The Ecstatic Dance of

Salvation
Thawing Out the "Frozen Chosen" of the
Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination

Paper by Aaron W. Friar

Dogmatics II with Fr. Emmanuel Clapsis

Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology

November 30, 2009

Aaron W. Friar 2

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both

to will and to work for His good pleasure.1 Within St. Pauls terse summary of man's

salvation lies a dilemma, or perhaps an apparent contradiction: If we are commanded to

work on our salvation, and if God is effecting in us both our power to will and the

performance or mode of that willing, then what part remains to be played by man in his

own salvation? How does he reciprocate the divine activity within him? Does he exercise

choice in attaining the virtues, or does the second verse of the above passage imply

somehow a negation of the first?

Orthodox theology, as best represented by St. Maximus the Confessor, St. John

Cassian, and other fathers, preserves both human free will and divine providence. The

Protestant theology of John Calvin, by contrast, rejects or severely limits the possibility

of the former on the basis of a certain false understanding of the latter. The difference

between the Orthodox and Calvinist positions on human autonomy rests upon what St.

John of Damascus said was the root of all heresy, " that heretics look upon nature and

[hypostasis/person] as the same thing."2 This confusion of person and nature works by

either equating the proper distinctions belonging to each category, or by rendering those

distinctions as dialectically opposed.

In Calvin's case, God's foreknowledge of our personal future choices is equated

with His predestination of the natural order. Following upon this equation, God's grace is

thought to predestine the entirety of a person's individual choices and to accomplish all

the work of salvation so that the only thing left to the person is faith; a person's works

then are rendered in opposition to this bare faith. What distinguishes Calvinism from

1
Philippians 2:12-13, NASB.
2
Damascus, St. John. Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Chapter III, Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers,
second series, vol. 9, Hendrikson Publishers, Inc.: Peabody, MA 1999.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 3

other forms of Protestantism on this point is the teaching that God predestines some

persons to everlasting life and some to everlasting damnation.3

In this paper, I propose first to elucidate the Orthodox position of human freedom

and divine providence in salvation; to explain the Calvinist position on the same; and to

show how this heresy can be cured by restoring the proper synergistic distinctions and

their interplay in the two-sided dance of salvation.

Freedom of Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor

Referring back to our Pauline verse, St. Maximus would affirm the possibility of

fulfilling the command to "work out your salvation" because the Confessor makes a

fundamental distinction between things within our power (belonging to a person's mode

of willing) and things outside our power (belonging to nature). Simply put, Philippians

2:12 refers primarily to the former, while verse 13 refers primarily to the latter.

How then does the human will operate vis a vis our nature, and upon what is it

based? St. Maximus would ground the ability to will in our nature; i.e., we are given the

potential or capability of choosing by definition of our humanity. While the ability to

choose is a function of our nature, our mode (tropos) of willing or how we use this ability

is a property of each individual person.4 It is on this personal level that we work out our

own salvation by living the ascetic life and striving to attain the virtues.

Predestination and foreknowledge then are distinct divine energies. St. Maximus

is very clear that, "God's foreknowledge pertains to thoughts and words and actions

3
This pure form of Calvinism is sometimes called "Hyper-Calvinism" because many who espouse the
doctrines of John Calvin seek to mitigate him on this point.
4
Farrell, Dr. Joseph. Free Choice in Saint Maximus the Confessor.
St. Tikhon's Seminary Press: South Canaan, PA, 1989, p. 163.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 4

which come from us. Predestination pertains to those accidents which do not come from

us."5 The former aspect relates to our person and includes things within our power, while

the latter aspect relates to nature and includes things not within our power.

The interplay between God's work, which is outside man's power, and a person's

faith and works, which are within his power, is the Orthodox doctrine of synergy.

