Free But Bent: Contra Neo-Pelagian Libertarianism

In light of the foregoing article on the freedom of the will, some may object to its criticism of libertarianism by saying that the technical definition of “libertarian free will” is simply the denial of determinism. Although this is in a sense partially correct, it is ultimately too weak of a definition for reason of its being too vacuous. Proving an apple wrong doesn’t prove a banana right. In other words, the purported wrongness of determinism is not proof positive of libertarianism. It’s an argument from silence, i.e. silencing the opponent. This leads to the libertarian’s tendency towards dismissive triumphalism. At best, however, such libertarianism would be a false dichotomy, reducing free will to either libertarian free will or nothing. 

Libertarianism itself, in reality, makes positive claims about its own position, which then get smuggled in alongside their bare negation of determinism (or compatibilism or what have you): that human acts of will are not constrained in any way by prior conditions, i.e. undetermined. As O’Connor and Franklin state in their Stanford Encyclopedia article (Summer 2019) on free will regarding what is said to be agreed among Libertarians:

True sourcehood—the kind of sourcehood that can actually ground an agent’s freedom and responsibility—requires, so it is argued, that one’s action not be causally determined by factors beyond one’s control.

In this light, it would seem that Libertarianism does not mean merely that a person be able to choose between more than one choice. That would be the idea of free will, not libertarian free will. In other words, man, according to libertarian anthropology, possesses radical self-mastery, and requires it in order to be said to have freedom and responsibility. According to Biblical and Patristic anthropology, however, fallen man apart from Christ is overmastered by sin and enslaved to the passions, and that these are beyond fallen man’s control and infect every element of fallen man’s choosing and acting. Man, moreover, cannot free himself apart from God’s grace. Apart from grace there is zero possibility of libertarian free will, and yet free will remains in fallen man, together with responsibility, despite fallen man’s enslaved state - since that state is ultimately grounded in an autodoulia. Thus, even in the face of his own slavery, man paradoxically retains his freedom of will and responsibility, since any given sinful act was not forced, for fallen man could have, by virtue of his fundamental nature, done otherwise than commit any particular sin.

Obviously, libertarianism is a complex field with much internal debate, but at minimum it affirms that the fallen human will is fundamentally unconstrained by the effects of sin. In other words, the Fall does not infect man's ability to freely choose the good, and the root passions do not radically exploit man’s will, for man’s will is not metaphysically “disturbed.” Robert Kane, in his lauded defense of libertarianism, states the position: “Free will is the power of agents to be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends or purposes” (The Significance of Free Will, pg 4).

Now, in a theological context this is simply Pelagianism (or a kissing cousin) or perhaps even Sartrean existentialism. It is certainly not Christian. To say that man as such is the ultimate creator or originator of his own ends or purposes is to either subtly or explicitly deny that God created man in God's image, with an end and purpose determined by his Creator. Man, having fallen from his created end and purpose, separated from God and spiritually dead, enslaved and in bondage to sin, is of himself unable to will himself into, much less sustain, a position of righteousness.

Libertarianism cannot be encapsulated as the mere ability to do otherwise. At best, libertarianism requires a non-fallen anthropology in order to work, for as the Fathers agree throughout their teachings, fallen man is enslaved to the passions. For example, among many possible, St. Maximus states that the fallen soul is "held in bondage to the passions" (Ad Thalassios 54.11, cf. 54.12). Since fallen man is enslaved and requires liberation, every single fallen, graceless choice of his is mixed with evil, which is to say mixed with some element that is beyond fallen man's control, and that influences and subtly manipulates his act of willing - even if it does not utterly dominate it so as to compel any given act of sin. Natural virtue, in other words, is still available to fallen man. Grace, therefore, is absolutely required for true freedom, and this is precisely what fallen man lacks as a given condition of his fallenness. He requires God's intervention through faith and the sacraments. God, however, is not required for libertarian anthropology, nor His grace for freedom. That is why libertarianism is essentially a form of Neo-Pelagianism. 

