ORLAPUBS P. R7: DIVISIONS OR BRANCHES OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

DIVISIONS OR BRANCHES OF
SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY:
HOW ORTHODOX THEOLOGY
IS ORGANIZED

Some speak of dogmatics or dogmatic theology, though theology is really doctrinal, since analyses of dogmas are doctrinal. (CLICK HERE for the difference between dogma and doctrine; click HERE for Orthdox terminology in general.) A dogma is like a field of discourse or even a dýnamis or definition that is invulnerable to falsification: It is a potential that gets energized (actualized, realized) with the doctrines that tell us what the given dogma means. (Another term lacking academic associations is theognosis; it is different from dogma and doctrine, being more experiential.) It is important to observe that, instead of the basic Western distinction between natural and supernatural, the important distinction in Orthodoxy is between created and uncreated. Grace is supernatural and created—and not energetic—in Latin theology but uncreated Energy in the East.
The traditional division is twofold: (i) theology refers to things believed about the Essence and uncreated Energies (Nature) of the all-holy Trinity; and (ii) economy refers to the functioning of Grace (uncreated Energy) does in the created cosmos—in humanity's being created according to the eikón of God (a dýnamis) and endowed "according to" the Assimilation to the Divine (Grace, an Energization), the rôle of created matter (Mysteries) and time (revelatory tradition) in the Salvation of humans and the salvation or restoration of the cosmos and the ultimate destiny humanity and the cosmos. (CLICK HERE for the basic pattern of theology; and see in the second row of the following table on PARADIGMS.) If Orthodoxy does not separate theology and myst(er)icism (e.g. mystical theology) in the Western manner, it also does not divide up the doctrinal topics in the Western manner (described below for readers' convenience). Orthodoxy tends to look at things more holistically and, it may be said, less rationalistically. This is a facet of Orthodox that converts from the West sometimes find it difficult to come to terms with. For example, Phlp. 2:13 ("For God it is That is energizing in you all both to will and to energize for the sake His being well-pleased.") does not separate the basic divine Energization of how a person lives from the person in questions' own synenergization (coõperation) with the divine Energization to live in the right manner; in short there is no conflict in this picture between Grace and a worshipers' good deeds. Though the dichotomy between uncreated and created is vast (God's Essence is unknowable and impaticipable)—nevertheless, as a result of the Incarnation (and bodily Resurrection!). The final Divination of a worshiper is
still quite separate from Deification by sharing in the divine Essence—a heretical notion.

WHAT IS A SYSTEM?

A system shows the relations of its details to one another; it is a structural organization or an organized structure that is directly opposed to a list—a trait of t—he catechetical mentality. One common way of organizing the details is in terms of nodes on a tree—like a family tree with no divorces, intermarriages, step-children, etc. It is even more explanatory if things are derived from basic axioms/premises. A true system has no incoherences. It may have cognitive mysteries, as theology has got to, but not contradictions; Orthodoxy also has sacramental MYSTERIES in which a material thing or event is married to an uncreated reality (Incarnation, bodily Resurrection, Baptism, Anointing, Christ's Body and Blood, Icons and Crosses, holy water and blessings, etc.

There may well prevail a strange view of system as an organized presentation with a great proliferation of details. Actually, the simpler the categories, the more likely the arrangement is to form a coherent system. Thus the Latins' dozen categories of Grace and proliferation of virtues as well as a complex apparatus for soteriology (satisfaction, atonement, redemption (ransoming), justification, regeneration (rebirth), sanctification, adoption, virtual union with God's ontologically imparticipable Essence) have a greater chance of exhibiting incoherences than the simple Eastern views—one Grace, virtue, and Salvation as the recovery of the Assimlation to God lost through Adam's sinning—whose uncreated divine Energies recreate worshipers as newborn members of the risen Christ ontologically sharing His uncreated Life—the uncreated Energies of Grace--and finally receiving Théosis—complete ontological union with God's uncreated Energies.

     It is useless to engage in dogmatic theology or apologetics
(as lamentable examples on one's bookshelf attest) if one
does not understand PARADIGMS. They depend on the
distinction of what is cognitively basic—ontic categories
and ontic form (in the East) or juridical categories and
juridical form (in the West).
     In a culture that is not prevailing Orthodox (and which one is?), apologetics is absolutely necessary for understanding the potential converts—their starting points or paradigms (cf. also R296).

