www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West what is grace?

In the Western Rite of the Catholic Church, we have a sort of Pelegian view of grace i.e. you do something good; go to church, pray, give alms to the poor, and God gives you grace in return and that when you die if your soul is full of this grace you go streight to heaven if not you have to stop at Purgatory. Where also I know that the concept of grace among Evangelicals is that grace is the unmerited favor from God. I am interested as what is the Eastern Point of view, I think that it should be a cross between the two extreems, but I would like to hear what you'all have to say about it.
Please be easy on me, I am just trying to learn. God Bless
Ted

Before delving into any distinctions between East and West, about which the more theologically versed will be more helpful, it is probably worthwhile to correct your impression of the "sort of Pelagian view" of Western Catholicism.

Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06689x.htm

there is also sanctifying grace, received in the sacraments by the holy spirit.

Dear Ted,

Actually, Pelagius (or "Morgan of Wales") would have been theologically closer to the Eastern Church!

"Pelagianism" is a heresy that says that grace is not absolutely needed in order to live a virtuous life (!).

But Pelagius got into trouble in his day because he, like the Eastern Churches, didn't accept the "stain of Original Sin" of St Augustine's teachings and also didn't accept that grace was completely absent from us at our conception.

That doesn't mean that we don't need grace, it is just that we are born with it - Original Sin did not ravage our nature as much as Augustine believed it did.

The "works" emphasis in Western theology was formerly developed to counteract that view of Protestantism concerning "faith alone" - which to Catholics meant "by knowledge alone."

John Wesley himself became an Arminian and opposed Calvinism which he saw as guilty of preventing us from appropriating the means of grace in order to further our personal sanctification in Christ by the Spirit.

The "works" of prayer, fasting, reading the scriptures etc. were and are necessary for the acquisition of the Holy Spirit - as St Seraphim of Sarov often taught.

The East can sometimes be seen as more "passive" in this respect, but the asceticism of the East is second to none.

We must take an active participation in our own Theosis.

Alex

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Alex is right. I would only add that the most difficult problem with Augustine's notion of grace is that it is conferred only upon a select few and is not made universally available.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Ted, if I may be so bold, I suggest that your description of the Western understanding of grace and works is completely wrong--at least at the level of theological and catechetical formulation.

The Catholic Church is clear that salvation is accomplished by God's unmerited grace. I refer you to the Catholic Catechism [scborromeo.org] . Also see the Lutheran Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification [vatican.va] . Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism were emphatically rejected in the West at the Council of Orange [creeds.net] (529).

It's customary on Orthodox sites to criticize Augustine; but he remains the central ecumenical theologian on grace. The Church did not follow the later Augustine's view on double predestination, on which he is rightly criticized; but the (Western) Church has embraced, rightly IMHO, the dual position that (1) the salvation of man is accomplished by God as an act of unconditional grace and mercy and (2) man is free under the action of grace. Thus, grace is a true mystery.

I continue to find the typical Orthodox presentation on grace to be lacking. It seems to me that Orthodoxy stopped its reflection in its response to fatalism, where it rightly insisted on the free will of man. But Scripture and the Gospel demand that we think more deeply on this. And no one, with perhaps the exception of Martin Luther, has thought more deeply on God's grace than the Doctor of Grace. And whether post-schism Orthodoxy likes it or not, Augustine is a saint and doctor of the Church whose theology of grace decisively shaped the Church.

IMHO Orthodoxy is better on grace in reality than in its theology. The Divine Liturgy is a liturgy of grace and wonder in which the communicants are given the great gift of our Lord's body and blood and thus participation in the life of the Godhead. This is grace and is the presupposition for all ethical and ascetical summons to good works, whether ethical or ascetical.

The key question really is this: At the end of the day, after we have listened to the sermons of our pastor and participated in the Eucharist, are we thanking God for the great gift of salvation in Christ, or are we worrying about what we need to do to secure that salvation? If this is our key question, then I suspect that many congregations, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, fail the test.