Although created in and for righteousness, and although he may even want or will to be righteous, true righteousness as such is not “open” to fallen man, not accessible to his free choice. His natural, fallen righteousness is but filthy rags. Therefore, fallen man absolutely requires God's unilateral intervention (i.e. the entire cruciform economy of the Incarnation) and “leading grace” (via a new, divine nature received in baptismal regeneration and holy Communion) to renew him, and to light and energize his way. Man does not create himself, his own ends, or his own ultimate purposes, and apart from Christ and enslaved to sin he is and can only be a tool of Satan's ends, free but lost at sea. He can sail and he can fish, but he cannot find safe harbor in the tumult of his passions and the blindness of his heart (Ephesians 4:18). Only after regeneration is the rightful freedom of man’s created nature restored.

Immediately - and purposefully - following his teaching on Baptismal Regeneration, St. Paul treats with God-inspired mastery the paradox of free will and bondage:

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine (διδαχή) to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:16-23)

St. Paul's doctrine indicates clearly that man is enslaved to what he presents himself to obey. This is the essence of autodoulia. Having presented himself a slave to sin, man requires communion with Christ, whose death and resurrection become the instruments of man’s liberation. Man was delivered to the doctrine (διδαχή) of grace in Christ, receiving its freeing effects through baptismal regeneration, co-crucified and co-resurrected with Christ, and even now ascended and sitting at the Father's right hand, our life hidden in Christ in the heavenly places (Colossians 3:1, 3). Man thus had to be set free from sin. He could not set himself free from it, even though sin involves the will. This is the death knell of libertarianism. Although he was not forced to commit any sin, yet man could not extricate himself from its grip. Thus St. Paul exposits the paradox of the bondage of the free will.

To affirm a libertarian free will in light of man’s enslavement to sin is utterly misguided. If man had such freedom he would not require Christ to set him free, for such would be redundant; he would merely require Christ as his spiritual coach and cheerleader. The reality, however, is that man presented himself to sin, and thus sin became his master, and he its slave. After the Fall, although man's freedom is preserved in his ability to “choose otherwise,” his will is enthralled in such a way that apart from Christ he will not choose in a way that is not preconditioned by egotism, pride, lust, anger, etc. These passions or “constraints” acting on man's will, therefore, deny the libertarian position, but do not deny the reality of free will. If fallen human nature is self-constrained in autodoulia to sin, then it is folly to assert that the fallen human will is not correspondingly constrained and in bondage.

In conclusion, the will is free, but it is warped in a virtual reality projected by the passions onto the screen of the world, and so the will is warped or "bent," free but "bent." Because of fallen man’s willing agreement with the passions, he is responsible for what he chooses. Despite the seeming paradox, he is both free and bound. In short, man’s fallen will is free but there is no freedom in fallen man. Without Christ and the liberating energy of His leading grace, there is no authentic freedom, for Christ is our freedom just as He is our wisdom, our life, our righteousness, and our sanctification, and only in Christ can a man be truly free, for “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed (ὄντως)” (John 8:36). Otherwise, freedom is only another name for bondage, for in that sense even in hell everyone is "free," for its punishment does not destroy man's nature, hence the tragedy of its everlasting torment. For who is more free than the immoral man, yet who more bound? Man's will is thus a battle ground, and even with true (ὄντως) freedom in Christ, the regenerate man must still strive to mortify the passions, for the desires that indwell the flesh ever war against the Spirit:

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want (θέλω, meaning to will, intend, desire, or purpose, etc.) to do. (Galatians 5:17)

-Fr. Joshua Schooping

Disturbed: Orthodox Teaching on the Freedom of the Will

Many Westerners who have joined the Orthodox Church have done so under a mistaken notion concerning human freedom. In seeing that the Orthodox Church necessarily affirms the freedom of man’s will, they have misunderstood this to mean that fallen man’s freedom is equally poised between good and evil, and that obeying God is reducible to a matter of man’s natural, unregenerate will. This false notion of free will is called libertarian free will, or libertarianism, and it is a doctrine that implicitly attacks the Incarnation and destroys the necessity and value of Christ’s atoning sacrifice.

Libertarianism being inconsistent with the Orthodox Faith, as will be demonstrated, what these libertarians deny is called, in the Western Christian anthropological idiom: “the bondage of the will.” In rejecting this term they assume that their false doctrine of libertarianism is being tacitly acknowledged and affirmed, and thus they smuggle into the Church destructive false doctrines regarding man’s fallen condition. The profundity of man’s fall is, for all practical purposes, rejected and all but denied. If it is affirmed, it is so deneutered that it is of no meaningful significance, a paper tiger. In order to solve the problem, then, the Orthodox position regarding man’s free will must be reaffirmed, and with special reference to the Western idiom in order to expose and demonstrate that this libertarianism is false.