EXAMPLES OF THE PIECES FITTING TOGETHER

The Fall is ontological in the East (loss of the Assimilation to God; God let satan impose death on those alienated from His Life to obviate the perpetuating of sinning) and juridical (God imposed death on humans and caused newborns to inherit Adam's guilt) in the West; hence, Salvation is ontological (worshipers' recovery of the Assimilation) in the East and juridical (God punished Jesus with death on behalf of all believers) in the West.

IF newborns are sinless, THEN there is no need for an immaculate conception of the Theotókos (Mother of God). [Orthodox] But:

IF newborns inherit Adam's guilt, THEN there are strong reasons for positing an immaculate Mother of God. [Latin]

IF death is not a penalty for sin, THEN there is no problem with the sinless Theotókos's dying, just as Christ died. [Orthodox] But:

IF death is a penalty for sinning, THEN there is a major problem with the idea of the Theotókos's dying. [Latin]

In a kind of (Western) theology in which matter (Mysteries like Incarnation, bodily Resurrection, water, body, blood, oil, icons) play no essential soterial rôle, but are incidental to something else, it follows that the Theotókos is as incidental as the Incarnation is. Conversely, in a mysteric theological system, her role is as non-incidental as the Incarnation is!
The only question is: Which paradigm was that of the Apostle Paul (who used ontic energy terms 26 times, not counting deverbative nouns and synergy terminology)? Those familiar with the thinking of Hellenism and what words meant to those who thought and wrote in Greek will have little hesitation is deciding the matter.

Aside from lacking topics like an explicit causistry--which belongs to practical or moral theology--there is in Orthodoxy, e.g. no real Mariology, though Theotokology exists as a topic for discussion and pious reflection.. For the ontologically mediatorial rôles of the all-holy Theotokos in the Incarnation, at the Crucifixion, and following the Resurrection and Ascension are too intimately linked to Christ's humanity to be separated off into a separate discipline from Christology. (See Ch. 11 of Vl. Lossky's essay in a collection of his articles with a mistranslated title and various mistranslations here and there throughout: In the image and likeness of God [St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985]; some of the titles accorded the Mother of God in Orthodoxy will seem extravagant for a Western Christian whose thinking is not framed in the ontological worldview of Orthodoxy. She is never called Redemptrix.) Further, Salvation is reclaiming the Assimilation of God lost at the ontological Fall, which culminates in the Vision of the uncreated Energies of divine Life and the partaking of them in Divinization by Grace. The parts of Western theology speaking of an alleged immortality of the soul by nature (pneumatology), death as a penalty imposed by God (theodicy, a part of apologetics) along with inherited guilt (hamartiology) rather than the human inheritance of an ontological separation from or disconnect with God's uncreated Energies with its resulting estrangement or alienation is found in the West--but not of course in the East. As a result, Eastern theology is more compact and holistic, less chopped up into different subtopics than Western theology. This makes it seem less penetrable for a Western mind; it takes a bit of getting used to before one revels in it. Note especially in this connection that the subdivisions of the West's juridical soteriology—a penal Death of our Savior, satisfaction, atonement, redemption (in the sense condemned by St. Gregory [of Nazianzos] the Theologian), as well as legal adoption and virtual unity (either the Latin intentional unity or the Protestant covenantal unity) with God are missing in the Orthodox account.

The basic dogmas are those of

GOD, the Uncreated TRINITY
CREATION, WORSHIP of GOD's uncreated GLORY, GRACE,
MYSTERIES
    This section deals with the essential rôles of MATTER
    (Mysteries) and TIME (revelatory Tradition) in religion,
    or at least in the Christian religion.
SALVATION through Christ our Savior, viz. union with His
    uncreated Life (His uncreated ENERGIES, GRACE) on
    condition of right believe, right worship, and right moral
    use of the energies of Grace (Phlp. 2:13).

SOTERIOLOGY refers both to Christ's rôle and the human result in the economy. It theoretically includes subcategories of ECCLESIOLOGY, and ESCHATOLOGY, though at least the ekklēsía, the Body of Christ, is treated as a subcategory of Mysteries (spec. Ordination) and of Soteriology. It should be noticed that, since a sacrifice is an offering of the creation back to its Maker in recognition of His ownership of all, and since our Savior's Crucifixion has been the only perfect OFFERING, Christ's rôle in Salvation is not entirely distinct from latreutics, the study of Worship.
All of this overlapping will mystify many a western mind— at least the list (catechetical) mentality though not necessarily the connect-the-dots (systematic) mentality.

