I have been recently studying various works of theology in my European History course, and recently I have stumbled upon the works of Calvin. A common misconception of Calvin's predestination doctrine is that Calvin believed that God picks and chooses who is saved, who isn't, and man can't do anything about it. What I came to find is that I was actually incapable of properly addressing Calvin's actual theology. I am sure our Church has something enlightening to say about it, but that I do not know..so I shall explain my concern.
Calvin's logic essentially flows from God's omnipotence. If God is all-knowing, and all-powerful, is He not capable of seeing the future? If He does, in fact, see the future, then does He not know who is going to go to Heaven and who is not? Of course arguing about this in class aroused other issues of God's omnipotence and I am fully aware that although God is omnipotent, and can do all things, He cannot, for instance, destroy Himself. And that does not limit His power, but perfects it. As of all-knowing--with regards to who is saved and who is not--I cannot find the proper Orthodox argument. What is our argument against "predestination" if Calvin's predestination was never undermining man's free-will, but merely expressing God's power? Help would be appreciated.
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That is to say that man, because of the fall, can do nothing good - including accepting God into his heart. He can only accept God when His grace works in Him, and when it does it doesn't leave him but transforms him and ensures his salvation
So basically, according to Calvin, no one can get to heaven without God's grace. All those who receive God's grace attain salvation. Not everyone is saved. Ergo, God choses certain people who will be saved while the others burn in hell for eternity.
Do a google search for the acronym T.U.L.I.P.
Orthodoxy does recognise that God's grace is needed for salvation, but we must accept this grace freely. Furthermore, God grants His grace to all who are willing to receive it, not just a select few.
I think, when talking about this subject, we need to be careful in our terminology. First off, let's define what we mean by 'predestination'. According to the Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary, predestination means: This means that God has decided beforehand (without giving man a chance) what a person's fate is. This is certainly not the case. One thing we need to be aware of and differentiate between is the knowledge of God and the Will of God. The Will of God is for all man to repent and accept His free gift of salvation. However, God knows that will not happen. This is like a professor who sets an exam. He wants all his students to pass, but he knows that will not be the case. Some students will study hard and do well, while others will slack off and fail. It is no fault of the professors. Another thing to realize is that God does not 'foresee' anything, as it were. God is not bound by time, He stands outside of time. As such, He has the past, present and future all before Him. So, God doesn't foresee because He doesn't look into the future. Rather, He is already there and so He sees the future unfolding.
Another thing about predestination is that, if it were true, then man does not possess free-will. How could he if everything has already been decided for him? Man would simply be a puppet on a string controlled by an invisible puppet master who holds the strings. We would possess the illusion of free will, in that we would be faced with decisions that have already been made for us. If this were true, then Genesis would be lie when is speaks of man being created in the 'image and likeness' of God. The only way God's plan for us can come to complete fruition is for us to willfully submit our wills to His. However, God never imposes His will on us, even if it is infinitely greater then we could possibly imagine. As such, the only being capable of hindering God, of, in essence, tying His hands, is man.
Another lie in Scripture would be that God is love. How could Love send that which is loved to eternal damnation? Is that love? How could Love create something only to watch that creation be deprived of Itself (i.e. love)? Surely this would not be a God of love. Do parents have children only to inflict unspeakable torture on them? Do parents have children to enslave and torment day and night? Certainly not. Parents have children to unleash the everflowing love within them. They wish to shower them with all that is good and wonderful, wanting the very best for them. However, do all children respond? Of course not. Some reject the love of their parents and rebel. The same is true of us with God.
Let us attend to what Christ Himself says, 'If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!' (Matthew 7:11).
Arius, Nestorius, Macdonius, Apollonarius and the rest of the heresies were academics and researchers more than men of God, and therefore they fell into heresy also they offered systematic "religions" that conformed to the philosophy of their times and seemed quite coherent.
Luther and Calvin are no exception, having cut themselves from the True Faith they had to compromise their belief to allow for their limited logic and unlimited interests to take over. Yes, and the next logic question is: "How is there free will then, if one is bound to hell or heaven?"
I asked Abona Kyrillos of Baramus monastery, now Bishop Macarius, this question many years ago and H.G. replied: " God's attributes such as His foreknowledge, mercy and justice are beyond man's understanding. " H.G. continued: " I know that God is omniscient and also just and will judge me with justice, how it plays out and the relation between both attributes is not my concern."
H.G. Bishop Macarius is not only a man of God, a man of prayer who has guided thousands of young Copts in Egypt through their spiritual life being the head of the popular retreat center in Baramos monastery, but also a great scholar with great biblical expositions on the book of Maccabi. Yet H.G. knows his limits.
Ultiamtely, however, apophaticism, as theology in practice prevails amongst many of our faithfiul nevertheless, in my opinion. The simple piety, founded upon fear of the Lord--which is in turn inspired by awe and trembling at His magnificent transcendence--that generally marks the life of the traditional and devout Copt, reveals the true work of the Spirit that enables the Church to live apophatic theology in spite of the general present state of ignorance concerning the secondary matters pertaining to its intellectual articulation and its historical development.
In my experience with those who evidence a thorough intellectual familiarity with apophaticism, many are so caught up in cerebral orgasms regarding the mystical and exotic quality of this feature of Orthodox theology, as well as a zealous eagerness to promote this aspect of their theology to those outside their respective faiths, that they end up failing to express this theology in a manner useful to their own souls. Ultimately, their actions are counter-productive to true apophaticism for they seek to investigate the notion that God cannot fully be understood, for the sake of fully understanding God as a God that cannot fully be understood. They seek to understand the paradox, in order to resolve the paradox of how it is God can be known and yet not known, experienced and yet not experienced. It's a subtle irony I have noticed quite frequently. Unfortunately, as our own faithful begin to investigate deeper in this matter, many of them are likewise falling into the same error.
The point I am trying to stress here, is not that intellectual articulations of apophatic theology are not important in any way, but that they are not necessary for, and can even serve, if approached the wrong way, purposes contrary to, truly living apophatic theology. That the EO are leading the way in the present with respect to research and publications on the matter, does not suggest that our Church is any less apophatic in its theology, when 'theology' is taken to mean 'the manner in which one experiences God the Logos'.
In any case, one of our own brilliant theologians of recent times, H.G. Paulos Mar Gregorios, spoke extensively on apophaticism in his studies on St Gregory of Nyssa. From the EO Church, the authors that come to mind are Lossky and Bishop K. Ware--the latter probably being an easier read for the common layperson.