I think Protestants go in the opposite extreme - that man needs God to do EVERYTHING. Man cannot cooperate, man cannot persevere, man cannot obey the commandments. Basically, man is so corrupt that everything he does is sinful, even when cooperating with God. Thus, God tells man to "take a knee, I'll do everything". It is a strange system, as it nullifies much of Scripture's eloquent plea for man to follow God. It goes over their heads that God is calling out to man as a lover calls to his betrothed. FK, have you read the Song of Songs and some of the many Church Fathers' interpretations on them? This is a spirtualized version in very human language of God's calling to His Bride, the Church. Your version of God sounds like a strange marriage...
Regards
jo kus to kosta, FK: I think Protestants go in the opposite extreme - that man needs God to do EVERYTHING
Jo, asserting that grace is meaningless if there is no man to receive it is not extreme. Protestant total depravity is.
I have read the Song of Songs, but I admit I have not read any of the Father's interpretations. I know that the interpretation of even the theme of this book is in dispute. Some see it as you do, and others take it as more of an historical record of Solomon's love for a particular woman. In either case, it has good teachings about the proper role of love and romance before and during marriage. There are a million messages in the Bible that tell us to turn to Him and turn away from sin. That doesn't change the fact that God chose His elect from the beginning, and no message in the Bible is going to change the identity of those people. We receive the teaching, and we take encouragement, and hopefully, we will choose less often to succumb to the remnant.
As to my view presenting a "strange marriage" between Christ and His Church, I would just say that as an individual member of God's Church, I willfully submit to my metaphorical "Husband".