Practical subjects include ethics, homiletics, pastoral theology, canonics, missionizing, liturgics and music, parish administration, etc. Orthodox people are usually called worshipers, though Western believers is used too; orthodox can mean "right Worship/Glorification" or "right belief."

Juridical terms like Redemption ("buying back") and Justification (which should literally refer to an ontic "making righteous" but is normally understood juridically in the West) are seldom met with in traditional Eastern theology. For the Orthodox, Worship is what is offered to God; it is not what is offered to worshipers; hence sermons are often preached after the end of the main service.
     The Western mind will have trouble in discerning the rôle of the Life-Giving Cross in an ontology in which unity of humanity with God is found in the Incarnation and in bodily Resurrection as well as in the Sacrifice on the Life-giving Cross.  The juridical mentality quails in trying to fathom that idea the Cross was perfect Worship. Traditionallly, the expiation of 'amartía (the alienation of the cosmos in the Greek behind the Western Gloria in excelsis religious (not juridical) has yielded in the West to the idea of propitiating the divine Wrath. New-borns are not guilty of "Adam's sins."   The core of Salvation in sharing in God's Nature (2 Pet. 1:4), i.e. His uncreated Energies, and thus becoming a participator in Christ's Life as an (ontic) member of His (ontic) risen Body.
     Like mysteriology and certainly eschatology, ecclesiology and the Communion of Saints (in Heaven and on earth) will naturally be treated in the East as different perspectives on the economy, on Salvation. Eastern soteriology in fact easily embraces things that would be located entirely in practical theology in the West—Worship, asceticism, love and morality, spreading the Gospel to others. To any Westerner confined within his/her cognitive box, this all looks muddled, . . . even though reasoning from a premise to a conclusion (and from that to other conclusions) is the same in all paradigms. (It is to be noted that Great St. Vasil and St. Gregory the Theologian [of Nazianzós] had done the Aristotelian logic courses at the Athenian academy.) Once a person has looked outside of a non-Orthodox cognitive box and made the effort to see where Orthodoxy is coming from, the picture is quite attractive. The holism of energy ontology—mystericism—in Eastern theology can not only be appreciated but also gloried in. ( Fr. John Romanides [in his The ancestral sin (Zephyr Publishing, 2002)] points out, the absence of eudaimonía [philosophical "fulfilment, satisfaction, happiness," "prosperity"] in the nature of fallen human beings is a concept that avoids various pitfalls and deadends.)
     Sometimes, theology is organized in both East and West triadically, i.e. in terms of the respective rôles of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in which the Paraclete's work is the second part of soteriology . . . and as such includes not only revelation and the believer's side of Salvation but also mysteriology, ecclesiology, tradition, and eschatology.
     The first part will probably be the briefest part of dogmatics, since the Orthodox accept that God's ESSENCE is imparticipable and unknownable (and the four uns of the Chalcedonian Definition), though His uncreated Energies— through Which He relates to the economy and thus to His worshipers. The Orthodox are reluctant to say anything about the unknowable and imparticipable Essence of God except that It exists (the meaning of the Old Testament YHWH, which refers to Christ as revealed to humanity; cf. John 8:58 and Luke 1:43). A bit of developmental history may help the clarification of Trinitarian belief (with a heavy dose of Patristics), as will an analysis of the history of our paradigm differences.

Fr. Romanides (in the book cited above) observes that if Energies are not distinct from the Energies (as is the case in the West), the Essence will include existing, knowing, and willing—and the inclusion of Will in the changeless Essence leads inevitably to predestination. (Of course, one can invent latter-day progressive or developmental theologies that, in being conceived dynamically but not in "energetic" terms (energy-oriented), reverse the error of the heterodox analogia entis (analogy of being) in various ways. The Orthodox separation of God's Essence from what the West calls, or rather miscalls, God's actus or operatio keeps the issue of predestination far distant from Orthodox thinking and indeed avoids (cf. Philp. 2:13, etc., in Greek) conflicts of Grace and works that have ever bedeviled the West.

