that saw salvation as participation in God or deification. I believe that speaking of a single Eastern pattern, and therefore speaking of two major patterns overall, is misleading and dangerous, for reasons that I will explain. I think it is important to recognize that in the patristic period, there were at least two very distinct ways of understanding deification or participation in God, and therefore one should speak not of two overall patterns, but of at least three patterns. Furthermore, as I discuss these patterns, I will use the word “trajectories” to describe them. The reason for this is that in my opinion, as each of these patterns emerged, it plotted a course, a trajectory, that part of the Christian Church would follow subsequently. Later Eastern and Western soteriological developments can be seen as following one or another of the trajectories plotted during the patristic period.1

I will argue my case in several steps. First I will give an overview of the “two-trajectory” approach to patristic soteriology and will explain some of the ways this approach has influenced our contemporary understanding of salvation. Then I will briefly examine some key soteriological passages from the writings of four important Eastern theologians, all of whom are said to follow a “participatory” pattern for describing salvation. Through this examination, I will attempt to show that there were two quite different patterns or trajectories represented among these writers, with one pattern showing up clearly in Origen (ca. 185-ca. 254) and Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 330-ca. 395), and the other appearing in Irenaeus (ca. 130-ca. 200) and Cyril of Alexandria

(ca. 375–444).2 Next I will briefly address the fates of these different patterns in the later history of Christian theology, and at that point I will attempt to justify my use of the word “trajectories” to describe the patterns. Finally, I will offer some lessons I believe contemporary evangelical theologians can learn from these trajectories.

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