[fortheDeclaration]

None, not one, of the Fathers, even in speculation, ever held that salvation occured as you present it. It is a revolutionary innovation of the Reformers which has had, theologically speaking and as we have seen on this thread, extensive implications and effects. If fact, it appears to me that it was this very concept which allowed the Reformers to throw over all the praxis and virtually all the theology of the Western Church in favor of something totally new. Without this theory, Reformed Protestantism looses its theological foundation.

Well, that is not exactly true.

Yet in other moods, with a lack of consistency which is understandable, these writers evince a deeper sense of man's dependence upon God. Ambrose for example, states that grace is not bestowed as a reward for merit, but 'simply according to the will of the Giver'. A man's decision to become a Christian, he explains, has really been prepared in advance by God; and indeed every holy thought we have is God's gift to us. Ambroisiaster agrees with him that grace is granted freely, not in reward to any merits to ours; and Vicorinius insists most plainly that very will to do good is the work of God and owes its existance to the operation of His grace (Early Christian Doctrines, J.N.D. Kelly, p.356-357)

[Kolokotronis]

"Yet in other moods, with a lack of consistency which is understandable, these writers evince a deeper sense of man's dependence upon God. Ambrose for example, states that grace is not bestowed as a reward for merit, but 'simply according to the will of the Giver'. A man's decision to become a Christian, he explains, has really been prepared in advance by God; and indeed every holy thought we have is God's gift to us. Ambroisiaster agrees with him that grace is granted freely, not in reward to any merits to ours; and Vicorinius insists most plainly that very will to do good is the work of God and owes its existance to the operation of His grace"

This is an expression by Ambrose of the "consensus patrum" on grace, etc. It is thoroughly Orthodox. What is your point? That this means "pow, you're saved"? It is absolutely the teaching of The Church that the grace of God falls on the good and the evil equally, like the rain on the earth and that it is totally unmerited.