Below I add a dedicated section of modern secondary scholarship—integrated analytically (not just name-dropping)—showing how Torrance, Behr, Tanner, and McCormack each independently reinforce the claim that Divine–Human Constitution is a contemporary articulation of Nicene soteriology, while preserving Creator–creature distinction and forensic integrity.
I present this in journal-ready prose + expandable footnotes, so you can drop it straight into your article (Section 6 or a new literature-review bridge).
6. Modern Systematic Support for Constitutive Nicene Soteriology
Recent systematic theology has increasingly recognized that Nicene trinitarian confession entails not merely a doctrinal boundary but a specific ontology of salvation. Although these theologians differ significantly in method and ecclesial location, a striking convergence emerges around the claim that salvation is grounded in real divine–human union rather than merely external relation.
6.1 T. F. Torrance: Ontological Mediation without Mixture
Thomas F. Torrance consistently argues that Nicene homoousios is irreducibly soteriological. For Torrance, salvation is secured precisely because the incarnate Son mediates God to humanity from within humanity itself.
Torrance’s doctrine of ontological mediation insists that:
- Christ does not merely represent humanity before God
- He reconstitutes human being in himself
- Without confusion, yet without externalism
This leads Torrance to reject both forensic abstraction and ontological fusion. Salvation is “vicarious,” but vicarious at the level of being, not merely of legal substitution.¹
Torrance thus supplies a Reformed-Nicene framework in which constitutive soteriology is not optional but required.
6.2 John Behr: Nicene Theology as Participatory Anthropology
John Behr has demonstrated that Nicene theology cannot be read correctly unless its anthropological and soteriological horizon is foregrounded. In Behr’s reading, homoousios safeguards not only Christ’s deity but the possibility of human participation in divine life.
Behr argues that:
- Early Christian theology is structured by recapitulation and participation
- “Deification” is not an Eastern excess but a pre-schism Nicene consensus
- Salvation unfolds as entry into Christ’s filial relation to the Father
Crucially, Behr shows that participation language is exegetically grounded, not speculative.²
This reinforces the claim that Divine–Human Constitution is a retrieval, not an innovation.
6.3 Kathryn Tanner: Non-Competitive Participation
Kathryn Tanner provides a crucial metaphysical clarification through her doctrine of non-competitive divine transcendence. Tanner argues that God’s action does not compete with creaturely agency or integrity because divine and creaturely causality operate on asymmetrical planes.
Applied soteriologically, this yields three decisive conclusions:
- God’s indwelling does not diminish human integrity
- Divine participation does not imply zero-sum ontology
- Salvation can be ontologically deep without being absorptive
Tanner’s framework decisively undercuts the objection that constitutive or participatory soteriology must entail mixture or pantheism.³
Her work supplies a contemporary metaphysical grammar fully compatible with Cappadocian boundaries.
6.4 Bruce McCormack: Union as the Condition of Forensic Justification
Bruce McCormack, while often perceived as a defender of forensic justification, explicitly insists that justification presupposes real union with Christ. For McCormack, the Reformation mistake was not forensic justification itself, but its detachment from union in later Protestant scholasticism.
McCormack argues:
- Justification is declarative but not fictive
- Union with Christ is logically prior to justification
- Forensic categories require ontological grounding to remain meaningful
Thus, McCormack affirms precisely the thesis advanced here:
**Forensic salvation is intelligible only when grounded in constitutive union.**⁴
7. Synthetic Assessment: A Converging Trajectory
Despite methodological diversity, these four theologians converge on five points:
| Convergence Point | Torrance | Behr | Tanner | McCormack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicene homoousios is soteriological | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Salvation involves real union | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| No essence mixture | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Forensic categories preserved | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Participation is non-competitive | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
This convergence demonstrates that Divine–Human Constitution is not a marginal or sectarian proposal, but a structurally emergent position within contemporary Nicene retrieval.
8. Revised Conclusion (with Modern Scholarship)
When read in light of Torrance’s ontological mediation, Behr’s participatory anthropology, Tanner’s non-competitive transcendence, and McCormack’s union-grounded justification, Divine–Human Constitution emerges not as a speculative extension of Nicene theology but as its coherent contemporary articulation. Far from undermining Creator–creature distinction or forensic soteriology, constitutive participation provides the ontological depth without which both trinitarian confession and justification discourse risk collapse into abstraction.
Additional Footnotes (Secondary Scholarship)
- T. F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1992), esp. chs. 1–2.
- John Behr, The Nicene Faith, vol. 1 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 167–214.
- Kathryn Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1988), ch. 4; idem, Christ the Key (Cambridge: CUP, 2010).
- Bruce L. McCormack, “What’s at Stake in Current Debates over Justification?” in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 81–117.
Ready for the final tightening?
I can now:
Merge primary + secondary footnotes into a single Chicago/SBL apparatus
Draft a ‘response to reviewers’ memo anticipating objections to Torrance / Behr / Tanner
Compress this into a 7,500-word publishable article with abstract limits met
Tell me your target journal, and I will finish it to submission standard.
