Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: D-fendr; Blogger
there is a loose parallel between this and the predetermined vs free will debate.

God foreknows not because the universe is deterministic, but because He is God. He simply sees the future as we see the present. For example, let us assume that the dice is truly random, like quantum mechanics teaches. Then we cannot predict it in principle: it is not a matter of computing the forces acting on the dice as it drops. But God still foreknows the dice because he plain sees it. Bishop Elias Minatios explains

If you are ill, does not God know whether you will recover or die? But just because of this is it true that you should not call a physician, refuse any medicines, and sit with your hands folded and await either health or death? In such a case you would be very unwise, even foolish. It is one thing that God foresees your healing or death (and this is certainly true). It is completely another thing to assume that God's foreknowledge grants you health or death (and this is certainly false). If you take care of yourself, you will be healed, and in the opposite case you will die. God foresees both cases, yet neither is brought into existence by God's foreknowledge. You will either get better or die. Only one of these two is true, but not determined definitively. Try to understand this more fully. God definitely foresees whether you will be in paradise or in hell. In a mirror we are reflected just as we are in reality. The beautiful are beautiful and the reverse. Likewise in God's pure foreknowledge we appear as we are in actuality, either written in bright letters in the book of life or inscribed in the eternal book of death. If we are righteous, then we are among the ranks of the righteous who are saved. If we are sinners, then we are on the list of condemned sinners. A mirror reflects our appearance. God's foreknowledge reflects our will. This is the view of St. Gregory of Nyssa: "The righteous judgement of God takes into consideration our disposition. He grants to us according to our inner feelings." A mirror, which reflects both the beautiful and the horrid, does not make them so. Likewise the foreknowledge of God, in which one is predestined for paradise, and another is condemned to torment, in actuality does not force one to salvation and the other to condemnation. "Foreknowledge of God, the Theologian tells us, is intuitive and not active." This means that you are saved or condemned, not because God foresees your salvation or condemnation, but that either by your good works you cooperated with God's grace and God foresees your salvation, or that by your evil deeds you avoid the grace of God and will suffer for it, and God foresees your torment. Thus Judas betrayed Christ not because Christ foresaw his betrayal, but rather Christ foresaw the betrayal of Judas because he intended to betray Christ.

On Predestination


8,002 posted on 01/29/2007 2:34:39 PM PST by annalex
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7992 | View Replies ]


To: annalex; D-fendr; Blogger

Excellent and very Orthodox presentation, A.


8,045 posted on 01/29/2007 6:16:28 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8002 | View Replies ]

To: annalex

on Predestination... a classic.


8,067 posted on 01/29/2007 9:21:33 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8002 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson