"Man's free will always leads to sin (before theosis anyway). But, you said above that free will is a divine attribute. How is this reconciled?"
As I said in an earlier post, theosis is an end state which some attain and very, very few of those in this life so by our definition of theosis, free will has little meaning because once one attains a state of theosis, one's union with the uncreated energies of God necessarily means that one's own will has been substituted by that of God. During the process of theosis, our personal free will can lead us to grace or sin. Prior to being sealed at baptism and chrismation, our free will cannot be exercised in a manner which will be efficatious for theosis. Thus, we are born distorted by the Sin of Adam in such a way that we cannot become like Christ by an exercise of our free will or otherwise on our own account. At baptism and chrismation, we are transformed by grace in such a manner that we can, but won't necessarily, exercise our free will in a way which does foster the process of theosis.Thus during the process of theosis we are quite capable of sinning.
Remember what the English word "sin" is a translation of, the Greek word "amartia" which means "to miss the mark", the mark being Christ, which is a rather different concept from that in the West. Prior to baptism and "sealing", we are incapable of hitting the mark no matter how hard we try. Once we have been baptized and sealed we are restored to the Pre Fall state of Adam of potential theosis.The process of theosis is that process by which we die to the self and become wholly like Christ, even to His death. In that process when we hit the mark we advance in theosis, by the exercise of our free will and conversely, when we miss the mark we fall backwards.
Thus during the process of theosis the divine attribute of free will can be used for profit or loss but upon theosis that divine attribute can only be used for goode since our will becomes totally identified with that of God Himself.
"BTW, and as an aside, you totally outed yourself as a lawyer in your # 2217. :) (I'm nonpracticing.) I had always suspected because of your writing, but after 2217 I knew."
:)
I think I am stuck on your calling free will a divine attribute. Jesus never sinned, yet we all do, through our free will. As you said, we even sin after Baptism, during the process of theosis. Therefore, I don't understand how free will is a divine attribute because sinning is obviously not divine. By this reasoning, you might say that Jesus could have chosen to sin, but didn't. I would say that while Jesus did have free will, He never had the potential to sin within Him, so He "couldn't" have.
Remember what the English word "sin" is a translation of, the Greek word "amartia" which means "to miss the mark", the mark being Christ, which is a rather different concept from that in the West.
OK, then would you equate sin with "evil", as I would? Or, is "missing the mark" more like mistake, or something else? How do you see the concept of evil?