Mailbag Friday!: Job, the Devil and Free Will

Time is a train,
Makes the future the past,
Leaves you standing in the station,
Your face pressed up against the glass.*



A: Hey [ ], I got a question..

In the book of Job the devil makes a wager with God over Job .. Is the devil limited in his powers because God limits him? Why didn’t He destroy the devil? Does God control the actions of the devil?

B: Hi [ ],

The devil is a creature, albeit a pretty strong one, considering he was once Lucifer, the greatest of the angels. As with all suffering whether inflicted by the free will of the devil or humans, God permits it for various reasons. As a creature, the devil is limited in his powers. God does not destroy him because we are still on earth and are still struggling for our salvation (which God helps us with by His grace, if we trust and rely on Him, which is part of the struggle). We are still in the period of testing.

As for the book of Job, [here is a good book]:

The Trial of Job: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Job

A: ...God permits it but doesn’t He know the outcome? I always get confused when it comes to the free will stuff...

B: It is one thing to say God has foreknowledge (knowing what will happen) and another that he intervenes and "overrules" our free will. God wants us to struggle and come to him of our own free will. This does not mean he does not know the future (He is outside of time).

A: So He knows what I will be doing later today?

These are things that are outside my comprehension…

B: Yes. Think of a parade. Each part of the parade is an event in time. You see the parts of the parade one at a time as it passes you by. God is above the parade so he sees it all at once. Make sense?

A: So he knows the end of the parade.. and what I’ll be doing later today ?

B: Yes.

A: Then how is free will explained when he knows my death and what ill be doing at 6:00PM?

B: Just because he knows the future does not mean he will control our decisions or what we do. That is up to us.

A: We may control our actions but he knows our ultimate decision? So is it sort of predetermined?

Jesus willingly died on the cross but God knew it will happen because it was planned out ?

B: No it is not predetermined in the sense that we are doing things because we are controlled. It is foreknown because God knows the future.

A: These things are beyond my comprehension for good reason...

I honestly don’t get it.. I feel like there is some element of control .. not like robot control but a push/guidance control .. If He wants the best for us, and we seek Him, wont he guide us to that best thing? …

B: ABSOLUTELY! We are called to put on the whole armor of God (Eph 6:16).

But that does not mean He will overpower us. If we resist him to the last breath and resist his grace, he will not overpower us and cancel our ultimate choice.

A: I think I get it...I still feel confused...but I think I get it...
________
*U2, Zoo Station

A.N. Wilson on His Return to Christianity from Atheism

THE NEW STATESMAN recently published an excellent piece by A.N. Wilson in which he describes his conversion back to Christianity. He writes,

My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God “a category mistake”. Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . ‘The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.” And then Coleridge adds: “‘And man became a living soul.’ Materialism will never explain those last words.”

Here is the full piece. Thanks to Happy Catholic for highlighting it.

Barack Obama and Deification

THE MORNING AFTER Barack Obama won the election, Today Show host Matt Lauer lamented that Mr. Obama is going to have a tough time meeting expectations, because many news agencies have over-hyped him. This is especially true of the New York Times, which Lauer said, had "deified him". In other words, they made him appear god-like. His remarks reminded me of the important Christian doctrine of Deification.

Deification (or Theosis) is the teaching that, through the grace of God and spiritual struggle, we undergo a process in this life of becoming more like God, participating in His life, and as, St. Peter explains, " . . . partakers of divine nature."(1)

St. Irenaeus writes of, “the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, through His transcendent love, became what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”(2)

St. Athanasius puts it plainly: "God became man that man might become god."(3)

Theosis is "becoming by grace what God is by nature"(4)

In his indispensible Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky, writes,

The deification or theosis of the creature will be realized in its fullness only in the age to come, after the resurrection of the dead. This deifying union has, nevertheless, to be fulfilled ever more and more even in this present life, through the transformation of our corruptible and depraved nature and by its adaptation to eternal life.(5)

In another important book, The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos Ware makes some important points:

First, deification is not something reserved for a few select initiates, but something intended for all alike. The Orthodox Church believes that it is is the normal goal for every Christian without exception....

Secondly, the fact that a person is being deified does not mean that she or he ceases to be conscious of sin. On the contrary, deification always presupposes a continued act of repentance....

In the third place, these is nothing esoteric or extraordinary about the methods which we must follow in order to be deified. If someone asks 'How can I become God?' the answer is very simple: go to church, receive the sacraments, regularly, pray to God 'in spirit and in truth', read the Gospels, follow the commandments....

Fourthly, deification is not a solitary but a 'social' process...

Fifthly, love of God and of our fellow humans must be practical. Orthodoxy rejects all forms of Quietism, all types of love which do not issue in action....

