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Is Fr. John Romanides a semi-Pelagian?
By James Kelley | August 13, 2008
In a positive, loving spirit, I wanted to offer some explanation for what may seem to be a denial of God’s “total sovereignty” in Orthodox theology. Please, anyone, correct my errors, since I have never written on this before. Also, this post is hopefully not seen as a “refutation” of Mr. Jay Dyer’s comment, for he never intended his comment to be anything more than a doubt or a question about theology. I do not think that I have all of the answers, but I would like to try to explain the Orthodox position, which I think is the position of Fr. John Romanides. Here is Jay’s comment:
4. Romanides says that human free will is outside God’s jurisdiction (pg. 33). But the Holy Spirit says otherwise in Prov. 21:1. How can anything be outside God’s sovereignty? Romanides says God willed it to be so. Now I’m reminded of my former Orthodox priest’s statement in agreement with his former Bishop: “God has chosen not to know all things.” Supposedly this is a paradox. No, this is a contradiction. Scripture says that God knows the number of the hairs on our head. Androutsos proposes this same silly idea of God knowing all things only in a general sense. All of this to get away from sovereignty!
Here is what Fr. John says on p. 32-33 of Ancestral Sin:
“Man’s withdrawl from God unto his own death, like the freedom of human will, is outside of God’s jurisdiction. And it is outside of His jurisdiction by His own will. (-) God saves only through love and freedom. This point is exactly what theologians under the influence of Augustine have never comprehended. Thinking that the divine essence, energy, and will are identical, they were not in a positition to even suspect that free beings outside of God are capable of acting against the divine will. (-) As a result, it is impossible for them to seriously accept that death exists in the world as a kind of parasite apart from the will of God, and that the divine will and the salvific divine energy are not one and the same thing. God does not will death. Nevertheless, He does not act to destroy it until He has prepared men to accept life.”
Here Fr. John is not saying that God is limited in any way, but he is saying that by his total sovereignty he decides to allow creatures to freely choose to follow His will or to disobey. This protects God from being the author of evil. Surely no one believes that God wills evil, yet evil exists in the world. How is this so? Because it is God’s will that a space of freedom exists wherein man can exercise his love for God (or his love for the world). Love is not worth the word if it is not free and truly active in the lover.
Let us listen to St. John of Damascus:
“Providence is God’s will. (-) We ought to wonder at and accept the works of Providence…even if they appear to many to be unjust, because God’s Providence is unknowable and incomprehensible, and because our thoughts and acts and what is to come are known only to him. I speak, of course, about the things which are not up to us; for what is up to us does not belong to the Providence but to our own self-determination.”
[PG 94, 96A-968A]
Books could be (and have been) filled with similar passages.
May God grant us strength!
James
Topics: Determinism, Freedom, Heresy, Patristics, Prayer, Romanides, Theology, Truth |
August 14th, 2008 at 10:39 am
This is of course why monothelitism was rejected. The human will is substantial, and therefore must be assumed in order to be redeemed. Thus, Christ has two wills, one belonging to each nature. Determinism cannot explain why this is so, for the human will is merely a shadow of the divine will.
August 16th, 2008 at 12:11 am
James,
Could you drop me an email?
Thanks
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I’m not a determinist and I oppose monothelitism. I use this very argument against Calvinists. As it happens, I do believe there is a way to hold to unconditional election and God’s total sovereignty without denying that the human will has its own natural energy, as St. John of Damascus says, and which is certainly more than Fr. Romanides is willing to admit. You will find, however, that Fr. Romanides and St. John of Damascus are quite out of step on this point, since St. John says that God does bring disasters, plagues, etc. as punishments for sin, while Fr. Romanides says quite the opposite.
jay
August 24th, 2008 at 9:28 am
“Surely no one believes that God wills evil, yet evil exists in the world. How is this so? Because it is God’s will that a space of freedom exists wherein man can exercise his love for God (or his love for the world). Love is not worth the word if it is not free and truly active in the lover.”
I said this above, indicating that, in a sense, God does will all things, even though he is not the author of evil. God does not unleash evil upon man, for how could God expect us to return good for evil if He doesn’t do so Himself?
Moreover, to say that God works good sometimes, but evil and punishment at other times, is to blaspheme (I don’t think you are saying this, by the way, Jay :]), for “God is love,” and God’s energies are never hateful or evil, for they are uncreated and are a communication of the very life of the Holy Trinity. If the Fathers sometimes say that God brings natural disasters, they mean that God allows a free space of fallen reality to exist which (in a sense) does not exist according to His will, because through His Providence, God does not permit men and creation to fall into nothingness just because they have fallen into sin. Yes indeed, God holds man together in this fallen world in order to allow man to have a chance to come back to Him, but He did not cause man’s sin or creation’s fallen state. Fr. John Romanides sides with the Church Fathers against anyone who would oppune the God of our Fathers. May the Lord have mercy on us!