Grace is everywhere.

Terminal cancer may be by the grace of God, if it leads us toward salvation.

Grace may sometimes be hard to accept, but it is ultimately good for us.

In Christ,
Andrew

Bless me a sinner, Father Kimel!

Well, I don't think anyone in the East would question St Augustine's sincerity in espousing the doctrine of Grace!

That is not what the East chides him for but for his view of Original Sin and its impact on human nature.

And not only the East! John Cassian and others in the West disagreed with him as well in this respect.

Perhaps he felt that to underscore the central importance of grace in our lives that human nature must be portrayed as completely ravaged by the Sin of Adam.

The East disagrees and disagrees with the notion that we can inherit an actual "sin" committed by someone else - rather than the effects of that sin on the nature we share with our forefather, Adam.

The difference in these views are made known also by the West's need to define Our Lady's Immaculate Conception or that she was free of the stain of Original Sin.

The East sees that as completely unnecessary.

The Church already celebrated the "Conception of St Ann" and to do this liturgically already implied that Our Lady was conceived in holiness as only the feasts of saints may be celebrated.

Augustine is venerated variously by the Eastern Churches - the Greeks call him, "St Augustine the Great." He is elsewhere referred to as "Blessed Augustine."

It is really only recently that Orthodox theologians seem to have "demoted" Augustine within the polemical context of theological arguments with Roman Catholicism.

But, in fact, his writings on matters other than the Psalms and other commentaries were never widespread in the East. He is, in fact, a Father and Doctor of the West.

Alex

Fr. Kimel:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

With all due respect, the idea that Augustine has perfectly expressed THE Christian doctrine of grace and that the Orthodox East should / must accept his formulation is pure bunk. His teaching on gratia Dei gratuita represents a rather one-sided (if nonetheless at times brilliant) reading of the Pauline corpus, one that effectively denies the need for fallen human beings to respond, freely, to the divine offer of salvation. The Augustinian doctrine of grace (prevenient and subsequent, sufficient and efficacious) does not represent the teaching of the ancient Church or of the Scriptures. It stands instead as a necessary corollary of Augustine's peculiar, even idiosyncratic, but not fully scriptural theological anthropology. His view of man departs in two significant respects from the Catholic / Orthodox / early Church / Greek Christian conception of human nature: first, in its more pessimistic calculation of how much of man's original nature was lost through Adam's transgression; and second, in its contention that humanity inherits not just the consequences of Adam's sin (death and concupiscence) but also his guilt. Augustine argues that we have all been justly condemned because we were all in Adam when he sinned.

Augustine's doctrine of grace becomes necessary because he fervently held to the idea that fallen man is incapable, on his own, of achieving “any good thing” (On Grace and Free Will). We are nothing but “a lump of sin” (To Simplicianus), brought down to the level of the beasts by Adam's unfortunate attempt to place himself at the center of the universe. We suffer from “a certain necessary tendency to sin” (On Nature and Grace, 79) (N.B. the idea of necessity). The only way out of this predicament is something supernatural, something that will give man both the ability and the will to believe in God, to maintain that belief, and to grow in faith. All of these are the work of God's grace. Whether man adds anything at all to this process, in Augustine's judgment, seems unlikely. He thus writes: “And thus God willed that His saints should not – even concerning perseverance in goodness itself – glory in their own strength, but in Himself, who not only gives them aid such as He gave to the first man, without which they cannot persevere if they will, but causes in them also the will; that since they will not persevere unless they both can and will, both the capability and the will to persevere should be bestowed on them by the liberality of divine grace” (On Rebuke and Grace, 38).

While the Greeks never argue that grace is unnecessary or that we can somehow merit grace by our purely human efforts, they do assert, contra Augustine, that grace is made available to all men not just a select few. Thus Chrysostom: “[a]ll human nature was taken in the foulest evils. "All have sinned,' says Paul. They were locked, as it were, in a prison by the curse of their transgression of the Law. The sentence of the judge was going to be passed against them. A letter from the King came down from heaven. Rather, the King himself came. Without examination, without exacting an account, he set ALL men free from the chains of their sin” (Discourses against Judaizing Christians, II.i). If grace is given only to the elect, how do we make sense of the fact that God ”desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2.4)? Do we say, as Augustine did, that God desires all of those whom he has foreordained to be saved to be saved?

