You are correct, the West generally has a history of trying to define things, while the East is content with calling something a mystery. This discussion on free will and God's interaction of grace, to me, borders on the mysterious.
Other NT references have no doubt that mercy is required on our part in order to receive it from God.
I think the writers of the NT EXPECT Christians to forgive and so forth. They tell us what Christians OUGHT to do. I think they were quite aware that this was not always being done!
Regards
I have to disagree with my Catholic brother. Both East and West define things as needed. They differ in the precise way they do it (councils/papacy in differing relationship) and in frequency, at least for the last 1500 years. The West has done more defining recently (measured in centuries), but only because the West has had chronic challenges (less obedience, one might say, more stubborn invincible ignorance etc.), more church-splitting controversies requiring resolution. Definitions simply are determinations of the authentic Christian teaching made by the proper authorities to maintain unity.
Of course, unity will only be maintained if the followers of the authorized deciders of doctrine follow the decision, obey the definition. Because they have free will, some of them choose to ignore the definitions.
But the West is not any less willing to leave things less defined, as mysteries. The history of the West has required a lot more defining since the 300s and 400s. But in the 300s and 400s it was reversed: the huge controversies swirled in the East and were much less divisive in the West. The definitions were done by councils but the bishop of Rome played a key role from a distance as well.
As Islam swarmed over the East external pressure tended to harden things in the existing channels: the existing divisions going back to the 300s and 400s remained but relative unity and thus less need for definitions dominated. In the West, the absence of an external foe permitted the flourishing of Western European culture, universities, nationalism etc. but all that created repeated controversies, continuing on through the Protestant Reformation (and parallel movements with Catholicism: Jansenism, Quietism) to the Enlightenment (which challenged frontally key beliefs, which then had to be defended and defined)).
It's an ancient canard that Greeks did philosophy and art while Latins only were capable of military, legal, and engineering exploits. It's a caricature, but it persists. I think it's best left aside.