Synergy can be pictured as a kind of dance in which the head of the line is Christ and

each person is invited to be a partner in a long line reaching into eternity. Because Christ

has adopted a complete human nature, truly all persons who share this common nature

are able to dance in Him and with Him. Synergy represents the fundamental freedom

with which God created man and, because of this freedom, human persons are

intrinsically ecstatic, open to God and other human beings Humanity is not a static,

timeless reality. Human beings are understood in relationships; they are in process of

becoming persons as they relate in love with God and the world.6 The synergistic dance

or ecstatic relation of love is best summarized by the serenity prayer of Alcoholics

Anonymous, "Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change [not within

my power], the courage to change the things I can [within my power or mode of willing],

and the wisdom to know the difference." This wisdom is discernment, the core of the

spiritual life which places our human knowledge/opinion below our relationship to God

and those placed in authority over us. We come to know and are known by God in

synergy. Calvinist teaching, on the other hand, elevates discursive knowledge above this

5
"Dispute at Bizya" in Maximus the Confessor and his Companions: Documents from Exile, p. 79.
Edited and Translated by Pauline Allen and Neil Bronwen, Oxford Early Christian Texts.
Oxford University Press: Oxford & New York, 2002.
6
Clapsis, Rev. Dr. Emmanuel. The Gift of Salvation, Class Notes, Fall 2009, p. 86.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 5

relational discernment.7 In the end, Calvin and his disciples achieve a kind of rationally

consistent formula for salvation, believing in the completed work of God in Christ, but

they sacrifice true human freedom on the altar of their system.

The Frozen Choice of Calvin's Predestinated Persons

Calvin's doctrine of predestination begins with a confusion of person and nature.

The key verse of the doctrine is, "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to

become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among

many brethren."8 Blessed Augustine in his commentary on this verse equates

foreknowledge and predestination and concludes, "To predestine is the same as to

foreknow."9 Calvin takes this identification one step further, by making the following

deduction: If God foreknows our future actions, and if predestination is the same as

foreknowledge, then God predestines all our future choices.

From this syllogism follows what scholars have labeled the five points of

Calvinism. For purposes of our discussion, I will only elucidate three of these points that

relate to freezing the personal mode of willing. The three points are: 1) Total

Depravity- that human nature in the fall is completely frozen by sin and rendered

incapable of turning toward God, 2) Unconditional Election- that our will is also frozen

and only God can choose some to be saved and others to be damned, 3) The Perseverance

7
As a former Calvinist, I remember how our church used to criticize Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12
step programs because they lacked a correct theology, and without this, we said, a person could not even
begin to help themselves.
8
Romans 8:29, NASB.
9
Augustine. Ad Romanum Expositio, 8:29; Augustine in this and in other anti-Pelagian writings, makes too
much of the activity of divine grace on the sinner. He merely begins the confusion which is later worked
out by Calvin, et. al. Later, Augustine rescinds these exaggerated teachings about grace, humbly accepting
the correction of his fathers and brothers in the faith.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 6

of the Saints- that human nature and will shall remain frozen into eternity, and that the

Elect are thus protected from ever losing their salvation.

Total depravity is based on the Western doctrine of original sin which teaches that

in the fall, Adam destroyed God's image in himself and rendered all of his offspring

personally guilty for his first sin of disobedience. The upshot of this teaching is that our

collective human nature becomes utterly depraved in Adam and completely incapable of

choosing God. The Westminster Confession, an accepted creed of Calvinist and

Reformed Protestants, summarizes the state of an unregenerate person:

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any
spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether
averse from good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert
himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.10

Notice first that Adam's fall is seen not as a rupture in his relationship with God

primarily, but as a fall into a static state. This frozen state can only be overcome by

something supernatural, above and even in opposition to the natural state. God's grace

thence becomes an invading force which does for a person what he is unable or even

unwilling to do for himself.

Unconditional election is the method by which God chooses or elects some

persons to be saved and others to be damned. Again the Westminster Confession:

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels
are predestinated to everlasting life, and others are foreordained to everlasting
death. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly
and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it
cannot be either increased or diminished.11

10
Westminster Confession, Ch. 9, Sec. III, quoted in The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine
Boettner, Eerdmans Publishing, 1932. Online at www.ccel.org/ccel/boettner/predest.html.
11
ibid., Ch. 3, Sec. III.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 7

Two things here are important: 1) That God must completely initiate redemption with

absolutely no cooperation from man, and 2) That salvation is thus something which

happens to a person passively. This frozen human will, overcome in the beginning by

supernatural grace, is thought to be empowered to act after being redeemed, but only as

the natural fruit of the original supernatural act. Loraine Boettner explains this activity of

the redeemed Christian:

As long as the believer remains in this world his state is one of warfare. He
suffers temporary reverses and may for a time appear to have lost all faith; yet if
he has been once truly saved, he cannot fall away completely from grace. If once
he has experienced the inner change which comes through regeneration he will
sooner or later return to the fold and be saved.12

In other words, the battle has already been won and all that the Christian has to do is to

rely on that reality. The 'warfare' which Boettner speaks of is only a mopping up of

isolated insurgents and nowhere close to the unseen warfare described by many Orthodox

fathers.13 This passive view of spiritual struggle is why a person often says, "I got saved,"

as if salvation were a kind of elite commercial product (Got milk?) that one either

possesses or does not possess. Since good works and striving for virtue are seen as

natural fruit, there is a sense that Christian life means merely existing among the "frozen

chosen." Something which comes naturally, by definition, requires no work.

