• Home
  • About PI
  • Sermon Resources
    • Biblical Resources
    • Theology
    • Apologetics
    • About Preaching
  • Sermons
    • Historical American Sermons
    • Patristic Sermons
      • Festal Sermons
        • Nativity of Theotokos
        • Holy Cross
        • Entrance of Theotokos
        • Christmas
        • Theophany
        • Meeting of Christ
        • Annunciation
        • Palm Sunday
        • Ascension
        • Pentecost
        • Transfiguration
        • Dormition of Theotokos
      • Lenten Sermons
        • Triumph of Orthodoxy
        • St. Gregory Palamas
        • Veneration of Cross
        • St. John Climacus
        • St. Mary of Egypt
      • Paschal Sermons
  • Webmaster Resources
  • Preachers Institute Store
  • Bible Challenges

PREACHERS INSTITUTE

You are here: Home / Author Index / Reardon, Patrick Fr. / Dynamic of Salvation or Eternal Decree?

January 5, 2014 By Fr. John A. Peck

Dynamic of Salvation or Eternal Decree?

saved

by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Since the understanding of anything—according to Aristotle—consists in the discernment of its cause, man’s freedom cannot be understood, for the simple reason that a free choice is its own cause. It is impossible, therefore, to trace the effect to the cause. Like a tautological proposition, freedom’s predicate is contained in its subject.

Freedom, therefore, is the most mysterious of everything human, and trying to understand it is the least satisfactory and most frustrating of all endeavors of the mind. Alas, an enormous amount of mental energy has been wasted in the attempt, especially in the grace/works controversies raised at the time of the Reformation.

The synergistic theology (the “cooperation” of the divine and human wills) taught by St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662)—the theology canonized at the Sixth Ecumenical Council and completely embraced in the Orthodox Church—recognizes the logical impasse inherent in the concept of freedom. Orthodox Christians prudently spare themselves the frustration of trying to figure it out.

Part of the mysterious quality of the events of salvation derives from the intersection of divine and human freedom implied in the historicity of those events. By this comment I mean to suggest two inquiries:

First, if the freedom of man is inherently mysterious (indeed, aporetic), what shall we say of the freedom of God?

Second, going one step further, who can say what happens when divine and human freedom confront one another in an individual moment of time? In other words, since we predicate freedom in God by way of analogy with human freedom—and human freedom itself is beyond understanding—how can we even begin to grasp how divine and human freedom are related to one another in the great drama of Salvation History?

RELATED  Tomb & Temple

The biblical writers themselves do not even try. They simply tell the stories of Rebecca and Abraham’s servant (Genesis 24), Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37-45), Ruth and Boaz, Jonathan and his armor-bearer (1 Samuel 14), Esther and Mordecai, Paul and his nephew (Acts 23), and so forth—without attempting to examine the “mechanics” or “meshing” of divine and human freedom. The biblical authors seem simply to accept that the synergism of Salvation History—the workings and interplay of God’s will and man’s—lies outside of human reckoning.

As though these considerations were no sufficiently puzzling, a third dilemma intrudes itself: God’s providential use of man’s evil will (sin, infidelity, apostasy) in the fulfilling of His own salvific purposes. That is to say, the theology of synergism must find some place for God’s ability to bring good out of evil, to employ “vessels of destruction,” as well as “vessels of election,” in the course of Salvation History.

Romans 9-11 is a meditation on that theme, founded on the thesis enunciated earlier in 8:28; to wit,

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

In Romans 9-11 Paul attempts to show that Israel’s failure to recognize the Messiah (a major theological problem in the New Testament) conforms to a pattern found elsewhere in the Scriptures: God, in His provision for Jacob/Israel, employed the resistance of certain opponents (Esau and Pharaoh) to make good on His promise and election.

The explicit context of Paul’s discussion is the puzzling fact that Israel failed to recognize it Messiah. This question, and this alone, is the task to which Paul directs his thought.

RELATED  The AntiChrist: An Orthodox Perspective from the Church Fathers

Paul reasons: man’s opposition to God’s will, exemplified in Esau and Pharaoh, was subsumed into His providential activity, so that a greater good ensued. How God accomplishes this no one can grasp. It pertains to the mysterious quality of Salvation History.

Much of Western theology has sought to evade this mystery by substituting another. It has removed Romans 9-11 from the dynamics of Salvation History and translated it to the realm of an eternal decree, according to which God predestines some people to heaven and some people to hell.

I suppose one can make an argument that both Esau and Pharaoh found their way to hell. However that may be, it has nothing to do with Romans 9-11.

 

 

Filed Under: Reardon, Patrick Fr., Sermon Resources Tagged With: Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, romans, st. maximus the confessor

About Fr. John A. Peck

Director of the Preachers Institute, priest in the Orthodox Church in America, award-winning graphic designer and media consultant, and non-profit administrator.
Blog; Facebook;Twitter

Preachers Institute

Recent Posts

  • The Holy Fathers on Witchcraft
  • Clothing as Missionary Work?
  • On the Essence of Icons by St. Photios
  • St. John of Damascus’ Critique of Islam
  • Approaches to God: East and West
  • Is God a Fool?
  • It’s Time to Abuse the Devil
  • St. Mark of Ephesus and the Council of Florence
  • The Filioque in Brief
  • A Pagan Records the Slaughter of the Innocents by Herod
  • The Books Will Be Opened
  • The Apostle John and the First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians
  • Nothing Strikes Fear in the Person Whose Hope is in God
  • On the Plague
  • Marriage Perfection to Rival the Holiest of Monks

Preachers Institute Archives

Preachers Institute

The Online Orthodox Christian Homiletics Resource
Fr. John A. Peck, director
Phoenix, AZ

Find what you’re looking for

The Deep Dark Archives

Vocations in Orthodoxy

Good Guys Wear Blackwww.rolex-replica.me
rolex kopior

swiss replica watches store

replica rolex
watchessaleoutlet.com
best replica watch site 2021

Copyright © 2025 John A. Peck · Designed by John A. Peck