Jay, I appreciate this dialogue. It helps us all to clarify our points, and to articulate our positions vis-a-vis other traditions. Keep up your thought-provoking comments, and we’ll continue our discussions.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I am saying what St. John says; that there is an antecedent and permissive will towards creatures, which is exactly what St. Thomas teaches, and what I do not think Fr. Romanides would say:
“It is to be observed that it is the custom in the Holy Scripture to speak of God’s permission as His energy, as when the apostle says in the Epistle to the Romans, Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour ? And for this reason, that He Himself makes this or that. For He is Himself alone the Maker of all things; yet it is not He Himself that fashions noble or ignoble things, but the personal choice of each one . And this is manifest from what the same Apostle says in the Second Epistle to Timothy, In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth: and some to honour and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work 2 Timothy 2:20-21 . And it is evident that the purification must be voluntary: for if a man, he says, purge himself. And the consequent antistrophe responds, If a man purge not himself he will be a vessel to dishonour, unmeet for the master’s use and fit only to be broken in pieces. Wherefore this passage that we have quoted and this, God has concluded them all in unbelief Romans 11:32, and this, God has given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear , all these must be understood not as though God Himself were energising, but as though God were permitting, both because of free-will and because goodness knows no compulsion.
His permission, therefore, is usually spoken of in the Holy Scripture as His energy and work. Nay, even when He says that God creates evil things, and that there is no evil in a city that the Lord has not done, he does not mean by these words Amos 3:6 that the Lord is the cause of evil, but the word ‘evil ‘ is used in two ways, with two meanings. For sometimes it means what is evil by nature, and this is the opposite of virtue and the will of God: and sometimes it means that which is evil and oppressive to our sensation, that is to say, afflictions and calamities. Now these are seemingly evil because they are painful, but in reality are good. For to those who understand they became ambassadors of conversion and salvation. The Scripture says that of these God is the Author.
It is, moreover, to be observed that of these, too, we are the cause: for involuntary evils are the offspring of voluntary ones .
This also should be recognised, that it is usual in the Scriptures for some things that ought to be considered as effects to be stated in a causal sense , as, Against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight, that You might be justified when You speak, and prevail when You judge . For the sinner did not sin in order that God might prevail, nor again did God require our sin in order that He might by it be revealed as victor . For above comparison He wins the victor’s prize against all, even against those who are sinless, being Maker, incomprehensible, uncreated, and possessing natural and not adventitious glory. But it is because when we sin God is not unjust in His anger against us; and when He pardons the penitent He is shown victor over our wickedness. But it is not for this that we sin, but because the thing so turns out. It is just as if one were sitting at work and a friend stood near by, and one said, My friend came in order that I might do no work that day. The friend, however, was not present in order that the man should do no work, but such was the result. For being occupied with receiving his friend he did not work. These things, too, are spoken of as effects because affairs so turned out. Moreover, God does not wish that He alone should be just, but that all should, so far as possible, be made like Him.”
August 30th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Notice that he says God is not unjust in punishing us. The above quote was Bk. 4. Earlier, in 2.29, he wrote:
“Also one must bear in mind that God’s original wish was that all should be saved and come to His Kingdom 1 Timothy 2:4 . For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in His goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God. But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer punishment.”
“The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us. And the latter is two-fold; one part dealing with matters of guidance and training, and having in view our salvation, and the other being hopeless and leading to our utter punishment, as we said above. And this is the case with actions that are not left in our hands.”
Again, writes that hell is everlasting punishment and God’s will:
“But we speak also of ages of ages, inasmuch as the seven ages of the present world include many ages in the sense of lives of men, and the one age embraces all the ages, and the present and the future are spoken of as age of age. Further, everlasting (i.e. αἰ& 240·νιος) life and everlasting punishment prove that the age or æon to come is unending . For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen , is required for the complete restoration? Of all the ages, therefore, the sole creator is God Who has also created the universe and Who was before the ages.”
Now, I may be wrong, but Fr. Romanides does not speak in the way I have outlined from St. John.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Notice that he says God is not unjust in punishing us. The above quote was Bk. 4. Earlier, in 2.29, he wrote:
“Also one must bear in mind that God’s original wish was that all should be saved and come to His Kingdom 1 Timothy 2:4 . For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in His goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God. But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer punishment.”
“The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us. And the latter is two-fold; one part dealing with matters of guidance and training, and having in view our salvation, and the other being hopeless and leading to our utter punishment, as we said above. And this is the case with actions that are not left in our hands.”