The Greek Fathers also assert, contra Augustine, that God's free gift of grace can be resisted by man (Cf. Augustine, on Rebuke and Grace, 10, 38, 45). We need to respond freely, personally, to God's offer of reconciliation and deification. The power and potential to break down “the wall of enmity” that stands between us and God has been given, once and for all, through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. Reconciliation has, in other words, been achieved. It is now our job to plug into that power through the sacraments and to actualize the potential in our everyday lives. That does not mean that we accumulate sufficient merit to earn salvation. It means that we respond, as free human creatures, to God's offer of salvation and work with His will that we should become “gods.” If it is God alone who compels us to respond, and we add nothing whatsoever to that response, what is man but a deity's puppet?

More important, how do you square Augustine's doctrine of grace – which is, in reality, as Pelikan notes, a new doctrine of fate since “man can do nothing but sin unless God infused a new inclination into him against his will” – with the fact that the relationship God has destined for us is love, which must be free or else it is not love?

If the Orthodox Church has not developed a systematic doctrine of grace, it is only because the salvation of man is, ultimately, a great mystery, one that our fallen human minds cannot fully comprehend. The Fathers were content to state the following: (1) that God's grace is absolutely necessary for us to be reconciled to Him and to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1.4); and (2) that man must, of his own free will, accept God's grace. It is Augustine who pushed too hard and gave us a teaching that renders every moral exhortation, every command to work out our “own salvation in fear and trembling” (Phil. 2.12), essentially meaningless. Those given God's grace cannot reject it; those denied God's grace cannot get it. Even if grace restores free will, as Augustine sometimes suggests, it is not the same kind of freedom that Adam and Eve had – the freedom to choose obedience or disobedience. Yes, it is a higher and better kind of freedom, but it is not one that is made universally available. Human life thus becomes a staged play in which the Director makes the actors do what He wants them to do.

I'm sorry, but Augustine was wrong and so were those Reformers who followed him.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Alex:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Do you consider Cassian to be "Western"? I thought he was born in Scythia Minor, became a monk in Bethlehem, studied monasticism in Egypt, and was a deacon to Chrysostom before moving to the West.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Dear Theophilos,

The West was lucky to have him!

The argument over Augustine, of course, was held in southern Gaul and bishops of southern Gaul came to Cassian's defence.

Certainly, Cassian brought much information about Eastern Christian patristics and monasticism to the West, but his tiff over Augustine prevented him from being venerated as a saint beyond Marsillius or Marseilles.

He is truly of the East and once a Scythian - always a Scythian!

But he figured in the West as well.

He was not appreciated in the milieu in which he lived - and I certainly know what that's all about . . .

And, did you have to be so direct with Father Kimel above?

Do you want him to think this is an Orthodox website?

Alex

Alex:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

You asked: "And, did you have to be so direct with Father Kimel above?"

I suppose not, and I certainly didn't mean to be nasty. But I do find it a little offensive that someone who does not live the Eastern Christian faith purports to tell us that we don't have a strong theological understanding of grace and that we could learn a lot from the so-called Doctor of Grace.

Where in Augustine do you find anything approaching the majestic, awe-inspiring idea that Christ has re-created human nature and made it possible for all of us to be saved? I continue to believe that Augustine got it wrong. I'll stick with Chrysostom and Athanasius, thank you very much.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Dear Theophilos,

I'm with y'a, Big Guy, all the way!!

Alex

Dear Theophilos,

I don't recall ever saying that St Augustine had expressed perfectly the doctrine of grace. Indeed, I do not know any theologian who has ever expressed any doctrine perfectly. But I certainly do believe that Augustine was the first theologian to really see the mystery of God's grace, providence, and the free-will of man.

