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To: annalex; HarleyD; Dionysiusdecordealcis; redgolum
WIthout grace our wills are captive to sin but still free; God's grace does not force, does not rape, does not coerce; it can be resisted. WE have that clarification from Augustine himself. Calvin, Baius, Jansenius willfully chose to ignore it

Awesome! Thank you annlex.

Just for the record: the Orthodox East became aware of +Augustine's works in the 15th or so century and rejected some of them (as did +Augustine himself, as redgolum points out), but did not exlcude him from Sainthood. This shows that, while +Augustine features much smaller in the East, his true teachings were never discarded. And while there are some Orhodox theologians who were unfavorably disposed towards +Augustine (just as there are reverse cases), the Church as a whole knew better.

1,005 posted on 01/11/2006 10:54:55 AM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50; annalex; HarleyD; Dionysiusdecordealcis
While I may come to regret it, I will wade in a bit here.

As a Lutheran, I believe in single predestination. Which means simply that God causes a person's heart to be opened to receive Him, but that we have the free will to reject His Grace. I can not come to Christ on my own, but we are free to leave Him.

In other words, since I was born in the 20th century in the US, I have every opportunity to find and receive Christ. If I was born around 100 AD on the steppes of what is now eastern Europe, I would probably live the rest of my life without every hearing about Christ. That is a very basic example, and not the best one, but the only one that came to mind.

Since God does not exist in time, but outside of it, the question "Does God control the future?" has little meaning. There is no "future" for God, He is the first and the last, and is not bound by time. I think that is where so much of the predestination/free will stuff goes off the track.
1,019 posted on 01/11/2006 11:50:08 AM PST by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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