Again, in Bk. 1.2., he writes that hell is everlasting punishment and God’s will:
“But we speak also of ages of ages, inasmuch as the seven ages of the present world include many ages in the sense of lives of men, and the one age embraces all the ages, and the present and the future are spoken of as age of age. Further, everlasting (i.e. αἰ& 240·νιος) life and everlasting punishment prove that the age or æon to come is unending . For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen , is required for the complete restoration? Of all the ages, therefore, the sole creator is God Who has also created the universe and Who was before the ages.”
Now, I may be wrong, but Fr. Romanides does not speak in the way I have outlined from St. John.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Sorry, delete that first one.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
The second quote in the above post is supposed to be 2.2
August 30th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
In terms of semi-pelagian, as I understand, most Orthodox don’t consider it to be a controversy. So, from your vantage point, considering the Eastern non-interest in Orange I and II and other Western condemnations of semi-pelagianism such as the Indiculus, I can’t see that it would matter to you even if he was. But that I’m not so off base in this, consider another example (though not with Fr. Romanides) that I think shows these trends are not totally off-base. I have the “Orthodox Word” issue where Fr. Seraphim Rose goes off on Kalomiros. He calls him a “deist,” and “heretic” for his insistence on going so far in asserting human freedom that it was difficult to imagine how God could really be sovereign.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
“In a positive, loving spirit, I wanted to offer some explanation for what may seem to be a denial of God’s “total sovereignty” in Orthodox theology”
No. Don’t allow the Calvinist heretics to define the terms. Sovereignty means God is the Emperor, not the petty micromanaging vassal dictator that they make him out to be. The Emperor is able to allow freedom of those below him, because there is nobody above him about to fire him. But the vassal who is on the brink of being fired by having his head chopped off can’t afford allowing much freedom. He had to keep the reigns really tight on everyone below him, because one mistake and his boss chops his head off. The Calvinists make for themselves a god who is answerable to someone higher and thus must take control of everything in the universe personally, and cannot setup any natural laws and cannot allow human freedom, because if he slips up his boss, the bigger god, will chop his head off. That is not the God of Christianity. Don’t let them define sovereignty with their twisted definition. See and know that those Calvinists, those heretics, who claim to be praising God’s Sovereignty are in fact denigrating it. Those who yell the loudest claiming to teach that God is Sovereign are in fact teaching that he is vassal. God allows free will because he is Sovereign and doesn’t have to worry about losing his job. Their god doesn’t allow free will because he is a vassal, and soon he will lose his job and burn in hell, because their god is Satan himself.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
You’re right about “defining terms.” I have no idea what Calvinists mean by “sovereignty,” I only know that, as the Fathers teach, creation is dependent upon God and God is unique in being dependent upon nothing. However, all of the Fathers teach that God created man with the power to accept salvation, which is glorification (Justin Mar., 1 Apol. 28). In some respects I may be ill-equipped to dialogue with Calvinists, or with Roman Catholics who “take their Augustine straight” (that is Roman Catholics whose Augustinianism is more Calvinistic than Thomistic) as Fr. Alexander Golitzin would put it. I can only speak in general terms about Protestant theology, and I believe that we should all follow a hard line in refusing to let them define terms. What I do is just translate what I think they mean into Orthodox terms and try to show them how they contradict themselves and how Orthodoxy is in concert with the Fathers and with what makes sense epistemologically. Sometimes I nail it and sometimes they don’t get it.
However, make no mistake about one thing: I have never in my life compromised the Orthodox Faith in my dialogues with the non-Orthodox, nor will I ever. Anyone that gainsays this is lying to himself or is misinformed.
Listen to St. Justin Martyr: “The Holy Spirit reproaches men because they were made like God, free from suffering and death, provided that they kept His commandments, and were deemed deserving of the name of His sons, and yet they, becomeing like Adam and Eve, work out death for themselves; let the interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you wish yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming gods, and of having power to become sone of the Highest, and shall be each by himself judged and condemned like Adam and Eve” (Dial. w. Trypho 124.4).
St. Irenaeus and all of the other Fathers follow this teaching: God gives man the power to accept salvation, to work out his own death and to work out his own salvation.
James
September 29th, 2008 at 12:15 am
“Let us not be astonished if the history says that the rod of virtue did these things to the Egyptians, for it also says that the tyrant was hardened by God. Now, how could he be condemned if he were disposed by divine constraint to be stubborn and obstinate? Somewhere the divine Apostle also expresses the same thought:
‘Since they refused to see it was rational to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to shameful passions’,
speaking about those who commit sodomy and those who disgrace themselves by dishonorable and unmentionable profligacy.