    A introductory section of a treatment of dogmatics would deal with the contrast not only with dýnamis and enérgeia, uncreated and created, and of course with changeless dogmas and the developing doctrines that energize dogmas with meanings. A bit of canonics will be necessary for mysteriology. Like most aspects of theology, the difference between authenticity (enérgeia) and validity (a dýnamis) would be approached in the Apostolic worldview rather than in terms of Western juridical form.   The Orthodox have never laid down how many Mysteries there are—something that also bemuses and puzzles Western Christians, who like for such things to be very tidy—not rather open-ended.
    Theology is said to have two methods—a positive or empirical listing of the contents of revelation (including basic hermeneutics or exegesis of holy Scripture; patrology and patristics, i.e. the holy tradition); and a theoretical (but not rationalistic) arrangement of these materials in a coherent system (on which CLICK HERE).   (On this last point, it should be noted that the relation between natural theology and supernatural theology in the West is usually predicated on a definitive contrast between reason and revelation. But how can any writing or teaching be known to be infallible unless the judge of its infallibility is infallible . . . and who other than a very errant individual Christian is the judge of what is infallible if not Christ's BODY? This is the Achilles' Heel of today's Protestantism.)
      Apologetics is the outcome of doctrinal theology. Most treatments of it show little insight into the presuppositions of many readers; perhaps Orthodox treatises on apologetics are addressed exclusively to clergy and monastics. A true apologetics would examine energy and other ontic categories that would have been deep-seated in the Apostle Paul's writings and in the writings of St. John the Evangelist, Theologian, and Prophet; and go from there to the history of how other paradigms came to dominate the West after 750 years of mostly illiterate Dark Ages, viz. from the Islamic Aristotle, the name given to Arabic studies of Greek philosophers and scientists, which began with translations at the founding of Baghdad of Greek learning into Arabic by Assyrian (Nestorian) Christians.
    Doctrinal theology would all be accompanied at a seminary with a study of this kind of history as well as the history of the Bible—the one canonized in the late fourth century by Orthodox fathers—and the Nine Ecumenical Synods of the Orthodox Church and the Standard of Belief (Sýmvolon Písteōs).

It is obvious that any Orthodox course of theological study should involve at each level a proseminar (a reading-and-discussion course correlated with a course on the history of doctrine, commonly known as Patristics, most saliently (i) Ignatios, Clement, Justin, etc., and Eirenaíos, (ii) SS. Athanasios and the Cappadocians, (iii) SS. Maximos and John of Damaskos, and (iv) SS. Symeon the More Recent Theologian and St. Gregory Palamãs. This should be the minimium, not the maxim. At any point there could be readings (iv) of the Neptic Fathers and/or the twentieth-century Athonite (Hagiorite) and other Orthodox writers.

The gravest problem is with the translations. Most of those that one has at one's disposal (even by past Orthodox translators) use translations that invoke the semantic world of the West. These are of course gravely misleading. See R297 as well as R296.

The worst (most-misleading and potentially heretical) translations confuse 'amartia (at least in the singular; it is deprivation of Grace, Union with the divine Energies) with 'amártēma ("a sin"—or with 'amártēsis "sinning") and of DIVINIZATION (théōsis) with heretical DEIFICATION (apothéōsis) . . . although the confusion of ASSIMILA- TION ('omoíōsis) in Gen. 1:26 et passim) with LIKENESS ('omoíōma and many other parallel differences) is quite reprehensible. The West also confuses mysteric (sacramental or created-uncreated), as when it speaks of the "mystic" Body of Christ. Note further that eternal is limited to non-temporal, uncreated Reality, while everlast- ing is temporal—unending time (which has a beginning!). Note that in Orthodoxy a TEMPLE (a buIlding) is not a/the CHURCH—an institution).
Incidentally, all translations of the Páter imâs (Lord's Prayer) that I have seen err here and there, sometimes significantly.