Unconditional election extends into eternity with the doctrine of the Perseverance

of the Saints. Again, it is summarized by Boettner:

Regeneration is a radical and supernatural change of the inner nature, through

which the soul is made spiritually alive, and the new life which is implanted is
immortal. And since it is a change in the inner nature, it is in a sphere in which
man does not have control.14

12
Boettner, Loraine. The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Chap. XIV, Sec. III. Eerdmans Publishing,
1932. Online at www.ccel.org/ccel/boettner/predest.html.
13
Parallels with the current political situation in Iraq are eerie.
14
Ibid., Chap. XIV, Sec. I.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 8

This doctrine is also called eternal security and "once saved, always saved." A person

who in fact falls away from faith falls into one of two camps: 1) He is temporarily

backslidden and will return in time to his first love, and 2) He is an apostate who never

had grace to begin with. In either case, reference is always made back to the one-

moment-in-time regeneration of a person's individual nature (notice the person/nature

confusion), and any human free will is subsumed under this overwhelming Divine Will.

Thawing Out the Frozen Chosen

How did Calvin proceed from Augustine's original equating of foreknowledge

and predestination to his predestination of persons? Calvin teaches that instead of

redeeming the human race by nature, God only predestines individual persons, some for

eternal life and others as eternal objects of wrath and damnation. We are not to question

the sovereignty or choice of this rather capricious 'god' who in the Calvinist dialectic

seems more like Zeus than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What went wrong?

The best place to begin is with Blessed Augustine himself, who later in his life

retracted the confusing identification of foreknowledge and predestination and reasserted

the vitality and distinction of both faith and works:

In reviewing his Expositio Quarundam Propositionum ex Epistula Apostoli ad

Romanos, Augustine corrects an earlier incorrect view of the genesis of faith; he
now asserts that both faith and works are gifts from God and also that both are the
results of the exercise of the freedom of the will.15

It is clear from other fathers contemporary to Augustine that salvation need not be looked

at in such a linear and intellectual way, always requiring divine initiation and human

15
Eller, Meredith. "The Retractions of Saint Augustine" in Church History, vol. 18, No. 3, Sept. 1949,
p. 177.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 9

response, but that divine grace and human free will are meant to dance ecstatically

together in harmonious rhythm:

These two things that is, the grace of God and free will certainly seem
mutually opposed to one another, but both are in accord, and we understand that
we must accept both in like manner by reason of our religion, lest by removing
one of them from the human being, we seem to contravene the rule of the
Church's faith.16

What is the rule that the saintly father refers to but the life of the church, the daily

experience of ascetic struggle? The person engaged in this holy struggle has no time to

figure out what part of salvation is his and what belongs to God. As Fr. Seraphim Rose

writes:

To Christian experience and in particular to the monastic experience from which

St. Cassian speaks, there is no "contradiction" at all in the cooperation of freedom
and grace; it is only human logic that finds the "contradiction" when it tries to
understand this question much too abstractly and divorced from life.17

In working out salvation with the assistance of divine grace, what is sought by the

Christian should not be an abstract "state of grace", but an active relationship with the

living God in the person of Christ.

Concerning ascetic labor, St. Simeon the New Theologian clearly states that the

true purpose of works is neither as ends in themselves (i.e., merit points), nor as the mere

"natural fruit" of an already accomplished act:

For all such and so great sufferings of evil should be undertaken not so as to come
into the blessed state [i.e., merit], but in order to preserve the blessed state which
we received before through Holy Baptism [i.e., preserve the relationship]

And in the future life, a Christian will not be tested as to whether he renounced
the world, whether he fasted, whether he performed vigils, whether he prayed,
whether he wept, or performed any other such good deeds in the present life; but

