Autumn Book Club – Part 1
In the first chapter, p.19, Clement quotes Hilary’s thoughts on Isaiah 66.1-2. I struggle with the concept of God as all powerful (ominpotence). While I would agree that God is in all and envelops all, I would disagree that God “controls” external objects — objects including humankind. In my thinking, it makes humankind out to be puppets on a string and negates the concept of free will. Perhaps, my rational mind has taken me over (teehee!). I look forward to reading others comments on this.
I agree with you that God does not control external objects. I this this missinformaiton is what fuels the fire of those who believe that things like hurricanes are God’s way at getting back at us. God is the Creator of all that we see. Creator not mover. We move and cause, God creats.
I confess, my book is still in transit and I’m antsy to get started.
Anyway, the battle of free will has been fought forever and probably won’t be settled this side of Glory. That being said, we do have scriptural references that say God both directed and had men change their minds, specifically, Proverbs 21 and the story of Moses/Pharoah. All part of the mystery, right?
I think there’s a difference between “control” and “control”, if you’ll pardon the odd phrase. I had a priest who said everything works for God’s will – the will that all men should be saved. I don’t think we need to imagine God in control of every little thing (like Ike and Gustav) but even if we do, humans have free will in the Patristic View. This is the ultimate value.
It is the ability to choose for the fathers that marks us in God’s image. This will come up later in our reading.
This insistence on Free Will was one of the things that attracted me to Orthodoxy (where even the Virgin Mary is said to have lived a sinless life not by some miracle but by her willed co-operation with God). One of my favourite Eastern Orthodox arguments against Astrology is that it violates the teaching of free will. St Gregory of Nyssa says (in his “Live of Moses”), even in the case of Pharaoh, “the Egyptian tyrant is hardened by God not because the divine will places the resistance in the soul of Pharaoh but because the free will through its inclination to evil does not receive the word which softens resistance.”
And yet even having said that – and underscoring the thread of Free Will in the fathers, there is a prayer, said daily, that reads (in part) “Teach me to treat all people who come to me throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that your will governs all. In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings. In unexpected events, let me not forget that all are sent by you. ”
I think it’s a balance, a self-contradictory both/and rather than an either/or
I would agree to its being part of the mystery! One Brethren professor commented to the seminary course I was in (many years ago) that the Old Testament appears to be fairly clear that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. On the other hand, he commented that the hardening might simply be the confirmation of a predisposition that had already been expressed in his attitude towards the Jews. What he said we cannot do is to deny that God did the hardening.
It led to a right lively discussion. If someone is predisposed a certain way (not genetically, but in behavior) cannot God decide to finish the process in such a way as to accomplish another of His goals? That is, are we making of “free will” such a high value that God cannot speak or act in the world without being accused of somehow violating free will? By that conception of free will, then I am most certainly guilty of terrible sin in my life since I have consistently violated many people’s free will. Just ask my grown daughters!
Perhaps we need to be careful how we define free will.