ative theology, though that is best dealt with best in the study of paradigms in a course on apologetics. The latter can have (humanly speaking) little success among intelligent people without a consideration of the (neither true nor false) axioms or assumptions that constitute paradigms, i.e. that fence in what can be true and fence out what cannot be true. For the only way to get around the arbitrariness of axioms and the paradigms they create is to consider what paradigms were possible in Hellenism. A mere listing of, say, thirty basic differences between Orthodoxy and the Latins or at least as many between the Orthodox and the Protestants makes no sense when one considers that similar terms have different imports in different thought worlds or conceptual universes— paradigms.   One needs to consider the juridical approach not simply because it is so prevalent but also because knowing what something is not often assists our understanding of what it is! The idea of a "sacrament" as a virtual sermon (or preached WORD) in Calvinism would be an interesting notion to contrast with ontological Mysteries—especially if one undertook an analysis of why the cosmos is thought to be created by a Word (rather than God's REASON or LOGOS) in the West,; or why it is that human-addressed words can be conceived of as "worship." The energetic view of ontic Grace is so vastly different from the Western juridical frameworks (cf. J. S. Romanides, The ancestral sin, which covers most of the ground of theology, though from its title that would hardly be expected in a Western framework) that nothing but cross-talk can eventuate from comparing a meaningless LISTING of allegëd likenesses and differences of different forms of religion, including the different and incompatible kinds of Christianity. . . . something that makes most kinds of ecumenics (not least, of course, reductionist ecumenics or any kind that advocates the mixing of apples and oranges from different LISTS of beliefs . . . as if that could result in a coherent whole) a waste of intelligent endeavor. Since the meaning of each item in a list is nearly always alien to a form of Christianity different from that in which it is stated, most ecumenical proposals are lost labor.
     For this reason, comparative theology should be replaced with comparative paradigmatology.
     Finally, inasmuch as no one can deny the systematicity of Aquinas's Summas— those wonders of architectonic majesty, it is important to emphasize that systematicity is not be confused with elaborated subcategorizations of subcategorizations that make the mind dizzy . . . that systematicity involves sustainable connections of individual teachings (doctrines).
     Something like the following division used to be traditional in the West:

    SOTERIOLOGY (Salvation, incorporation, etc.;² with
     CHARITOLOGY on Grace; see also Divinization sub ESCHATOLOGY]
     MYSTERIOLOGY [on the holy Mysteries/Sacraments]
     ECCLESIOLOGY (with the hardly-Orthodox discipline of ecumenics?)
     VOCATION & ETHICS (ethics;³ hagiology, aretology
     ESCHATOLOGY (and theodicy [often part of natural theology or APOLOGETICS], Divinization, etc.)

In principle one has accepted a relationship:

theory : practical : realized (energized);

for example:

dogmatics : apologetics : catechesis

ethics : moral theology : casuistry

Biblical study: exegesis and Patristics : study/preaching

¹Some include SYMBOLICS (the study, especially omparison, of creeds) under theology; but that can be no more than a data pursuit and belongs to one principal aspect of ecclesiastical history. The HISTORY OF DOCTRINE is of course an ancillary to and necessary to understanding theology.

²Western theology has elaborate juridical categories and doctrines of Atonement, Satisfaction, Justification, Redemption, Adoption, etc. (See added note below.)

³The correlate of ethics in practical theology is morality, on which see below.

If reality and dogmatic theology are concerned with the uncreated (the Divine) and the created (the economy), practical theology (a separate division of systematic theology) includes liturgics (corresponding to latreutics above), moral theology (corresponding to ethics above), mystagogy, and ascetics (with mysteriosophy, theognosia, ekstasis, aretology, etc.), as well as canonics, apologetics or polemics with apostolology (or evangelism), diacony, and doubtless other practical disciplines. (Note that the two aspects of piety are Godward, Worship, and the life of obedient love—toward others and toward God in one's own private behavior.) A further subdivision of practical or pastoral theology includes the practical arts (training) of: preaching (more formally: homiletics—so neglected in Orthodoxy, despite the example of St. John of the Golden Mouth; some Orthodox preachers in one's experience hardly try), rubrics (corresponding to liturgics), casuistry (corresponding to moral theology), as well as homiletics (cerygmatics), parish administration, counseling, catechesis or instruction (usually not in terms of sermons), ecclesiastical art—music and iconography—and so on.

If the West blends the energy-essence distinction, it dichotomizes many things that the Orthodox view holistically as organic unities. (Note that organic is built on the same root as en-erg-y and English work.)

1. Dividing monastic life into active and contemplative types.
2. Opposing reasoned theology and mysticism. (See r.)
3. Letting Atonement refer to the Crucifision rather than giving at least equal weight to the Incarnation and the Resurrection of OLGS Jesus Chist.
4. Splitting Salvation into a negative side ("Redemption" with Atonement, Satisfaction, Justification, Adoption, etc.) and a positive side ("Sanctification"), where the Orthodox typically find in Philp. 2:13, Gal. 2:20, etc. good works to be part of the whole process of Salvation through the Energies of Grace, Christ's sharing His uncreated Energies (and all that He has done of a positive or negative kind) with each member of His Body and the Spirit's energizing them to do works to please God and not lose Grace, . . . so as to arrive at the true Glory and Divinization in the Vision of uncreated Light that temporarily blinded the Apostle Paul on the Road to Damaskós.

