free will?

[henrikhankhagnell]

Salam!
What does the oriental orthodox chuch teach about free will?
Do we really have 100% free will? I mean, we an not choose whether God exists or not, we can not choose if we want to be born human or not, not choose where we want to be born......
and what about free will is dogma that must be believed in order to become oriental orthodox?

[deusveritasest]

Well, the instances you brought up are things which are beyond the capacity of our very nature, so I don't think they apply to the free will debate.

The free will debate is more so about what capacity we have for choosing between those things on the path to chaos and death and those things on the path to life and God.

The standard Orthodox doctrine is that we have complete free will before the Fall, but after the Fall we inherited a weakness to the path of corruption (concupiscence) and no longer have complete free will. Our freedom of will is something that is restored in stages, first through the Sacred Mysteries, next through the shedding of the corrupt body at death, and last through the restoration and reintegration of our soul and body to incorruption at Christ's Second Coming.

[geovar]

 Fr. V.C Samuel of eternal memory had this to say

response from his book - 'An Orthodox Catechism on the Faith and Life of the Church' on the'Need of Divine Economy for Human Salvation'

 

'Man is a creature of God, endowed with creaturely freedom. As a creature, hehas a beginning and the possibility of an end. Yet, unlike other creatures,he/she is created to attain eternal life, which God grants. To gain this goal,man is called to live on earth in communion with the Creator and follow His way,using his creaturely autonomy. However, man took advantage of his personal freedom to follow his own plan in life. This led to his fall from the Source ofEternal life, to which he had to be restored. This restoration required anabsolute surrender to God on the part of man, which was possible only by GodHimself helping man to do it. Therefore the coming together of God the Son andman into union was necessary, and God accomplished it in Jesus Christ'

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