To begin, it is worth noting that (1) God is necessarily and absolutely free, (2) man’s created freedom is an image of God’s uncreated freedom, and so (3) God’s freedom is paradigmatic for man. Moreover, God is necessarily and absolutely good, holy, and free of any evil. God’s freedom and goodness, therefore, do not and cannot be opposed to each other. This is to say that God’s freedom is not a hypothetical neutral space somewhere between good and evil, but is wholly centered in goodness. In God, goodness and freedom are a unity. Therefore, as an image of God, man’s freedom of will cannot be rightly conceived as some neutral space between good and evil for, paradigmatically, true freedom only exists as true freedom when in total conformity with the good. In short, man’s freedom is constituted of goodness, not of neutrality.

The problem with libertarianism is that its very notion of freedom is false.  In reducing the idea of freedom to mere rational self-determination, man is conceived as a radically autonomous and morally neutral choosing agent, someone poised equally between good and evil. Free acts are defined simply as those acts produced by the ability to do or not do said acts, whether those acts be good or evil. Sin, in other words, as a preconditioning factor of choice plays no meaningful role in libertarianism. Demeaning grace, a tendency towards this view will always minimize the reality of sin, its effects (which precondition the internal environment of free choice), and God’s solution for it. What is more, in a theological environment this view can also tend towards a graceless perfectionism, a demanding of moral performance as a precondition for salvation. God, in other words, is reduced from being the Savior to being a divine fitness trainer giving spiritual workout routines, scrupulously examining performance technique, and assisting (but only when needed) with the heavy lifting. 

Opposed to the idea of libertarian free will is what might be called theological free will. This is the idea of man’s free will understood in the context of Christian revelation, which is to say God’s creation of man, man’s fall, and God’s solution in the atonement, regeneration, and transformation of man into a temple of His Holy Spirit. This is the view expressed by Patriarch Jeremiah II and, with great clarity, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov.

Turning, then, to Patriarch Jeremiah II’s theological exchange with the 16th Century Lutherans, one is confronted in the sections on free will with the Lutheran idea of the “Bondage of the Will.” In the exchange, Patriarch Jeremiah was careful to insist that man’s will must at all places be affirmed as free, and as freely able to choose that which is good. It is precisely this freedom that renders man culpable of his sin. In the Lutheran position he sensed that they were painting man’s fallen will in such terms that man’s culpability for sin was being compromised. He states: 

What then is evil? It is an innate disposition of the indolent soul having the having the tendency to oppose virtue and to fall away from the good. Therefore, do not examine evil externally, nor imagine some pristine nature of wickedness, but rather let everyone reckon himself the leader of iniquity in himself. (Augsburg and Constantinople, Third Exchange, paragraph 365, pg 303)

In other words, reifying evil as if it were some “pristine nature,” and then stating that this evil nature was born into man, would submit man to evil in such a way that he would essentially be compelled to evil. This would destroy man’s responsibility for choosing evil since he would only be acting according to his nature. This evil nature would essentially function as a type of telos, and so a constraint acting in man and compelling his will such that it could do no otherwise than to conform to its telos by committing evil. God would thus be unjust for condemning man for acting evilly if that evil is only the conforming to his evil nature. No, God created man good, and evil is a deviation from his created nature, and so evil must be centered in the personal human will as activity contrary to its design. The Fall then cannot be understood as a change of nature from good to evil, but a distortion or corruption of a good nature. And so, what Patriarch Jeremiah was keen to maintain is that if man’s will is so bound to evil that it cannot but do otherwise than to choose evil by nature, then the will is not free and God is unjust to judge him:

Wherefore, do not search elsewhere for the origins of those which you are master of. But know that the main evil has received its origin from voluntary feelings. (ibid, paragraph 365, pg 303)

In this light, if one were to rightly understand the concept of the “bondage of the will,” then it must be seen as not having reference to an external bondage or to a fundamentally evil nature. Man’s slavery to evil must be seen as self-slavery, an autodoulia. Man chooses evil freely, and could have freely done otherwise, and thus is the tragedy of sin, for man self-elects to turn over his free will to the devil, unable to forsake this free will, but unable to forsake the devil’s mastery over him, either. Man’s will is free by nature, and good, but he requires a Redeemer to liberate him from his autodoulia to the devil. 