That Augustine's treatment differs from those who have preceded him in no way argues against him. Such is the way of doctrinal development. It is only until a real heretic shows up on the scene that the Church is inspired and led into a deeper understanding of the revealed truth.

Such was the way, for example, with the divinity of Christ. For three centuries all Christians, in one way or another, confessed the divinity of Christ; but often this confession was conceived within pagan categories. That is to say, divinity was understood along a graded continuum. This is why subordinationism was always such a temptation in the first three centuries. At the same time the Church confessed, with Scripture and Judaism, that God was the one and only creator, and everything else that exists is his good creation. How these two confessions tied together no one really understood. And so the Church lived within the ambiguities. It was not until Arius finally clarified the heresy that some bishops and theologians finally saw that it was necessary to place Jesus Christ decisively on the Creator side of the Creator/creature divide. There is no divine continuum. There is simply God and everything else. And so Athanasius, in a moment of inspired insight, taught us to confess Jesus as homoousios with the Father. Anyone who knows the trinitarian and christological developments knows that this was, in many ways, a real innovation. It went against the conservative grain of the Church, yet the Nicene Fathers were persuaded to see its power and truth (though many went along with the homoousion more for political reasons than out of theological conviction). It would take another sixty years before the meaning and significance of the homoousion was really understood.

And likewise, the mystery and complexities of grace were not clearly understood until Pelagius and his disciples began to teach that in his natural powers man could live a virtuous life in imitation of Christ. Between 411 and 431, 24 councils faced the question of Pelagianism. Pelagius and Celestius were condemned at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (though apparently with minimal discussion). The Church's response to Pelagius & Company was not simply engineered by Augustine. Rather, the Church recognized, perhaps inchoately, that something was very wrong with the teaching of Pelagius, despite the fact that he was evidently a faithful man of prayer and virtue.

I have to confess that it has been years since I have read much of Augustine, as my theological interests have lain elsewhere. But at one time I had read most of his anti-Pelagian writings, both early and late. Have you actually read these writings, or are you citing from a secondary source? Augustine's analysis of the issues is deep and profound--and biblical!--as was recognized by the Church. The Church, however, did not accept Augustine's teachings on predestination and perseverance, as is clear in the canons of the Second Council of Orange. The consensual teaching of the Church required refinement and correction of Augustine; but his fundamental insight was affirmed--all is grace! From beginning to end, the salvation of human being is God's work of love, mercy, and forgiveness. At no point may we claim credit for contributing one whit to this work.

Orthodox folk often cite St John Cassian as an alternative to Augustine, but as wonderful an ascetical writer as John may have been, he was not close to being a theologian of the caliber of Augustine.

This does not mean that we are not fully involved in the life of grace. The Augustinian insight is that it is only by grace that we come into true freedom. It is only by grace that our hearts are filled with true love for God and our neighbor. You say that you do not find in Augustine the majestic words of deification. He may have used this Eastern language sparingly, but Augustine understood that we must be regenerated and reborn in the sacred humanity of Christ if we would be saved.

The Orthodox critique of Augustine's anti-Pelagianism always seems to come down to this: Man has free-will. Therefore, the final decision for salvation must be man's, not God's; otherwise, free-will is undone.

But the problem with this analysis is that it is far too superficial. This was fine when dealing with Manichean fatalism or whatever; but it is inadequate when addressing the Pelagian quest for holiness. The dilemma is a false dilemma, because it puts divine causality and human causality on the same level and thus sees them as competing. But God is not an object in the world. He transcends all. His actions, therefore, do not compete with ours. This is why the Incarnation was possible. And this is why God can give us the gift of faith without compromising our free-will. On this, see St Thomas Aquinas.

