When a Christian is saved, is she thereby deified? This is how Eastern Orthodox theologians describe Christian salvation, and it is a common saying that this is distinctive of Eastern Christian theology, but not of Western.

In this episode, Dr. Carl Mosser (Associate Professor at Eastern University, on leave, and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame) challenges this assumption, taking us on a fascinating journey through the ancient and recent history of Christian theology. He's working on two books on this topic - one historical, the other theological.

He argues that people now make this assumption in large part because of super heavyweight German scholar, Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930). But in Dr. Mosser's view, we shouldn't just take von Harnack's word for it, but we should read the historical sources for ourselves.

Next week I'll talk with Dr. Mosser about the idea of salvation as deification in the Bible.

Links for this episode:

Dr. Mosser's papers at Academia.edu

a handout by Dr. Mosser: "Biblical, Western, and (Even) Reformed: Correcting Misconceptions about Deification"

The Gospel of John and Christian Theology

The Mormon World

The New Mormon Challenge (kindle)

Adolph von Harnack

his works at CCEL

encyclopedia entry