16
Cassian, St. John. The Conferences, (XIII:4), Translated & Annotated by Boniface Ramsey: Ancient
Christian Writers No. 57, Newman Press: New York, 1997, p. 477.
17
Rose, Fr. Seraphim. The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church, St. Herman's Press: Platina,
CA, 1996, p. 41.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 10

he will be carefully tested as to whether he has some likeness to Christ as a son to

his father [emphasis mine].18

St. Simeon says that God does not redeem us by supervening or overriding our nature

which he fashioned from of old. "He does not change their nature, but causes only that

they, as long as they are in union with the fire, are themselves fire."19

Finally, a modern Orthodox father of Romania, Elder Cleopa Ilie addresses the

doctrine of eternal security:

The truth is that Christ has brought salvation to everyone, something that
theologians have labeled general (or objective) salvation. And yet, everyone does
not actualize this objective salvation, but only those who seek and pursue it

While objective salvation is granted to every human being [predestination],

subjective or personal salvation depends on the intent of man. Those who desire
to be saved and work toward the goal, receive divine grace as their aid and guide.
This grace does not work in us violently; rather it abides with us perennially as a
specific offering for the work of our salvation.20

As St. Paul says elsewhere, "God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to

the knowledge of the truth."21 We have seen from the preceding that this "all" is not

conditional, but truly means the entire world which the Lord created. We ought not

foreshorten the divine vision with a myopic heresy concocted by our own limited

understanding.

Such attempts to presume upon God's mercy can be met with one of two

responses as characterized by the following reflections. In the first, a poem by Charles

Wesley, the predestination doctrine is directly assaulted for its inhuman and even satanic

qualities. In the second, a reflection on faith and works by a saint, we see perhaps a better

18
St. Simeon the New Theologian. The First Created Man, St. Herman's Press: Platina, CA, 1994, p. 54.
19
Ibid., p. 73.
20
Elder Cleopa. The Truth of Our Faith, Uncut Mountain Press: Thessalonica, Greece, 2002, p. 163.
21
I Timothy 2:3,4 NASB.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 11

and final response to the doctrine, viz. maintaining the humility of silence and going

within. This, we must always remember, was the Lord's response to those who falsely

railed against him, and if we are to be his disciples, it must ultimately be our response.

Appendix: Possible Effects on Calvins Christology

Before I close, I want to say a few words about the undigested side of my research

into Calvins theology, namely his Christology. Given all that has been said about

Calvins soteriology and anthropology, one might suspect somewhere the same riddled

Christology which dogged the Nestorians, monophysites, and monothelites of old. While

Calvin pays lip service to the Orthodox conclusions of the Seven Councils and casts

appropriate dispersions on the established Christological heresies, I suspect a more subtle

undercurrent in his exposition of the classic perichoresis, or interpenetration of the two

natures in Christ. Because he considers essence/nature prior to person, his Christology

enters the Institutes almost like an afterthought. The Person of Christ, far from being the

cosmic center-point of salvation, as He is for St. Irenaeus for example, retains his divinity

in Calvin, but becomes the subject of his own unchangeable and eternal decree. In what I

read of Calvin, I discerned no trace of St. Maximus helpful distinctions in the human and

divine will, but perhaps I did not read enough.

In a future paper, I would hope to advance the thesis that Calvins primal

consideration of nature over person, and that nature being compelled/determined, forces

him into binding the free will of Christ to an a priori disembodied will of an abstract

godhead. But for now, my evidence is scant and inconclusive, so I defer to my betters

or to a later and more profitable time of research into this important topic.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 12

The Horrible Decree

By Charles Wesley

Sinners, abhor the Fiend

His other Gospel hear:
The God of Truth did not intend
The Thing his Words declare,
He offers Grace to All,
Which most cannot embrace
Mock'd with an ineffectual Call
And insufficient Grace.

The righteous God consign'd

Them over to their Doom,
And sent the Savior of Mankind
To damn them in the Womb;
To damn for falling short
Of what they could not do,
For not believeing the Report
Of that which was not true.

The God of Love pass'd by

The most of those that fell,
Ordained poor Reprobates to die,
And forced them into Hell.
He did not do the deed
(Some have more mildly raved)
He did not damn them but decreed
They never should be saved.

He did not them bereave

Of life, or stop their breath,
His Grace He only would not give,
And starved their Souls to Death.
Satanic Sophistry!
But still All-gracious God,
They charge the Sinner's Death on Thee,
Who bought'st him with Thy Blood.