The list could be augmented, not least with the monumentally proliferated categories of Grace formulated in the declining years of scholasticism . . . the classifying mentality gone wild like some virus transported from a desert to an environment where it can thrive.
In the Western paradigm, the Orthodox organic approach is a logical muddle. For the East, the West sunders unities in an unacceptable manner. There are various reasons why it is harder for the West to grasp the Eastern attitude than it is for an Orthodox person living in the West to understand what Eastern papophiliacs, Latins, and Protestants are saying—despite the ever-varying forms of Protestantism—even with the exclusion of Quakers, Shakers, and Christian Scientists. If you are an orthodontist, you can think holistically about approaches to teeth. But no one would get very surprised if you should get lost in trying to thinking holisitically of your work in the context of the paradigm of an ophthalmologist, neurologist, dermatologist, allergist, etc. The healing of a person's whole physical and mental and spiritual being will be awkward in a Gnostic outlook that excludes matter and time from essential rôles in religion and in an outlook that interprets the content of one's beliefs in a juridical form. Is theology (or Christian belief) a matter of organs (items in a list of beliefs) or an organism—an organic whole in which all parts and aspects mesh together with one another? A reader probably wouldn't go so far as to say that aspects of religion not focuses on (where not actually rejected) are of no use, but one would be very likely to emphasize one's focus and its various subapproaches to the detriment of others not focused on. Quite understandably and forgivably, one cannot focus one's efforts in too many directions beyond a certain expertise that oneself but not others may emphasize. Perhaps it is thus with the doctrines of Salvation. The Orthodox see little point in breaking down the work of Grace into many juridical categories in analysing the Mystery of Salvation or in simply saying that it is God's good opinion of a sinner. The East shies away from dissecting what is perceived or conceptualized as an organic whole and from analysing Mysteries—such as the Trinity and the Eucharistic Body and Blood. The West sees this reluctance as a muddling approach, one that resists the logic of analysis—and thus confuses organic thinking with fuzzy thinking. One must acknowledge that a living whole is more than an INVENTORY or summation of its parts.

Western theology divides soteriology (the study of Salvation) into complex juridical (and, in Denominationalism, non-ontological) subcategories—Redemption and Satisfaction (what Christ did to "satisfy" or pay the demands of divine justice to redeem ["buy back"] the lost); Justification (how the benefits of what Christ has done get transferred to the believer); Adoption (the legal treatment of the faithful as children of God); Sanctification (living a life of obedience to the divine will/law), etc. Legal adoption as children of God follows. These will-based categories are anything but formative of Eastern soteriology.

Lest anyone misconceive the distance of Western Christianity from Eastern Christianity . . . and hence, the reason the West cannot understand Eastern thinking as not much better than a muddle . . . it should be said that a para- digm difference is responsible, a paradigm difference that inter alia causes the terms theologians use to have incompatible meanings.
The West's view of the Crucifixion (in Pohle quoted below; its equivalent is to be found in the famous Calvinist Turretin's works) as, strictly speaking, not essential to Christ's saving work as such, is no less revealing of how Western Christians have strayed from the original Christian paradigm preserved (intact for almost two millenniums in the same language and paradigm as the Apostolic writers' language and paradigm) than is Luther's antisacramentalist paradigm.

In the following table, the left column quotes from the Rt. Revd. Msgr. Joseph Pohle's God, the Author of nature and the supernatural [Herder 1945, p. 151]) on the Roman Catholic view of the rôle of the Resurrection; on the right, is found an equally revealing passage from Luther's famous Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church :

The RESURRECTION of Christ was not, strictly speaking, a chief or even a contributing cause of our redemption. {My] Church regards the Resurrection as an integral, though not an essential, element of
the Atonement.

. . . a person can have the word or covenant and benefit from it apart from the sign or sacrament. “Believe,” says Augus- tine, “and you’ve eaten.” But what is believed in if not the word of the [Person] doing the promising? Thus am I able daily, indeed at every hour, to have the Mass; just as often as I may [be going to] will [volu- ero!]; I can set Christ’s words in front of me and nourish and strengthen my faith in them.

It would be hard to find any outlook more inconsistent with Orthodoxy than those that dominate the foregoing teachings. In Orthodox thinking, the net benefit of Incorporation into Christ through the reception of His divine and uncreated Energies (Grace) bespeaks an ontic Salvation through ontic uncreated Grace—Christ's Life. A pious worshiper will utilize this Grace in pious living or lose it through disobedience . . . disuse.
Where the Denominationist thinks of Salvation in terms of will—and the Latin in terms of both will and ontology--the traditionalist, Bible-based Orthodox Christian thinks basically in ontic terms. (See further by clicking HERE).

