百宝箱

明白。第 5 节将以改革宗关切为主轴，其余三位（Barth / Rahner / theosis）只作为辅助证人，而非并列对话者。目标很明确：

让改革宗评审读到这里时，找不到“程序性否决点”。

下面是连续正文写作：第 5 节 + 结论（可直接并入全文）。

5. Methodological Implications for Protestant Soteriology

Participation without Compromise

The preceding analysis has sought to demonstrate that participatory soteriology can be rendered publicly intelligible without transgressing core Protestant commitments. Yet the decisive question remains methodological rather than conceptual: can participation function within Protestant theology without destabilizing the logical priority of justification, the Creator–creature distinction, or the non-instrumentality of the church? This section argues that it can—provided participation is disciplined by a clear methodological ordering.

From a Reformed perspective, the central anxiety is not transformation per se but misordering. Problems arise when the effects of salvation are permitted to intrude upon its ground, or when experiential or ecclesial realities are allowed to determine divine acceptance. The solution, therefore, is not to silence participatory language but to situate it within a framework that preserves proper theological sequence.

Three methodological distinctions prove decisive.

First, ground must be distinguished from telos. Justification, understood as God’s declarative act grounded solely in Christ’s work, establishes the believer’s standing before God. Participation does not contribute to this standing; it describes the orientation toward which salvation moves. When participation is treated teleologically rather than causally, it no longer competes with justification but presupposes it. Salvation is complete in its ground, yet ordered toward communion in its purpose. This distinction allows Protestant theology to affirm real transformation without locating salvific efficacy within that transformation.

Second, ontology must be distinguished from mode of existence. Reformed theology has rightly resisted accounts of salvation that imply a change in ontological kind. However, this resistance has often resulted in a reluctance to speak of transformation in anything other than moral or behavioral terms. By contrast, the concept of constitution, as articulated above, permits a thicker account of change without ontological inflation. The human subject remains fully creaturely, yet its manner of existing—its orientation, practices, and ends—is reconfigured through participation in Christ. Such change is neither illusory nor metaphysically excessive; it is existentially real and theologically accountable.

Third, means must be distinguished from manifestation. Concerns about ecclesial mediation often stem from the fear that the church will be construed as a salvific instrument rather than a witness to grace. This fear is well founded. Yet ecclesial embodiment, as proposed here, does not assign causal efficacy to the church. Instead, it identifies the church as the sphere in which the effects of salvation become visible and discernible. The church does not generate salvation; it manifests the form of life that salvation creates. This distinction safeguards sola gratia while acknowledging that grace, if real, must take communal shape.

When these distinctions are maintained, participatory soteriology no longer appears as a foreign intrusion into Protestant theology but as a disciplined attempt to articulate what Protestant theology has long affirmed implicitly: that salvation is not merely a change in status but a reorientation of life toward God. Participation, constitution, and ecclesial embodiment function together to describe the form of redeemed existence without redefining its basis.

Importantly, this methodological ordering also clarifies the limits of participatory language. Participation does not explain how God saves; it articulates what saved life looks like when ordered toward its intended end. In this sense, participatory soteriology is secondary, derivative, and dependent—yet no less necessary. Without it, Protestant theology risks affirming salvation in principle while leaving its lived reality underdetermined.

Conclusion

This article has argued that the marginalization of participatory soteriology within Protestant systematic theology is best understood as a problem of translation rather than doctrine. Participatory accounts of salvation have often been rejected not because they deny core Protestant commitments, but because they have been articulated in forms that resist public theological evaluation. By translating ecclesial language into the systematic categories of participation, constitution, and ecclesial embodiment, this study has sought to demonstrate that participatory soteriology can enter critical dialogue without collapsing into ontological fusion, subjectivism, or ecclesial instrumentalism.

Central to this argument has been a Reformed methodological priority: the preservation of proper theological ordering. When justification is maintained as the ground of salvation, participation can be affirmed as its telos. When ontological distinction is preserved, constitution can describe real transformation without metaphysical excess. When grace is safeguarded as divine initiative, ecclesial embodiment can function as manifestation rather than mechanism. None of these moves requires the abandonment of Protestant identity; rather, they clarify its internal coherence.

The contribution of this article is therefore not the proposal of a new soteriological system, but the articulation of a methodologically disciplined space in which participatory language can be responsibly employed. Such space is necessary if Protestant theology is to address enduring questions concerning sanctification, formation, and the lived reality of salvation without retreating into either juridical minimalism or speculative metaphysics.

Future research may extend this translational approach to other contested areas of Protestant theology, including pneumatology and theological anthropology. For now, the argument advanced here invites a more modest yet more demanding task: to ask whether salvation, confessed as God’s decisive act in Christ, is allowed to shape not only what believers are declared to be, but how they are enabled to live.