First of all, thank you for clarifying the Orthodox position, Cappadocious. I didn't really think that Orthodoxy as a whole had run headlong into heresy, but when I see some Orthodox (not all) cast aspersions on forensic soteriology or justification as Western error, I do get alarmed. It strikes me as a heretical corruption of the Gospel, or dangerously close to it at least.
*It takes until #7 to get to Christ, whereas we would have Christ be the means by which the Christian could and would extrapolate 1-7, instead of beginning with a blend of truisms comprised of Old Testament statements about God and classical Hellenistic statements about a Divine entity (none of which are then necessarily false).
I agree that we couldn't have knowledge of 1-7 except through Christ. Christ is the only means through Whom we might have any access to God at all. Even knowledge of God obtained through natural theology is obtained through Christ. For all things were made by [Christ]; and without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1:3).
But even though all of our knowledge of God is obtained through Christ, one needn't necessarily be consciously aware of this fact in order to have knowledge of God. It is possible, for example, to know about morality, or to demonstrate the existence of God without explicitly invoking Christ.
*We may or may not object to your use of natural law, depending on how it's fleshed out.
By natural law, I mean the standard of righteousness that is intrinsic to our very ontological composition as personal beings, and that prescribes our behaviors as such. When a personal individual (willfully) commits an act that transgresses this standard, he incurs real ontological damage to his personhood as a direct consequence of his sinful act.
Christ Himself is ultimately the ideal Paradigm by Whom righteousness exists in creation because He is the perfect, uncreated Image of the Father, and the standard of righteousness that He establishes for us is grounded in and derives from the created image of Himself (i.e., the
imago Dei) within us, which is what constitutes our very personhood. This is why I say that the standard is intrinsic to our very ontological composition--it derives directly from the
imago Dei, which is what makes us personal beings in the first place.
I refer to this standard as the natural
law, not because God explicitly dictates it to us (as in, e.g., the Decalogue or other OT commandments), but rather because it is grounded in our nature as personal beings, and all morals and man-made laws--to what extent the morals and laws of fallen man have any objective, normative authority at all--derive from our knowledge of this nature.
*Your #6 seems fine except for "justly deserving", which is a bit confusing. Instead of simply suffering the consequences of sin, now we have this idea that God has to impute some sort of label of "deserving" or not deserving punishment. The "deserving punishment" part seems unnecessary, an add-on which the transcendent God would have no use for, and may simply reflect certain fallen systems of law (though not all). We would certainly agree that God judges us, and that our ultimate state is given from God vis-a-vis who we really are and what we want.
The consequences of sin are just and deserved insofar as they're understood
by us to be violations of the natural law. From a comprehensive, ontological, God's-eye point of view, however, they're simply what sin naturally entails. God doesn't punish people
for their sin so much as sin is simply its own punishment, when all is said and done.
But it is entirely good and fitting that
we should call the consequences of sin just and deserved because this is the correct and healthy way for us to understand them, and if we do not understand them in this way, then our cognitive faculties are not functioning as they should.
*7 Is an Orthodox statement about the atonement, provided that "righteousness" is communion with God, the proper fulfillment of the telos of man, which is to be high priest of creation, even like the el/theos, offering thanksgiving and glorification to God in a manner re-capitulating the thanksgiving and glorification offered by the entire creation in diverse ways, and fulfilling the economic Laws of God given to Israel when he was called out from among the nations, and all for the fulfillment of the economy of God, which is the salvation of the world.
I don't see anything I disagree with here.
And that Christ does not save me from the consequences of sin as from an imputed label or accusation of "guilty", in such a manner as if the label were to be removed, the formerly accused themselves would be neither better or worse apart from the formerly impending external punishment.
No, sin is an ontological disease whose natural end result is eternal death (i.e., hell). Salvation through Christ is the cure for this disease. There are no laws or labels at the ontological level.
Nevertheless, our forensic conceptualizations of sin
do have a real, objective basis, and they
are indispensable to orthodox soteriology
because they are the
correct and
healthy way for
us to understand what happens at the ontological level.
It seems to me that the danger that some Orthodox are wont to flirt with is to keep the sin-as-disease part and get rid of the sin-as-guilt part, as if it were an either/or affair. But it's not an either/or affair. We can (and should) have both, if each is understood properly. We cannot strip soteriology of
all forensic content, lest we strip God of his righteousness and corrupt the Gospel.