Eastern soteriology sees Christ's Death & Resurrection as Sacrificial (latreutic: perfect Worship on the part of a human Being; in this instance returning to the Creator a part of creation in token of the whole) and doxological as well as propitiatory; and it understands Salvation as Incorporation into (i.e. becoming one with) Christ through a believing reception of holy Baptism, the most holy Eucharist, and the other Mysteries, a sharing of the uncreated Energies of Grace and Christ's divine Life, preserved in a holy life--the ontological consequences of our union with Christ being ontologically shared by living and departed Saints—DIVINIZATION (1 Pet. 1:4) through the miraculous Vision of the true Glory (viz. the invisible uncreated Energies of Christ in the form of uncreated Light; CLICK HERE for more on light). All of this is possible because of the ontological Unity of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ. (As Ps. 35/36:9 says: "For in You is the source of Life; in Your Light, we are to see Light." For the role of Light, read about the Transfiguration in St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels, the conversion of Saul [St. Paul] on the road to Damaskos, etc. [check "light" in your concordance].) For the Denominationist, Grace is purely a change of mind, or rather of will, on God's part toward a believer, there being no ontological change; as the Reformers put it, the saved person is both saved and a sinner--by nature depraved. In Orthodox thinking, however, the net benefit of Incorporation is the reception of Christ's divine and uncreated Energies (Grace, uncreated Life); we can use this Grace in pious living or lose it through disobedience. So where the Denominationist thinks of Salvation in terms of will--and the Latin in terms of both will and ontology--the traditionalist, Bible-based Orthodox Christian thinks primarily in ontological terms. (See further by clicking HERE).those wonders of architectonic majesty. But systematicity--which has to do with the coherence of the relation of each item with the other items in the system--can rest more in specifics or be more integrated in the whole that the specifics fit into. Once one gets used to it, the latter can be as bracing as the former-- Thomas's approach. It does take getting used to to appreciate it. But that is part of becoming Orthodox.
Something like the following division is or used to be traditional in the West:

     SOTERIOLOGY (Salvation, incorporation, etc.;² with CHARITOLOGY on Grace; see also Divinization under Eschatology]
     MYSTERIOLOGY [on the holy Mysteries/Sacraments]
     ECCLESIOLOGY (with the hardly-Orthodox discipline of ecumenics?)
     VOCATION & ETHICS (ethics;³ hagiology, aretology
       ESCHATOLOGY (and theodicy [often part of natural theology or apologetics], Divinization, etc.)

In principle one has accepted a relationship, theory : practical : applicational; e.g. dogmatics : apologetics : catechesis; ethics : moral theology : casuistry; and Biblical study: exegesis and Patristics : homiletics.

¹Some include SYMBOLICS (the comparison and study of creeds) under theology; but it is a data pursuit and belongs to ecclesiastical history. The HISTORY OF DOCTRINE is of course an ancillary subject necessary to understanding theology.
²Western theology has elaborate juridical categories and doctrines of Atonement, Satisfaction, Justification, Redemption, Adoption, etc. (See added note below.)
³The correlate of ethics in practical theology is morality, on which see below.

Practical theology, a separate division of systematic theology, can include liturgics (corresponding to latreutics above), moral theology (corresponding to ethics above), mystagogy, and ascetics (with mysteriosophy, theognosia, ekstasis, aretology, etc.), as well as canonics, apologetics or polemics with missiology (or evangelism), diacony, and doubtless other practical disciplines. But unless these subjects are well-organized, above all based on doctrines, and well-balanced, they can misfire. (Note that the two aspects of piety are Godward Worship and the life of obedient love--toward others and toward God in one's own private behavior.) A further subdivision of practical or pastoral theology includes the practical arts (training) of: preaching (more formally: homiletics--so neglected in Orthodoxy, despite the example of St. John of the Golden Mouth; many Orthodox preachers in one's experience don't even try), rubrics (corresponding to liturgics), casuistry (corresponding to moral theology), as well as homiletics (cerygmatics), parish administration, counseling, catechesis or instruction (usually not in terms of sermons), ecclesiastical art--music and iconography--and so on.

If the West blends the energy-essence distinction, it dichotomizes many things that the Orthodox view holistically . . . as organic unities. (Note that the word organic is built on the same root as en-erg-y [the w of some dialects dropped out of Classical Greek] and English work, whose o-grade is the same as in Greek words formed with org-.)

