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To: AndrewC
The potter makes a vase, but that does not make the potter a vase nor does he have the qualities of the vase.

God is omnipotent and created man with free will. He is perfect goodness; we are not:

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The potter and the clay:
…Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour? And for this reason, that He Himself makes this or that. For He is Himself alone the Maker of all things; yet it is not He Himself that fashions noble or ignoble things, but the personal choice of each one.

And this is manifest from what the same Apostle says in the Second Epistle to Timothy, In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth: and some to honour and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.

And it is evident that the purification must be voluntary: for if a man, he saith, purge himself. And the consequent antistrophe responds, "If a man purge not himself he will be a vessel to dishonour, unmeet for the master's use and fit only to be broken in pieces."

Wherefore this passage that we have quoted and this, God hath concluded them all in unbelief, and this, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, all these must be understood not as though God Himself were energising, but as though God were permitting, both because of free-will and because goodness knows no compulsion.
St. John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith


3,794 posted on 06/23/2011 10:37:49 AM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: D-fendr
God is omnipotent and created man with free will. He is perfect goodness; we are not:

Truth.

3,805 posted on 06/23/2011 1:33:55 PM PDT by AndrewC
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