“Obviously you did not read the excellent article by Knapp....”
But I did read it HD. Its not what The Church in either the East or the West teaches, especially what the Church in the East says. The West, of course, is sort of stuck given the level to which that Church has raised Augustinian theology. But even the Latin Church doesn’t teach this. It may be that Knapp is on to something, something which tends to establish that Augustine really was a Manichean heretic his whole life. In any event, his notions of perseverance are not at all within the consensus patrum. My comment to FK, however, was directed towards his interpretation of the passages from Mark & Matthew.
“However the East and West pick and choose what church father’s writings to accept.”
Not Orthodoxy, HD. The consensus patrum does that.
“In the case of perseverance, there is overwhelming evidence the early church fathers wrote extensively about this subject and agreed that, if chosen by God people will persevere.”
The Fathers call for that perseverance and point to it as an object lesson. The Fathers do not interpret it as modern protestants do nor as some others in the West have since the 11th century. The consensus patrum does not teach that the “elect” will always persevere. But then again, the Fathers’ notions of “election” were rather different from those of Calvin or even Augustine.
“This just simply does not fit the Orthodox/Catholic doctrinal belief which tries to get people to go to church to receive grace, so it’s discarded.”
HD, that would be the Latin Church, not Orthodoxy. You are mixing the two in an area where the Churches have very different beliefs, namely the “nature” of grace.
“Yet it was the fathers position that if a person was saved they would WANT to attend mass. It wasn’t the other way around that you needed to attend mass to be saved.”
The “Sunday Obligation” and “Holy Days of Obligation” are Latin innovations. Nothing like those have ever existed in Orthodoxy, HD. Your fight is with your religious parent, not the odd aunt from across the Adriatic!
“But then there’s another church father that probably was wrong. ;O)”
+Paul? Precisely! :)
1) Thus there is no actual "consensus patrum" if you just gave two church fathers who disagreed.
2) "Elect" refers to those who have been chosen by God to receive His grace. If someone does not persevere until the end, then by definition they were not among the elect in the first place.
God is not imprecise.
"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" -- Philippians 1:6
Perseverence, Kolo, assumes a couple of things.
First, we must decide if we believe in regeneration or rehabilitation.
Second, we must decide if God is fickle or decisive.
If we assent to regeneration and decisive, then we must come something close to a Calvinist understanding of perseverence.