1. The West separates monastic life into active and contemplative types; the East scarcely separates the fasting rules of monastics and non- monastics.
2. The West treats reasoned theology and mysticism as more radically opposed than the mysteric East does.
3. Letting At-one-ment (infrequent in Orthodox writings) refer solely to the Crucifixion rather than giving at least equal weight to the Incarnation and the Resurrection of OLGS Jesus Chist.
4. Splitting Salvation into a negative side ("Redemption"--with Atonement, Satisfaction, Justification, Adoption, etc.) and a positive side ("Sanctification"), where the Orthodox typically find in Philp. 2:13, Gal. 2:20, etc. good works to be part of the whole thing--which is Grace, Christ's sharing His uncreated Energies (and all that He has done of a positive or negative kind) with each member of His Body, energizing them to do works to please Him and not lose Grace, so as to arrive at the true Glory and Divinization in the Vision of uncreated Light.

The list could be augmented, not least with the monumentally proliferated categories of Grace in the declining years of scholasticism--the classifying mentality gone wild.
For the West, the Orthodox organic approach is a logic muddle. For the East, the West sunders unities in an unacceptable manner. There are various reasons why it is harder for the West to grasp the Eastern attitude than conversely. If you are an orthodontist, you can think holistically about approaches to teeth, but no one would get very surprised if you should get lost in thinking holisitically of your work in the context of that of the ophthalmologist, the neurologist, the dermatologist, the allergist, etc.--in short, the healing whole physical and mental and spiritual human being. It is a question of organs vs. organism--the organic whole. You probably wouldn't go so far as to say the other jobs are of no use, but you would be very likely to emphasize your focus and its various subapproaches to the detriment of the others. Quite understandably and forgivably, one cannot focus one's efforts in too many directions beyond the expertise that others depend on. Perhaps it is so with the doctrines of Salvation. The Orthodox see little point in breaking down the work of Grace into so many juridical categories in analysing the Mystery of Salvation and shies away from dissecting what the East sees to be an organic whole and from analysing Mysteries; the West sees this reluctance as a muddled approach, one that resists the logic of analysis--and thus confuses organic thinking with fuzzy thinking. The living whole is more than an inventory listing of parts.

      It has already been suggested that one can sometimes or often understand something more clearly if one delineates what it is not. Western theology divides soteriology (the study of Salvation) into complex juridical (and, in Denominatio- nalism, non-ontic) subcategories:
—Redemption and Satisfaction (what Christ did to "satisfy" or propitiate divine justice and redeem ["buy back"] the condemned—even, in some theologies, newborns;
—Justification (how the benefits of what Christ has done get transferred to the believer); Adoption (the legal treatment of the faithful as children of God); —Sanctification (living a life of obedience to the divine will/law), etc. Legal adoption as children of God follows.
    These will-based categories are anything but formative for Eastern soteriology. Eastern soteriology rather sees Christ's Death & Resurrection as sacrificial, i.e. latreutic
—a worshiper's Worship, in this instance returning to the Creator a part of creation, including one's own noûs, as a token of returning all that is
—and one's tender regard for God and all created reality).
    The Christian response to God is doxological as well as agapetic; it understands Salvation as Incorporation into (i.e. becoming one with) Christ through a believing reception of holy Baptism, the most holy Eucharist, and the other Mysteries, i.e. as a sharing of the uncreated Energies of Grace and Christ's divine Life, preserved in a holy life. These are the real-life consequences of union with Christ ontically shared by living and departed Saints, worshipers divinized through the miraculous Vision of the uncreated Glory (viz. the invisible uncreated Energies of Christ in the form of uncreated Light; CLICK HERE for more on light) . . . all of which is possible because of the ontological Unity of divine and human natures in the incarnate and now risen Jesus Christ.    (As Ps. 35/36:9 says: "For in You is the source of Life; in Your Light, we are to see Light.")
     It is not to be forgotten that light (for the blessed) and fire (for non-worshipers) are the overt manifestations of energy. One thinks of the burning bush in Exodos or halos or the tongues of fire that rested on worshipers on the first Day of Pentecost (now the Lordsday of the all-holy Trinity) after our Savior's Ascension. Consider also Christ's Transfiguration in St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels. This view of Grace is great at odds with the non-energetic (non-operativa), created (if supernatural) Grace of the Latin Scholastics or the Protestant Reformers' view of Grace as divine Volition. As Luther put it, the saved person is both saved and a sinner—by nature depraved.