I received questions in the comments on one of my blog posts. I answered the person but then thought that I would include the answer as a post. You will not understand the context since you do not see the questions. Nevertheless, I think the answer is understandable enough for me to post. See what you think.
“You seem to be arguing too many issues to answer reasonably and in the few words one can use in a response comment. So, I will have to summarize very briefly.
Generally, those who argue about free will or predestination go to extreme versions of the positions to argue that it does not make sense. The reality is much less simple than the extreme positions. No one has pure free will. Our free will is affected by others around us, what we learn from culture, our economic status, and even our physical status. The question is whether we have enough free will to be accountable for our actions. More than one Scripture appears to say that when he judges, God recognizes the different amounts of free will and knowledge that each person has. Thus, in Romans 1, St. Paul tells us that those who have not heard about Jesus will be judged according to what light they have received. The Scripture against teachers harming the little ones is based on the idea that little ones are less capable of thinking correctly.
On the other hand, the answer to extreme predestination positions is straightforward. If there is complete predestination, then all our arguments are useless. It does not matter what you say or what I say. If we are predestined, we have no choice but to believe and act as we do. The reality is that rare is the church that believes in either complete predestination or purely free will. The position supporting pure free will is called Pelagianism and has been declared heresy more than once by more than one church. Complete predestination has also been declared a heresy by more than one church, including the Orthodox. The truth is somewhere between the two extreme positions. For the Orthodox, we recognize that salvation requires both the person’s free will and God’s sovereign act. God’s sovereign action saves us. We are being saved through synergy, the doctrine of man cooperating with God. We shall be saved by God when he returns someday.
Does God already condemn us? I think that the actual condemnation will come at the Last Judgment. We are in a time of grace and mercy. Even when God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden, he did so that they might not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He also threw them out so that they might experience the result of their disobedience. All this so that they might return to him. In the West, we are too quick to see condemnation everywhere rather than the mercy that overflows, even amid temporal judgment. The Bible even comments that suffering brings about patience and a good result. Yet, if a person is not rich and prosperous in America, God must have something against them. And yet, the poor are called blessed, and the rich are mourned because of the difficulty in getting them to enter the Kingdom. It seems upside-down. It is the rich who are to be pitied and the poor who are to be admired. In part, our admiration for monks is based on the idea that their freely chosen poverty opens them to growth in their character and in the virtues.
Well, I shall stop here though there is much more I could say.”
Some final thoughts on the quote above are apropos. Yes, I would rather be rich than poor. In the play (and movie) Fiddler on the Roof, Tevya makes a good point and expresses our desires when he sings, “If I Were A Rich Man.” Nor do I aspire to the type of training that the poor receive any more than I aspire to be a monk. Yet, I recognize that there is a type of holiness that does come from that type of experience. In the USA, we love to cite the neighborliness of families during the Great Depression. We rarely wish to talk about lard sandwiches, bean-only meals, or soup so thinned out with water that it appeared more like clear broth. What impresses us about those Great Depression people is their practical expression of holiness. I know of no regularly told stories about the rich and the speakeasies they frequented or the mortgages they foreclosed or …
I am also aware that some poor turn to crime or drugs in despair. Some rich people happily steal from their clients, underpay their employees because they can, engage in sexual misconduct, and abuse drugs. But, in the USA, we assume that the majority of the poor are waiting to rip us off while excusing the rich for their abuses. Yet, from the Old Testament through the New, the rich, the judges, those in power, etc., are often fustigated while the call is to have mercy on the poor. If you do not believe me, do your own Bible survey.
Finally, I suppose I was predestined to write this post, which I have freely written.
Leave a Reply