Salvation In Recent Faith And Order Documents

Abstract

Abstract The Christian faith is, above all other things, a faith grounded in, illuminated by, and responding to a saving and transforming event. It is not primarily concerned with providing people with a special and higher knowledge about themselves and the world. Rather, the Christian belief in God the creator, incarnate in God the Son, awakening such belief in human beings through God the Holy Spirit, is-in all its dimensions and aspects-a belief marked by the dynamics of the divine purpose and action toward redemption, renewal, and fulfilment. The Christian faith is a soteriological faith; it is about salvation. This faith is offered to all people, individually and corporately, as the ground of a new existence in communion with God and with fellow believers. Of course, not every aspect of the body of Christian beliefs can be pressed into a soteriological scheme. Here, Wolfhart Pannenberg’s warning is certainly appropriate: one cannot make soteriology determinative of Christology (as was done by Schleiermacher or Tillich, for whom Christology is merely a function of soteriology).1Still, it remains true that if the soteriological dimension-the announcement of God’s intervention in favor of the salvation of individuals and humanity-is completely absent from theological reflection on any aspect of the Christian faith, then something essentially Christian is missing. With his thoroughgoing focus on the sacramental nature of the Christian faith, Geoffrey Wainwright has persistently drawn attention to this soteriological basis of the faith: the Triune God’s communication of salvation through-to use my Lutheran language-the “means of grace.” And with his equally persistent focus on the liturgical-doxological nature of the Christian faith, he has drawn attention to the Church’s joyful response to God’s gratuitous gift of salvation.