Finally, deification presupposes life in the Church, life in the sacraments. Theosis according to the likeness of the Trinity involves a common life, and it is only within the fellowship of the Church that this common life of coinherence can be properly realized. Church and sacraments are the means appointed by God whereby we may acquire the sanctifying Spirit and be transformed into the divine likeness.(6)

_____
(1)2 Peter 1:4
(2)St. Athanasius, Against Heresies, Book 5, Preface
(3)St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation
(4)Ibid.
(5)Lossky, Vladimir, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 196.
(6)Ware, Kallistos, The Orthodox Way ,pp. 236-238

The Mystery of Divine Personality

On the way to work today, I was listening to a sermon in which I heard a striking description of Jesus Christ and the great paradoxes He presents:

He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men. Yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming, yet he was so genial and winsome and approachable, that the children loved to play with him and the little ones nestled in his arms. His presence at the innocent gaiety of a village wedding, was like the presence of sunshine. No one was half so kind or compassionate to sinners, yet no one ever spoke such red-hot scorching words about sin.

A bruised reed he would not break. His whole life was love. Yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees, how they were expected to escape the damnation of hell.

He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism, he has all of us self-styled realists soundly beaten. He was the servant of all, washing the disciples' feet, yet masterfully he strode into the temple, and the hucksters and moneychangers fell over one another to get away in their mad rush from the fire they saw blazing in his eyes. He saved others, yet at the last, he himself did not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts which confronts us in the
gospels; the mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.

-James Stewart

______

They're here!

Covert Rescue Missions

News agencies across the globe are reporting the dramatic and successful mission to rescue former Columbian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans from captivity. They had been held for five years by a rebel army.

The Independent reports how it went down:

According to the Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos, the rescue saw military intelligence agents infiltrate the guerrillas unit holding 15 hostages and then deceive them. Mr Santos said soldiers posed as members of a fictitious non-government organisation and persuaded the local guerrilla leader that they would fly the hostages by helicopter to a camp to meet with the rebel leader Alfonso Cano. Once surrounded by military commandos, the guerrillas gave up without a fight as the helicopters took the hostages to a military base. "The helicopters picked up the hostages in Guaviare and flew them to freedom. This was an unprecedented operation," said Mr Santos (1).

Sitting my car listening to the story this morning, I thought of the paralell between this event and the great rescue mission Christ accomplished after His Holy Resurrection.

According to St. Gregory of Nyssa,

Christ, being God incarnate, deliberately concealed His divine nature from the devil so that he, mistaking Him for an ordinary man, would not be terrified at the sight of an overwhelming power approaching him. When Christ descended in hell, the devil supposed Him to be a human being, but this was a divine ‘hook’ disguised under a human ‘bait’ that the devil swallowed. By admitting God incarnate into his domain, the devil himself signed his own death warrant: incapable of enduring the divine presence, he was overcome and defeated, and hell was destroyed (2).

_____________

(1) Doyle, Leonard and Lichfield, John. "Hostage free after six-year jungle ordeal". The Independent, July 3, 2008.

(2) Alfeyev, Bishop Hilarion. "Christ the Conqueror of Hell" (citing St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechetical Oration, 23-24)

Recommended Reading

People sometimes ask me to recommend a good book. The answer is, "It depends." Here are some titles that come to mind:

Theology
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky
The Message of the Bible, Dr. George Cronk
For the Life of the World, Very Rev. Alexander Schmemman
The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos Ware
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Volume 1 : Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Volume 2: The World, Creation and Deification, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae
Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

Spirituality
The Life of Repentance and Purity, H.H. Pope Shenouda III
The Life in Christ, Nicholas Cabasilas
The Practice of the Presence of God, Br. Lawrence
In Thy Presence, Fr. Lev Gillet
Jesus: A Dialogue with the Savior, Fr. Lev Gillet
Ages of the Spiritual Life, Paul Evdokimov
God and Man, Met. Anthony Bloom
Living Prayer, Met. Anthony Bloom
Beginning to Pray, Met. Met. Anthony Bloom
Orthodox Spirituality, A Monk of the Eastern Church
Unseen Warfare, Lorenzo Scupoli
Communion of Love, Fr. Matthew the Poor (Matta al-Miskeen)
Orthodox Prayer Life, Fr. Matthew the Poor (Matta al-Miskeen)
Way of the Ascetics, Tito Colliander
The Way of a Pilgrim, anonymous Russian pilgrim
Counsels on the Spiritual Life: Mark the Monk (Popular Patristics)

Patrology/Patristics/Desert Fathers
The Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. John Climacus
Confessions, St. Augustine
On Wealth and Poverty, St. John Chrysostom
On Ascetical Life, St. Isaac of Syria
The Way to Nicaea (The Formation of Christian Theology, Vol. 1), Fr. John Behr
The Nicene Faith (Formation Of Christian Theology, Vol. 2), Fr. John Behr
The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death, Fr. John Behr
The Fathers of the Church, Expanded Edition, Mike Aquilina
Fathers Of The Church: A Comprehensive Introduction, Hubertus R. Drobner et al. (contributors)
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Benedicta Ward (translator)
The Holy Fire: The Story of the Fathers of the Eastern Church, Robert Payne (translator)
The Fathers of the Church: From Clement of Rome to Augustine of Hippo


Fiction
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 1 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 2 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie