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A better example would be of an office building on fire. Thousands of people are trapped inside, each at their desks looking at Internet pornography and embezzling money from the owner. The owner and builder of the building knows that his wife is in the building.

He goes to save her, finds she is looking and Internet pornography and embezzling as well. He says to her, "Wife the building is on fire and doom is impending, we must leave." She sees her husband and knows him and loves him for coming to save her.

Through his wooing she comes with him and as they leave the building the owner runs through the halls and tells everyone to flee the fire
and run for their lives. Each one of the people, however, is so wrapped up in their Internet pornography and embezzling that they
disregard the owners calls to flee their own death. In fact when they hear his calls to leave they curse his name and push toward their Internet porn and embezzling even harder.

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THE PERSON IN THE ORTHODOX TRADITION 
© Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos 

THE MORALITY OF FREEDOM AND THE FREEDOM OF MORALITY
1. The theology of freedom 
__a. The relativity of human freedom 
__b. The challenge of freedom 
__c. Freedom and fall 
__d. Natural will and will based on opinion 
__e. The freedom of the saints 
2. Freedom from death 
__a. Independence and death, according to St. John of Damaskos 
__b. The entrance of death according to St. Gregory Palamas 
__c. Sin and death 
__d. Transcending death 
3. The freedom of the nous 
__a. Freedom and nous 
__b. Freedom of the nous, according to Abba Isaiah the solitary 
4. Foolishness for Christ as a life of freedom 
__a. What are the fools for Christ 
__b. The reason for their emergence 
__c. The preconditions of foolishness in Christ 
__d. The falling asleep of the fools for Christ 
__e. Christian life and foolishness 
5. Conclusion

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We can confront the topic of freedom from many angles. The first angle is the moral one, from which man's freedom is to act without being hindered by various duties. The second angle is the psychological one, from which his freedom consists in being able to make decisions without being subjected to various influences. A third angle is the philosophical one, from which freedom is the inalienable right of man, as a rational being, to think and to act. It is also possible for all the other freedoms, social, personal, national, economic, and so forth, to be put into this framework.

Those aspects of freedom will not concern us, but we are going to examine freedom from one angle, that of theology. For we shall discover that it differs greatly from the other angles, in that it is more integrated.

It must be said from the start that independence, or freedom, is an essential constituent of man. When God created man, He gave him free will, which not even He Himself violates.

In Holy Scripture it says that man was created in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1,26). The holy Fathers have given various definitions as to just what this image is. Sometimes they refer it to man's sovereign dignity, to his superiority and his lordship over the terrestrial world, sometimes to his soul and body, sometimes to the whole man, sometimes to the ruling part of his soul, which is the nous, sometimes to his independence. All these definitions show that the holy Fathers avoid specifying one particular point which is the image, but they rather describe all the functions which express the image. In any case it is a fact that one interpretation of the image also refers to independence, which interests us here.

John of Damaskos' interpretation concerning the image is characteristic. He says that God formed the body from the earth and "by His own inbreathing gave him a rational and noetic soul, which last we say is the divine image". Extending this interpretation he says: "for 'in His image' means the nous and free will, while 'in His likeness' means such likeness in virtue as is possible". Thus 'in the image' refers chiefly to the noetic and independent. In what is to be said below we shall mostly interpret independence, freedom, because there are many misinterpretations on this subject. We shall emphasise some essential points.


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I know that I am going to show him where his analogy breaks down, I see several inconsistencies.... but I was wanting to get anyone's thoughts as to how YOU would show the analogy doesn't work as a description of Calvinism.

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This is not Calvin, Reformed, or anything Christian: "God is simply tormenting people for His own pleasure."

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"God knew His creatures would be evil," Fr. Hopko continued. "However, because of God's great love, He created them anyway.

. . .

God creates everything good.

. . .

Evil comes from creatures. Evil orginates in creatures. It does not come from God. It is not the will of God. Creatures bring evil into God's good creation by hisusing and avusing the good things given by God, beginning with their own being and life...

. . .

Evil's origin is creaturely choice.


. . .

God wills that there be evil. Although God did not create evil, God clearly wills, according to Christian scripture and tradition, that evil and sickedness exist. The fathers, interpreting scripture, make this subtle point by saying that though God does not eill evil metaphycisally, God certainly does will evil providentially. This is proven by God creating those he kew would be evil.

. . .

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Spen: I do not believe that the above is true and so I cannot be called a Calvinist by your defintion. I do consider this position as close to Hyper-Calvinism in which I stand side by side with you to oppose.

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God wills that there be evil. Although God did not create evil, God clearly wills, according to Christian scripture and tradition, that evil and sickedness exist. The fathers, interpreting scripture, make this subtle point by saying that though God does not eill evil metaphycisally, God certainly does will evil providentially. This is proven by God creating those he kew would be evil.

. . .
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AND IF EVERYTHING SEEMS CLEAR, YOU READ SLOWLY AND THOUGHTFULLY.

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Originally posted by jefscott

Spen,

I suppose the term hyper-calvinism is more appropriate. I have no ill feelings towards any Calvinists and have some as friends (you included). But I guess I'm coming from an epistemological perspective. A Calvinist should allow the same rules for argument for each side in debate. So, my question would be with respect to mystery, "When does an appeal to mystery cease to be legitimate?" to resolve apparent contradictions. For surely there are some willing to take such an appeal to extremes that you would consider invalid.

There will be passages that may seem to be contradictory superficially that you would insist have non-mysterious solutions. Indeed, the thread about God tempting is one such case. I don't yet fully understand it. You and Tom cannot agree. But none of us appeal to mystery. That is appropriate to me. We should seek long and hard with all of our heart before conceding to mystery, assumptions of non-inspiration, textual errors, etc. And with respect to the OV debate, I think one can reach plausible, non-mysterious interpretations of apparent contradictions without embracing hyper-Calvinism or hyper-OVism.

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I am not offended that there are those that seek to "solve" this mystery, especially when I see what the error that they are attempting to fight against. I just see their current arguments as providing less comfort for me than "mystery."

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