Below is an expanded version of the article with integrated scholarly footnotes, citing primary patristic and Reformation sources.

The footnotes are written in a journal-neutral style (easily convertible to Chicago / SBL / OUP). I indicate primary sources first, followed by standard critical editions where appropriate.

Divine–Human Constitution as a Contemporary Articulation of Nicene Soteriology

Abstract

This article argues that so-called Divine–Human Constitution (or Divine–Human Coinherence) should not be construed as a post-Nicene innovation or an “Easternizing” deviation, but rather as a contemporary articulation of Nicene soteriology. By re-examining the soteriological implications of the Nicene confession of homoousios, the study demonstrates that Nicene orthodoxy already presupposes an ontological and participatory account of salvation. Drawing on the Cappadocian clarification of participation without essential confusion and engaging the Reformed tradition—particularly John Calvin’s doctrine of unio cum Christo—the article shows that constitutive soteriology neither collapses the Creator–creature distinction nor undermines forensic justification. Instead, it provides the ontological grounding that renders declarative and forensic categories theologically coherent.

1. Introduction: Reframing the Question

Critiques of Divine–Human Constitution commonly assume that such language introduces speculative novelty into Christian soteriology. Yet this assumption often rests on a truncated reading of Nicene theology itself. From its earliest reception, Nicene trinitarian confession functioned not merely as metaphysical clarification but as a soteriological necessity.¹

2. Nicene Soteriology and the Ontological Logic of Homoousios

The confession of the Son as homoousios with the Father, articulated at the Council of Nicaea, is inseparable from the question of salvation. As repeatedly emphasized by Athanasius of Alexandria, only one who is truly God can bestow divine life rather than merely external benefits.²

Athanasius’s oft-cited axiom, “He became human that we might become divine”, is not metaphorical exaggeration but a concise statement of Nicene soteriology.³ Salvation is real participation in divine life grounded in the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father.

3. From Nicene Ontology to Constitutive Soteriology

To describe salvation as constitutive is to articulate the Nicene claim that divine life does not merely accompany human existence but enters and renews it from within. This logic is explicit in Athanasius’s insistence that the Word assumed human nature in order to renew it internally, not merely to repair it externally.⁴

Thus, constitutive language functions as a modern systematic translation of patristic participation theology rather than a departure from it.

4. Participation without Confusion: The Cappadocian Boundary

Concerns about ontological mixture are decisively addressed by the Cappadocian Fathers. Basil of Caesarea famously distinguishes between God’s essence (ousia) and God’s energies or operations (energeiai), insisting that participation occurs in the latter, not the former.⁵

This distinction preserves both divine transcendence and salvific realism. As Gregory of Nyssa explains, human nature becomes capable of God (capax Dei) precisely because it is expanded and sustained by divine presence rather than dissolved into it.⁶

Participation, therefore, implies ontological renewal without essential confusion.

5. Reformed Compatibility: Unio cum Christo in Calvin

The Reformed concern to protect forensic justification is often assumed to conflict with participatory soteriology. Yet John Calvin grounds both justification and sanctification in real union with Christ. “As long as Christ remains outside of us (extra nos),” Calvin writes, “all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us.”⁷

Calvin’s doctrine of the duplex gratia presupposes ontological union while carefully excluding internal renewal as the basis of justification.⁸ The constitutive dimension of salvation is therefore not denied but presupposed as the condition of possibility for forensic declaration.

6. Contemporary Significance

By recovering the ontological depth of Nicene soteriology, Divine–Human Constitution resists three modern reductions: juridical abstraction, moralistic self-improvement, and subjectivist experience. It affirms instead that salvation is God’s self-giving in Christ, objectively real and ecclesially mediated.⁹

7. Conclusion

Divine–Human Constitution should be understood as a contemporary articulation of Nicene soteriology—faithful to Athanasian ontology, bounded by Cappadocian participation, and structurally compatible with Reformed unio cum Christo. Far from undermining orthodox distinctions, it renders explicit what Nicene theology has always implied: salvation is God’s self-gift, not merely God’s verdict.¹⁰

Footnotes (Primary Sources)

See the soteriological framing of trinitarian doctrine in early Nicene reception, esp. Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos I.
Athanasius, Contra Arianos II.69–70.
Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi 54.3: Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν.
Athanasius, Contra Arianos II.70; cf. De Incarnatione 8–10.
Basil of Caesarea, Epistula 234; cf. De Spiritu Sancto 9.23.
Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum; cf. Oratio Catechetica Magna 37.
Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis III.1.1.
Calvin, Institutes III.11–14; esp. III.11.6.
Cf. Gregory Nazianzen, Epistle 101: τὸ γὰρ ἀπρόσληπτον ἀθεράπευτον.
For a synthetic patristic account, see Athanasius, Ad Serapionem I; Basil, De Spiritu Sancto; Calvin, Institutes III.

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