DETHORNING THE ROSE THAT SO MANY CALL A TULIP

A few months ago I posted an entry addressed to David Talcott regarding Calvinism. He has just responded to it. My question was "Why are you a Calvinist?" His back seems to be "Why aren't you one?" and "You're really a semi-Pelagian, aren't you?"

*grin* In answer to the latter question, I have to say that I'm not sure. I'm can't claim to be familiar enough with semi-Pelagian doctrine or the representatives of the movement (who are they anyway? St. John Cassian? Who else? Though I suppose the fact that I call him a saint says at least something about your question). But my impression has been that semi-Pelagians spoke in the same categories of EITHER works OR grace as did the Pelagians and Augustinians, and hence, though they may have been trying to say the same thing I am trying to say, I don't think it worked. But again, I can't claim to know what precisely they asserted.

So here's my own go at the issue. In my personal effort to articulate the Orthodox approach to salvation vis a vis Calvinism, I would like to latch onto something David suggested fairly hesitantly here as he examined the matter.

He said, "I'm wondering if it's problematic for me to say that God elects people in virtue of nonmoral facts about them. The Calvinist can't allow that someone do something to merit God's favor, by why can't other facts about them be relevant to God's electing?"

I'm not sure what David will end up saying about this hypothesis of his, but for my part, I think this idea just about sums up the Orthodox perspective. Indeed, if a Calvinist can allow himself to say this, most, if not all, of the logical imperatives imposed (and so often objected to) by the Calvinistic system disappear.

Consider, if you will, this rough analogy of the typical Calvinistic position proposed here by Sam Nicholson in his post contra Calvinism.

Sam says, "Imagine a ruler who has the power to remit your (deserved) legal punishment. He chooses, for inscrutable reasons, to have you executed in the most horrible fashion imaginable. There are others, equally deserving of the same punishment, who, for inscrutable reasons, he invites into his palace for a lifetime of luxury. Perhaps you could find some solace in knowing that there is some reason somewhere for this, but I think it would be more of an occasion for anger and despair."

Agreed. But if we tweak it with David's suggestion, we might add that the ruler informed you and all the other prisoners that you have only to request pardon from him and your horrible death sentence will be completely remitted.

I think we will all agree, however, that this tremendous offer is not quite as simple as it might seem at first glance. It cannot suffice simply to repeat the words, "Pardon me, my Lord" to gain the reprieve. If it were so, one would need only to say those words, regardless of intent or understanding (you could even say them in a language you don't understand). No, the catch, in the Christian system, is that we must genuinely desire pardon. And this is what we Christians are accustomed to call "repentance." It is not an action nearly so much as it is a state of being. Note that it is not enough to desire merely the reprieve. As we stand in the dock, what we lack to be saved is the genuine desire for our judge to pardon us. We must desire to escape our guilt itself, not merely its consequences.

For that is, ultimately, what the Ultimate Judge offers us. The opportunity to be free, if we only wish it. This is no good word, no moral act, but simply a state of being which acknowledges guilt and years for purity. And it is this which God asks of us, this true repentence without which there is no salvation.

Let us say without reservation that even this true desire, this genuine repentance, is a gift from God. But it is this gift, and it alone, which we have the responsibility to grasp, lest it slip away. This is God's call, His offer of grace, and it is here that we are given the option whether or not to resist it.

Let us examine this moment, this singular, pivotal moment in the life of a man, this moment where our will and God's grace meet, this moment which only one can win. In this one moment we stand on the edge of the knife. Whether it is a moment of sin, a moment of judgement or a moment of quiet, God's offer comes to us, soft and yet crystal clear. We have only to ask, we are told, and all will be forgiven, all forgotten. Only ask. In that moment we feel welling up within us from no recess of our heart that we have ever known the desire to let our will go, to die to ourselves, to turn toward that voice and repent. It does not come from us. It too, like the offer itself, is a gift And there in the depths of our very being we face the choice--do we embrace and feed the Godly desire, or the self-will?

And that is all.

For the Orthodox, of course, a man's life is filled with these moments, from the first time the grace of God is proferred until the last time it is rejected. Or, until the moment when we finally accept the grace of God with a whole heart, our prayer for mercy is answered and we are with Him.

The process is one of simple Repentance. Or, it could be as truly said that it is one of humble Faith. But then, for the Orthodox, Faith IS Repentance, and the two, as one, are the essence of the Christian life.

It is because of the countless times that God-fearing men and women have lived this out in the two millenia of Christian history that the Orthodox deny the five points of Calvinism as understood by Calvinists. It is because the Scripture came alive with truth and consistency and meaning (even Romans 9) for each of those men and women as they surrendered their will and bowed to Christ that the Orthodox are unimpressed by the Calvinist's array of proof-texts.

Nonetheless, it is strange to note that, when put to practical use, Calvinism is most used to invoke a spirit of repentance and utter dependence upon God. It is thus strange that the Orthodox are condemned for refusing to accept the notion that nothing is demanded from man in order for him to be saved, when it is precisely this spirit of repentance and utter dependence upon God which we say is the ONLY "work" which man contributes towards his salvation. And yet, with this simple statement we escape all the hassle of the either/or controversy of faith vs. works, escape the need for TULIP's great thorn, Limited Atonement.

But what of your fasts, your much-vaunted "ascesis," you may say? What are those if not "works" to earn salvation?

For this, let's go back to the analogy of guilty prisoners and a merciful judge. Suppose that the prisoners are offered this grace several weeks before they are to come to trial, are told that, when brought into the dock, they have only to ask for forgiveness, and truly desire it, and they will be set free. What will those prisoners do?

No doubt some will hear, briefly weigh the offer with the pleasure they hope to enjoy once reprieved, and try to figure a way to hoodwink the judge with false sincerity.

Others will be struck to the heart by the mercy and weigh their old life with the new and understand the choice that is before them. When they come to judgement, they must truly throw themselves on the mercy of the court. And that means that they must really desire that mercy, that grace. No doubt their manner of life will change almost instantaneously. They will no longer curse, no longer joke, no longer fantasize about what they might do when they are free. They will struggle with all their might to realize and remember the enormity of the choice, the starkness of the chasm between their old life and the new one offered to them. They will recall to their minds their former sins and drive them as daggers against the desire for more. They will eat less, lounge less, talk less and complain less. Rather they will spend every moment of every day doing all they can to ensure that, when their moment in the dock comes, every fiber of their being will be behind those words "Father, I have sinned--forgive me!"

And when they say those words, they will not be forgiven because they fasted, because they did not curse, because they no longer sin--they will be forgiven because they alone truly asked.

Every spiritual father worth his salt throughout the history of the Church has reminded his disciples not to get carried away with ascesis and forget that it is ONLY a means to an end. Those works merit nothing, earn nothing, are worth less than nothing unless they produce true repentance in the heart of a man. Every father reminds his children that, when Judgement comes, if they think that they have in the least earned their salvation, it is utterly lost to them.

Which is why, as I say, it is strange that the Calvinists condemn the Orthodox, when the only work we ask of ourselves is to look to God and say with absolute sincerity that we have are worthless and empty and completely dependent upon Him for not only our salvation, but our very existence.

The only work of salvation is to realize that work earns us nothing.

Does that make us semi-Pelagian?