Free will is not simply a philosophical definition

If you remember my first posting two days ago, I commented that I had a problem with some of my fellow Orthodox. It is in that vein that I continue the discussion.

Some of my fellow Orthodox react so strongly to Augustinianism, and its derivative Calvinism, that they go to the point of going to the other extreme and almost denying that the Fall affected our free will. That is, they treat the Fall’s effects as being mainly that we sweat while earning our bread, have pain in childbirth, and then we die. As to free will, they treat the effects of the Fall is being somewhat like getting a scrape which a small band-aid will solve. But the effects of the Fall on our free will are much more serious than that. Remember that Saint John says that we fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Please notice that two of the three have to do with the choices we make in our behavior. The world may be a sociological system, but it is made up of human beings who make choices. And, the flesh is our inner self, our passions and our damaged free will, which obscure the choices that we need to make. We may not be Augustinian, but we should not minimize the horrendous effects of the Fall on our free will. In fact, there is an Orthodox creed that tries to work through this issue.

The acceptance of the Confession of Dositheus dates to the Council of Jerusalem of 1672. But, it was originally a pastoral letter by Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem in reply to the theological battles of the Reformation. Patriarch Dositheus deliberately used the language of the West rather than of the East, in order to ensure that he was communicating his answers correctly. In the introduction to his confession he says:

Dositheus, by the mercy of God, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to those that ask and inquire concerning the faith and worship of the Greeks, that is of the Eastern Church, how it thinks concerning the Orthodox faith, in the common name of all Christians subject to our Apostolic Throne, and of the Orthodox worshippers that are sojourning in this holy and great city of Jerusalem (with whom the whole Catholic Church agrees in all that concerns the faith) publishes this concise Confession, for a testimony both before God and before man, with a sincere conscience, and devoid of all dissimulation.

In the section that has to do with free will he says:

We believe the most good God to have from eternity predestinated unto glory those whom He has chosen, and to have consigned unto condemnation those whom He has rejected; but not so that He would justify the one, and consign and condemn the other without cause. For that would be contrary to the nature of God, who is the common Father of all, and no respecter of persons, and would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth {1 Timothy 2:4}. But since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will, and the other a wrong, He predestinated the one, or condemned the other. And we understand the use of free-will thus, that the Divine and illuminating grace, and which we call preventing [or, prevenient] grace, being, as a light to those in darkness, by the Divine goodness imparted to all, to those that are willing to obey this — for it is of use only to the willing, not to the unwilling — and co-operate with it, in what it requires as necessary to salvation, there is consequently granted particular grace. This grace co-operates with us, and enables us, and makes us to persevere in the love of God, that is to say, in performing those good things that God would have us to do, and which His preventing grace admonishes us that we should do, justifies us, and makes us predestinated. But those who will not obey, and co-operate with grace; and, therefore, will not observe those things that God would have us perform, and that abuse in the service of Satan the free-will, which they have received of God to perform voluntarily what is good, are consigned to eternal condemnation.

So, what is Patriarch Dositheus saying? Well, first, he is not saying that we had the free will to simply choose God. Nor is he saying that we had no free will. Against theologians such as Florovsky, I believe that the Council of Jerusalem would say that his view of free will does not correctly reflect the Fathers, and is an overly optimistic view of human nature. Against Saint Augustine and the later Calvinists, the Council of Jerusalem would say that free will was damaged but not destroyed. Not surprisingly in the modern Orthodox era, in which Florovsky has had a large influence, quite a few Orthodox try to simply say that this was an opinion piece that need not be accepted and may simply reflect a “Latinization” of Orthodoxy. I find this quite interesting in light of the fact that those who agree with Florovsky will immediately turn around and claim that the council that dealt with Saint Gregory Palamas ought to be recognized as an Ecumenical Council and that no Orthodox believer should find any question with Saint Palamas’ teachings. I would suggest that the followers of Florovsky are playing a game of musical councils. I have little problem with the Council of Jerusalem. I have problems with Florovsky.

Nevertheless, Patriarch Dositheus says that our free will, though still existing and present, was damaged enough that God chose to give his grace to all in such a way as to ensure that we would truly have sufficient free will so as to choose God or not choose God, as we will. In other words, as a result of God’s free gift, all of us have sufficient free will to be able to choose or not choose God.  Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) phrases it this way:

In virtue of this mysterious unity of the human race, not only Adam but all mankind became subject to mortality. Nor was the disintegration which followed from the fall merely physical. Cut off from God, Adam and his descendants passed under the domination of sin and of the devil. Each new human being is born into a world where sin prevails everywhere, a world in which it is easy to do evil and hard to do good. Man’s will is weakened and enfeebled by what the Greeks call ‘desire’ and the Latins ‘concupiscence.’ We are all subject to these, the spiritual effects of original sin.

Thus far there is fairly close agreement between Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and classic Protestantism; but beyond this point east and west do not entirely concur. Orthodoxy, holding as it does a less exalted idea of man’s state before he fell, is also less severe than the west in its view of the consequences of the fall. Adam fell, not from a great height of knowledge and perfection, but from a state of undeveloped simplicity; hence he is not to be judged too harshly for his error. Certainly, as a result of the fall man’s mind became so darkened, and his will-power was so impaired, that he could no longer hope to attain to the likeness of God. Orthodox, however, do not hold that the fall deprived man entirely of God’s grace, though they would say that after the fall grace acts on man from the outside, not from within. Orthodox do not say, as Calvin said, that man after the fall was utterly depraved and incapable of good desires. They cannot agree with Augustine, when he writes that man is under ‘a harsh necessity’ of committing sin, and that ‘man’s nature was overcome by the fault into which it fell, and so came to lack freedom’ (On the perfection of man’s righteousness, 4 (9)). The image of God is distorted by sin, but never destroyed; in the words of s hymn sung by Orthodox at the Funeral Service for the laity: ‘I am the image of Thine inexpressible glory, even though I bear the wounds of sin.’ And because he still retains the image of God, man still retains free will, although sin restricts its scope. Even after the fall, God ‘takes not away from man the power to will — to will to obey or not to obey Him’ (Dositheus, Confession, Decree 3. Compare Decree 14). Faithful to the idea of synergy, Orthodoxy repudiates any interpretation of the fall which allows no room for human freedom.

===MORE TO COME===