The critical question, in my opinion, is this: How do we preach the Gospel of Christ? The semi-Pelagian position, which some Orthodox apparently seem to fall into, gives us a conditional Gospel: You will be saved IF you do the following. God loves all of humanity, but at the critical moment he must helplessly stand by and wait and see if his offer of salvation will be accepted. Ultimately, therefore, salvation all rests on the shoulders of the sinner. In the final analysis, the sinner must save himself.

Given this (mis)understanding of the Gospel's conditionality, no wonder preachers spend most of their time in exhortation to good works, whether ascetical, spiritual, or ethical. We are concerned that our parishioners should attain to salvation, and so we urge them to conversion, repentance, contrition, prayer, works of mercy, etc., etc.

This form of preaching is not restricted to any specific tradition--it is to be found across the board. And where it is found, we will also find either a lack of joy and and lack of confidence in the gift of salvation (this will usually be called "humility") or a deadly form of self-righteousness.

The Gospel of God's unconditional love and grace, however, transforms people's lives. I have seen it happen again and again. And always I am told afterwards, "I never knew God loved so much. Why didn't they teach me this in the ______ church where I grew up?"

If I were going to develop the unconditionality of God's grace within an Eastern idiom, I would begin with Athanasius and especially Cyril of Alexandria, who taught us that the totality of Christ's life and ministry was an act of vicarious substitution. Or to quote Gregory Nazianzen, "What God has not assumed, he has not healed." Well, thank God Jesus has assumed, healed, and redeemed our freedom of will! If we would come into that freedom that loves God with complete abandonment, we must be born anew into his regenerate, sanctified humanity. Curiously, the theologian who has recovered this dimension of the Eastern Fathers in the 20th century is a Reformed theologian, Thomas F. Torrance, which is why he was stunningly and impossibly made a protopresbyter by a Greek Orthodox bishop! The freedom to say "yes" to God is itself a gift given to us in Christ Jesus, who said "yes" to God on the cross, on our behalf in and in our place! By baptism and Eucharist we are given to share in our Lord's sacred humanity and thus to share in his total assent to the will of his Father. As Torrance would say, our yes to God must be enfolded within Christ's yes.

Synergism is an easy solution; but easy solutions are always suspect in theology! But grace is an incomprehensible mystery, no less mysterious and incomprehensible than God the Trinity or Jesus the God-man.

Fr K

Fr. Kimel:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Thank you for your reply. In answer to your first question: yes, I have read -- and continue to read -- Augustine's works, both in translation and in the original Latin.

In answer to the rest of your post, I will say only this: Our free, personal response to God's offer of deification/salvation is absolutely necessary to whether we are, right now, being saved. I don't deny that this freedom to say "yes" has been given to us -- all of us men -- by Christ's death. I do deny, however, that it isn't ultimately up to us whether we give the right answer. WE ultimately choose to say yes or no, a contribution infinitesimally small compared to God's, but nonetheless decisive.

(I like to think of it as a matter of simple arithmetic: God's contribution = 1,000,000,000, our contribution = 1 (yes) or 0 (no). 1,000,000,000 x 1 = 1,000,000,000 (salvation); 1,000,000,000 x 0 = 0 (damnation).)

It is a two-step process or event, and I believe that this is what Augustine (and Luther, Calvin, et al.) missed: Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection reconciles man to God, once and for all. To paraphrase your quote from Nazianzen, the human nature that has been assumed by Christ has been healed. What does that mean? The Greek Fathers have always held that it means we now have, once again, the power to become god-like (the second-step, as it were). We can, like Adam and Eve, make the decision of whether to love God or to hate Him.

You may mock synergism as an easy solution and therefore automatically suspect. I believe it is the teaching of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the Church.

By the way, if we don't "contribut[e] one whit to this work" of salvation, why is there a Hell? Why is there evil in the world? Why doesn't our God -- who is Love, as St. John teaches -- save the poor wretches who lie, cheat, and steal? Why does he desire that all men be saved, and yet condemn some to eternal death? It seems to me that if you deny our involvement in our own salvation, you must either affirm universalism or deny that God is omnibenevolent or omnipotent.

In Christ,
Theophilos