Veli-Matti Karkkainen, D.Theol. Habil., is associate professor of systematic theology at Fuller Seminary, Pasadena, California, and docent of ecumenics at the University of Helsinki, Finland. The author of several books, he has also published nearly 100 articles in international theological journals.

• ContentsPreface   ixAbbreviations   xiii1.  Introduction: Salvation as Union   11.  Salvation in Christianity and Other Religions   12.  Union in Salvation—Divisions in the Church   42.  Justification in Recent New Testament Scholarship   103.  Deification in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition   171.  "Partakers in Divine Nature": Theosis in the bible   172.  The Renewal of the Image of God and Immortality   203.  The Eastern Fathers, Incarnation, and the Deifying Spirit   244.  The Palmite Vision of Salvation   275.  Theosis as the Defining Principle of the Doctrine of Salvation in Eastern Theology   296.  Spirit and Theosis: The Pneumatological Soteriolgy of the East   324.  Justification and Deification in Martin Luther's Theology   371.  A New Paradigm of Luther Interpretation    372.  The Theology of Love and the Theology of the Cross   403.  Justification as the Presence of Christ and Deification   454.  Christ as Favor and Gift: The Relationship Between Effective and Forensic Justification   515.  The Christian as "Christ" to the Neighbor   586.  The Pneumatological Potential of Luther's Doctrine of Salvation   615.  Deification, Union, and Sanctification in Later Protestant Theologies   671.  Deification in Anabaptism   672.  Deification and Sanctification in Methodism   723.  Union in Evangelical Theology   816.  Salvation as Union: Towards an Ecumenical Convergence   871.  "Salvation as Justification and Deification"2.  Justification and Sanctification in the Roman Catholic-Lutheran Conversations   993.  "Beyond Salvation": Christian Transformation in the Orthodox-Pentecostal Perspective   1087.  One with God: In Search of a Consensual View of Salvation   1161.  The Conditions and Promise of Ecumenical Thinking about Salvation   1162.  Union as the Defining Motif in Eastern and Western Soteriologies   1193.  Fresh Voices from the Bible   1214.  "Be Holy as I Am Holy"   1235.  Loving in Faith   1256.  Free to Sin or Free to Become Like God?   1267.  Toward a Pneumatological Doctrine of Salvation   1298.  "Justification in the World's Context": New Tasks for Soteriology for the Third Millennium   1319.  Deification, Justification, and Other Religions   133Index   139

. . . it would certainly open the door to valuable ecumenical discussions among scholars in very diverse branches of Christianity.Catholic Library World