But even if what has been said before is so stated by Scripture, and God does in this way entirely give up to dishonorable passions the one who gives himself up to them, still Pharaoh is not hardened by the divine will nor is frog-like life fashioned by virtue. For if this were willed by the divine nature, then certainly any human choice would fall into line in every case, so that no distinction between virtue and vice in life could be observed. People live differently–some live uprightly in virtue while others slide into vice. One would not reasonably attribute these differences in their lives to some divine constraint which lies outside themselves. It lies within each person’s power to make choice.
Who it is who is delivered up to shameful affections can be clearly learned from the Apostle: It is he who does not like to have God in his knowledge. God delivers up to passion him whom he does not protect because he is not acknowledged by him. But his failure to acknowledge God becomes the reason why he is being pulled down into the passionate and dishonorable life….
…The Egyptians’ free will caused all these things according to the preceding principle, and the impartial justice of God followed their free choice and brought upon them what they deserved. As we follow closely the reading of the text at hand, let us not draw the conclusion that these distresses upon those who deserved them came directly from God; but rather let us observe that each man makes his own plagues when through his own free will he inclines toward these painful experiences. The Apostle says the same thing when talking to such a person:
‘Your stubborn refusal to repent is only adding to the anger God will have toward you on that day of anger when his just judgments will be made known. He will repay each one as his works deserve’
….even if one says that painful retribution comes directly from God upon those who abuse their free will, it would only be reasonable to note that such sufferings have their origin and cause in ourselves.
To the one who has lived without sin there is not darkness, no worm, no Gehenna, no fire, nor any other of these fearful names and things, as indeed the history goes on to say that the plagues of Egypt were not meant for the Hebrews. Since then in the same place evil comes to one but not to the other, the difference of free choices distinguishing each from the other, it is evident that nothing evil can come into existence apart from our free choice.”
From St. Gregory of Nyssa’s “Life of Moses”, Book 2, Section titled ‘The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart and Free Will’
September 29th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
What is that fruit of the Reformation, so splendid to behold, so sweet to the tongue? Is it not the fruit that was offered to our ancestors in the Garden?
If I may put things less poetically:
The doctrines espoused by the Reformation have been the catalyst of unprecedented wickedness amongst the nations that have feasted on such ideology. One is constantly reminded, in the news, of such things as: increased incidents of mass rampage murders; child kidnapping and sexual slavery; CEO’s scandalizing stockholders by hefty severance pay-offs after years of corporate mismanagement, resulting in company bankruptcy; societal acceptance of teen pregnancy as the “norm”; the proliferation and acceptance of pornography in popular culture; epidemic drug abuse; increased marital infidelity and divorce; etc.
But what does the “Reformation” have to do with any of this, someone might ask?
Answer: because it’s theology gives men and women the presumption of “salvation”, even in the absence of personal holiness or piety, by it’s insistence on unqualified “monergism”. What’s worse, is that discussions in theology are stultified by the so-called “Pelagian”, “semi-Pelagian”, “synergy” terms; appellations of which are used to demonize dissenters of Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, etc. “Ad hominem” has been the strong arm that has helped secure the footing of Reformed doctrines.
Furthermore, it tends to undermine Christianity by fostering unapologetic arrogance and pretentiousness in it’s proponents….and whose opposition often, and rightly so, reject this so-called “Christianity” for alternative spirituality or secularism; or, like me, eventually convert to Orthodoxy.
The “fruit” of the Reformation stands as the best witness against it.
So, when you shave off “free will” from the foundations of spiritual experience and salvation, you won’t get a “better society”, “utopia”, “reconstructed Christian theonomy”, “freedom from bourgeoisie oppression”, “obedience to the social contract”, or any other post-Reformation/Humanistic hope.
What you will get–to borrow Charles Taylor’s phrase–is the age of chaos we now live in: “a Secular age”.
Orthodoxy’s insistence on “freewill” dovetails nicely with the idea of “sovereignty” because a King only rules “subjects”, not “objects”; and if you eliminate “freewill” (qua substantive personal action) from anthropology, you no longer have a “subject” at all. And so “freewill” broadens “sovereignty”; in fact, it’s the only thing indicative of it (i.e. sovereignty).
In what sense can mankind be said to be “in the image of God”, if not in his/her freedom to act? Why does the Apostle Peter say that we “become” persons who partake of the Divine substance, if God is already “determining whatsoever comes to pass”? This verse, by the standards of Reformed theology, implies that God changes; because human “will” is only an extension of the Divine “will”. In truth, this would mean that there is only one “will”: God’s.
And this has two damnable theological conclusions: monophysitism and, by proxy, monotheletism.