[kosta50]

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

That is consistent with the Orthodox/Roman Catholic teaching: God loves us more than we love Him, so He always makes the first move. And we either accept His offer or reject it.

I can not come to Christ on my own, but we are free to leave Him

Again if this is the teaching of the Protestant churches then I don't know who all these other people are on this thread.

It may interest you that the Lutherans approached Constantinople on several occasions in the 16th century shortly after Luther's death. When Austria began to use Lutherans in its administration towards the end of the century, the Austrian ambassador to Istanbul was instrumental in getting a response from the Greeks on their Augsburg profession of Faith. Earlier attempts were ignored because they were a source of embarrassment for the Patriarch. Cornered by the politics of the day, +Jeremiah II, Ecumenical Patriarch, basically rejected the Confession on three times and then broke off permanently with Lutheran divines.

One thing that struck me when reading this was the fact that originally the Lutherans ensured the Patriarch that their differences were minimal and basically geographical:

"Lutheran divines added a letter, in which they said that, though because of the distance between their countries there was some difference in their ceremonies, the Patriarch would acknowledge that they had introduced no innovation into the principal things necessary for salvation; and that they embraced and preserved, as far as their understanding went, the faith that had been taught to them by the Apostles, the Prophets and the Holy Fathers, and was inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Seven Councils and the Holy Scriptures." [Benz, Wittenberg und Byzantium, pp. 73ff]

Nowhere does it say by Bible alone or sola scriptura. So, it appears to me that some of the Protestants of today are second-derivaitives of original Lutherans who apparently were struggling to contain their runaway denial of all Church authority and that splinter groups within the movement gave birth to Protestant-Protestants with little theological semblance to the original version.

Thanks for sharing your views.

[Kolokotronis]

I have sat this one out for a couple of days now, not only because I have been busy but because so much of this thread seems to be contesting with those whom our forefathers in The Faith would, without qualm, call heretics. You all remember the words of +John Chrysostomos in his Homily VI on Titus:

"By contentions," he means, with heretics, in which he would not have us labor to no purpose, where nothing is to be gained, for they end in nothing. For when a man is perverted and predetermined not to change his mind, whatever may happen, why shouldest thou labor in vain, sowing upon a rock, when thou shouldest spend thy honorable toil upon thy own people, in discoursing with them upon almsgiving and every other virtue?

How then does he elsewhere say, "If God peradventure will give them repentance" (2 Tim. ii.25); but here, "A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself"? In the former passage he speaks of the correction of those of whom he had hope, and who had simply made opposition. But when he is known and manifest to all, why dost thou contend in vain? why dost thou beat the air? What means, "being condemned of himself"? Because he cannot say that no one has told him, no one admonished him; since therefore after admonition he continues the same, he is self-condemned."

However... among the things which struck me as this thread has gone on are a couple of images of God which are presented here. One, that of at least some of the Protestants, is of an ominpotent, wrathful being, a God to be saved from rather than by, as I said sometime back or Kosta's rather capricious puppet master. The other is our fully omnipotent, yet fully transcendant, loving God. The images we all hold of God, speak volumes about what our Church or their assemblies are teaching. I'd like to suggest, however, that among the other ways The Church speaks about our Triune God and the way that the Holy Spirit moves in our lives is this piece of almost pure Athonite spirituality, from Archimandrite Sophrony (+1993), the disciple of +Silouan the Athonite:

"The Holy Spirit comes when we are receptive. He does not compel. He approaches so meekly that we may not even notice. If we would know the Holy Spirit we need to examine ourselves in the light of the Gospel teaching, to detect any other presence which may prevent the Holy Spirit from entering into our souls. We must not wait for God to force Himself on us without our consent. God respects and does not constrain man. It is amazing how God humbles Himself before us. He loves us with a tender love, not haughtily, not with condescension. And when we open our hearts to Him we are overwhelmed by the conviction that He is indeed our Father. The soul then worships in love."

"...God humbles Himself before us." "He approaches so meekly that we may not even notice." Isn't that extraordinary? The Pantokrator humbles Himself before us! And if this is true, and I sincerely believe it is, then how can it be that this God who meekly approaches us with humility to infuse us with His uncreated energies is the source of the arrogance of individual men who proclaim that they, sua sponte, can divine the meaning of scripture better than the consensus patrum, or in the Western terminology, the Magisterium, of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church established at Pentecost?