They think with Shrieks and Cries

To please the Lord of Hosts,
And offer Thee, in Sacrifice
Millions of slaughtered Ghosts:

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 13

With New-born Babes they fill

The dire infernal Shade,
For such they say, was Thy Great Will,
Before the world was made.

How long, O Lord, how long

Shall Satan's rage proceed?
Wilt Thou not soon avenge the Wrong,
And crush the Serpents Head?
Surely Thou shalt at last
Bruise him beneath Thy feet:
The Devil, and his Doctrine cast
Into the burning pit.

Arise, O God, Arise

Thy glorious Truth maintain,
Hold forth the Bloody Sacrifice
For every sinner slain!
Defend Thy Mercy's Cause,
Thy Grace divinely free,
Lift up the Standard of Thy Cross,
Draw all men unto Thee.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 14

Prayers by the Lake

By Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich

LXXXIII

People carry on foolish conversations as soon as they move away from Your presence,
my Wisdom. Those without faith speak about works, and those without works speak
about faith.

Each disparages what he does not have, and what he does have he proclaims throughout
the marketplace.

While You, O Lord, are filling my home with Your life-creating breath, I always forget to
ask which is more important -- faith or works? As soon as I offend You and feel
abandoned by You, I angrily enter into people's discussions, and support one side or the
other.

For without You I am like a weather vane on a chimney that rattles in the direction of the
wind. When the wind of faith rises in my soul, I stand with those who have abandoned
works and championed faith; when the wind of activity rises in my soul, I support the
side of those who have abandoned faith and championed works.

But in Your all-calming presence there is no wind, no swaying, no "doing things." I

neither feel faith nor see works; instead I feel and see only You, the living God. In truth,
You are not my faith but my vision. And You are not my doing, but I am Your doing.
And again I say: You are not my faith but I am Your faith, and Your trust.

And so I teach those around me who are carrying on the debate: whoever has true faith in
the Living God prefers to remain silent. And whoever performs a true work of God,
prefers to remain silent. But whoever shuts up his faith with his mind, gladly squabbles
about faith. And whoever does his own work and not God's gladly boasts of his works.

Deep is the tranquility of the soul in a man of faith, deeper than the tranquility at the
bottom of the sea. For God's Wisdom is born and resides in deep tranquility.

Deep is the tranquility in the tongue of one who does God's work, deeper than the
tranquility of the iron in the heart of a mountain. For whoever does the work of another
listens to instructions and carries them out, moreover he listens, and has no time to speak.

I speak believing in works: Is not my prayer a working and reworking of my very self? Is
not the whole world within me, from beginning to end, together with all the world's
poverty and impurity? Truly I am not without works, when I sweat and weep in prayer,
but am immersed in the weighty task of helping the poor in my soul -- healing the sick
and casting out the unclean spirits from my soul.

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.

Aaron W. Friar 15

I speak believing in faith: Do I not awaken faith in my neighbors through the good works
that I do?

Is not my work in the world the song of my faith, the psalm of one saved among the
unsaved? Who would stop the song in the throat of a brimming soul? Who would stop a
brimming spring from flowing? Would the nymphs who guard the spring quarrel with the
nymphs in the spring's stream over which water is more beneficial? Truly, if there were
no spring, there would be no stream.

O my Lord, do not go far away from me, lest my soul succumb to meaningless quarrels.
Silence in Your presence expands my soul; discussions in Your absence shrink her and
expend her to the thinness of a boon of flax.

I listened last time to the people squabbling, and You waved your hands and went far
away. Indeed, those who truly have faith do not squabble with those who are true doers of
Your work. This is the quarrel of servants with little faith and much ill will. Those who
are of little faith squabble with the errand boys of the world. They are a dried-up spring
quarrelling with a dried-out stream.

While they were full, they both used to sing a true song of joy, and joyfully used to hail
each other.

But this is a malicious believer quarrelling with a malicious doer. What do I have in
common with them? What ties me to them except compassion, which flows forth from
Your radiance?

Fill the house of my soul, O Life-Creating Spirit, so that I may become blind and not see
angry squabbling people, and so that I may be deaf to their foolish discussion.

They have slipped away from You, my Joy, therefore they engage in foolish discussions.

I bow down and beseech You, tie my soul across the thousands of sunbeams to You, lest
she slip away from You, and plunge into the cold abyss.

Online at www.sv-luka.org/praylake/index.htm

Copyright 2009, Aaron W. Friar. All Rights Reserved.