Your will counts for nothing.
Do we need to wonder what the will's "counting for something" might be? What do we "want" from our will, or what is outraged by the concepts of predestination and election, so Biblically attested (I would say) that we cannot simply blip them out?
I may be disagreeing with you (or maybe not), but I am not asserting the contrary. I am wondering about the posing of the question, about the irreconcilability of predestination and election. If there is "thesis" of predestination and "antithesis" of freewill, then I am searching for the reconciling aufgehebung (is that a word?).
-- Heck, when, as happens with increasing rarity, my wife and I waltz, one might say she has no will, since I (being, as I am, a very manly man) "lead". But I always try to be rich in praise for her, since I think following must be harder than leading.
-- Also, I have served as acolyte in a variety of Episcopal churches, from basement level, low-church Virginia parishes to the Cathedral in San Francisco (in the early '70s when they, or some of them, still believed in God there.) I tried to conform my demeanor, my 'style' to that of the parish where I served, to anticipate the needs of the celebrant, and to be alert to any unusual situations that might arise.
-- As an acolyte and as a priest, my desire was for invisibility, transparency. A service where anyone but the priest noticed my 'work' was one in which I had failed. A service where a parishioner said, "You celebrate beautifully (or clumsily)," or "You preach well (or poorly)," rather than "Alleluia, God is great!" was one in which I had failed.
Does that shed some new or useful light on the question?
When we "fall" in love, it is not clear, to me, whether the impetus is endogenous or exogenous. Maybe I jumped in the torrent, maybe the torrent threw up a wave which swept me in. It is not clear, it is also not important.
Similarly, since my childhood I have longed for God. I do not think I 'chose' this. (The longing did not get in the way of my spending some years in lotus land, but the delights there could not make the longing go away -- and, besides, they all turned to "dirt and hair" after a while anyway.)
I won't say that longing was my choice, something I willed. But certainly my "will", such as it was, endorsed it. I also long for donuts, but that longing is against my will, and I resist it - with greater or lesser success.
I also, in some sense, make war against my own longing for God: I think about other things, I am distracted, I may even seek distractions, or, say, lose myself in anger and resentment or some other earthly and fleshly delight.
When I resist my longing for donuts, sooner or later (like the next time I weigh the corpse) I feel that resisting my longing was freedom. When I resist (with, as it seems, an alien resistance) my longing for God, I don't feel free.
Deus omnipotens, cui servire regnare est
Just because I'm inarticulate and confused is no reason to be all reasonable and everything!
You are neither inarticulate nor confused, MD, so drop the pretense of humility. :)
Do we need to wonder what the will's "counting for something" might be?
Sometimes that might be helpful.
What do we "want" from our will, or what is outraged by the concepts of predestination and election, so Biblically attested (I would say) that we cannot simply blip them out?
You know, we all operate on the same principle, "feels-good, feels-bad," but the only difference is what feels good and what feels bad. Otherwise, we desire that which feels good.
As for Biblical predestination, yes there is such a thing, but the Orthodox (and I am pretty sure the Catholics as well) would say it is basically God's knowledge of our choices, not a choreographed script what we will do because God forces us to.
God gave us freedom precisely because no one can resist God's will. Robots can't love. He also gave us free will knowing that we can> resist the will of the devil. The "elect" are those who ask for God's help and submit to His will, willingly. We can do that by being restored through Baptism
If there is "thesis" of predestination and "antithesis" of freewill, then I am searching for the reconciling aufgehebung (is that a word?).
Predestination is the antithesis of free will only if the former is used to make decisions for us, rather than be a knowledge of the latter.
Aufgebung is a word, well sort of (see Hegel), but it is not spelled Aufgehbung, as that would imply more like "climbing" (up+going). Geben is to "give" and gehen is to "go." But you won't find Aufgebung in a dictionary. I believe Hegel used it as "synthesizing
Similarly, since my childhood I have longed for God. I do not think I 'chose' this. (The longing did not get in the way of my spending some years in lotus land, but the delights there could not make the longing go away -- and, besides, they all turned to "dirt and hair" after a while anyway.)
We all long for "love," whatever that love may be in our hearts. We also know that there is no universal definition of love (or God) and that it is whatever we behold inside that makes us feel 'loved."
It is also part of our nature, knowing time, that we wish what we love and what loves us to be forever, to never end, precisely because we love it! So, as we get older and wiser, we look for permanence and even eternity.
When we are young, the whole life is ahead of us (or so we think) and eternity doesn't play such a prominent role. We love the world and the world loves us. But no matter how you paint it, love is the "feels-good" of our motivational mechanism. We want it, we cling to it, we return to it, we long for it. But "it" is many things to many people.
When I resist my longing for donuts, sooner or later (like the next time I weigh the corpse) I feel that resisting my longing was freedom
I am not sure I follow what you mean by "resisting my longing...like nest time I weigh a corpse" but it is not entirely clear why your resisting of donuts was freedom. Freedom from what?
When I resist (with, as it seems, an alien resistance) my longing for God, I don't feel free.
Then why do you resist?