Predestination view in orthodoxy

[TruthSeeker]

Orthodoxy teaches that we are predestined for salvation. God predestines us for salvation in Christ based on his foreknowledge on who would accept Christ and endure to the end after Gods grace moves upon him.

BUT

Perhaps some are actually predestined for salvation, like St. Paul, the 12 apostles, King David etc. Predestined for salvation not by Gods foreknowledge on who would accept him, but actually chosen for salvation by God as part of his plan for mankind.

What is the orthodox view in this regard......in regard to saints like these men?

[Sabbas]

Perhaps God predestined you to have a peculiarly Jansenist mindsetÂÂ   Just Kidding
You cannot say God predestined your salvation because He is outside time because by doing so you are subjecting God to the limits time in the process! I am surprised the first sentence in your message says Orthodoxy teaches . . . ! Once you begin to impute to God irresitible or "gratuitous" Grace as necessary for Salvation than you may as well be denying that man was created in the image of God. You also may as well deny that creation is inherently good or that God really is Love! Believe me I feel a great deal of sympathy for those who have trouble accepting this. It is hard to believe that we could be choosing to Love God when we fall so easily into sin and God is so wondrous that it hard seems like we could ever rationally choose anyone but Him. It seems like it has to be all God and us nothing. None of this clearly means that God is not guiding mankind or uninvolved when one man is born mentally retarded and one a genius but the mystery of free will and the accomplishment of each individuals salvation or condemnation and damnation are beyond such inequalities and ultimately God guides this world in such a way that each of us are given ample opportunity to choose Him!.

Anyway this is just my tired rambling. Sts.John of Damascus, John Cassian, and Caesarius of Arles had far more to say about this. Read them! Also read Canon 25 of the Council of Orange
"This also do we believe, in accordance with the Catholic faith, that after grace received through baptism, all the baptized are able and ought, with the aid and co-operation of Christ, to fulfil all duties needful for salvation, provided they are willing to labour faithfully. But that some men have been predestinated to evil by divine power, we not only do not believe, but if there be those who are willing to believe so evil a thing, we say to them with all abhorrence anathema. This also do we profess and believe to our soul's health, that in every good work, it is not we who begin, and are afterwards assisted by Divine mercy, but that God Himself, with no preceding merits on our part, first inspires within us faith and love."

[Beavis]

Everyone is predestined for salvation....but some people freely reject this predestination for themselves.

[mez1]

“Once you begin to impute to God irresitible or "gratuitous" Grace as necessary for Salvation than you may as well be denying that man was created in the image of God.”

I wonder why God would remove His Grace from a person with respect to his/her will in this life but not after death? I think the experience of hell can be thought of as the experience of a type of grace… an irresistible grace?

[Bizzlebin]

I'd agree with something like what mez1 said. It is clear that God forgives everyone, His mercies are without measure. It is by this that even those who reject God are not annihilated but are instread sustained in some state eternally, though constantly tormented by the Love they have rejected.

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