Man, according to the Patriarch, even after the Fall has the power to choose the good, but not the power to achieve it. He writes: “That man had the power after the Fall to choose the good, shall be made evident” (ibid, paragraph 367, pg 304). He goes on to cite Scripture in support of his case. And yet, despite having the power to choose, he qualifies this by stating, “We need but one thing, that is, the help from God so that we may achieve the good and be saved” (ibid, paragraph 368, pg 305). In other words, the power to choose and the power to achieve are distinct, and although we may be able to choose the good, we are yet impotent, for “without this [divine power to achieve the good and be saved] we can accomplish nothing” (ibid).

This brings us to a great mystery. But a principle discussed above bears repeating: The concept of the bondage of the will is not a reference to an external bondage. The human will is free, and cannot fail to be free. Man is created with a free will and, made in God’s image, this freedom of will is always an inextricable part of his metaphysical make-up. Man’s freedom is inexcisably part of his ontological fabric. Let it be said again: Man’s will, whether fallen or regenerated, is free. So, what is the problem?

The problem is that man’s metaphysically free will is bound. And so the question arises: How is man’s free will bound? And to what? It is self-bound in autodoulia. Man is free to choose the good, but apart from God and enslaved to Satan man freely rejects the good. Even if man were to choose the good, he cannot achieve anything truly good apart from God, and so a man apart from God is doomed to achieve only evil, despite his freedom of will. The fall of man, and the sin into which he is born a slave, is thus not understood such that he is compelled, coerced, or forced to evil, but that he is a willing subject, a freely willing slave of culpable sin. The will therefore is free, but it is disturbed: 

Man’s disobedience to the divine commandments was not in itself desirable to him; for he could not be disobedient without the presupposition of a disturbed will. (ibid, paragraph 225, pg 175)

Thus it is that man’s will is said to be disturbed, and it is to this disturbance which the will is understood to be in bondage. Man freely chooses, but apart from grace this free choice passes through the gravity well of man’s fallen nature, together with its passions, and is correspondingly inclined towards evil. Thus, quoting St. Basil regarding those regenerated and alive in Christ, the Patriarch writes:

Everything is by grace in so far as it comes from grace; for without grace we can do nothing whatsoever. Therefore, on the one hand, it is said that grace comes first because of the weakness inherent in the creature; on the other hand, it is said that our choice is to follow, while grace leads, not in order to force choice, but to help us use our free will just like one who holds a light for those who wish to see it. (ibid, paragraph 225, pg 175)

Clearly, the Patriarch is not simply asserting libertarian free will. Prior to the fall, man’s freedom was, metaphysically, no different than after the Fall. But, due to the wound on human nature made by sin, the disturbed will requires grace in order to liberate it and so achieve the good, which is the freedom of uninhibited communion with Christ. Apart from grace all is darkness, for “before all else we need divine help and grace” (ibid, paragraph 113, pg 78), but the metaphysical freedom that is part and parcel of man’s nature is retained either way: “Indeed, everything depends on God, but not so that our free will is violated” (ibid, quoting Chrysostom, paragraph 114, pg 78). One is free to choose the good, but due to the darkness of the passions one will either (1) not recognize the good so as to freely choose it, or (2) freely refuse to choose the seen good because of the gravity well of the passions through which the choice must perilously pass, or (3) choose it in such an impotent way, i.e. defiled by an admixture of sin, that no spiritual good is achieved. Freedom of the fallen will is, therefore, an autodoulia to evil, a communion with the devil whose power holds fallen and unregenerate man in thrall. Apart from Christ, the will is both free and bound, like a ship set sail at sea with a strong wind under a cloudy sky and no lodestone; it can go wherever it wills, and freely, but without the light of Christ it is simply lost.

Anthropologically, man is free, whether fallen or regenerated, but due to the metaphysical wounding by the sin which caused the Fall, man’s free will is preserved such that it is warped and so freely chooses and enslaves itself to evil rather than good. Man is commanded to choose the good, and he is completely free and able to do so, but the entire problem hinges on the tragic fact that man will not. Man freely refuses. In other words, apart from Christ man will not choose the good, not because he cannot, but because he will not. The natural man despises the Cross, for it is an offense to him (Galatians 5:11; cf. Romans 9:32-33; 1 Corinthians 1:18-23; 1 Peter 2:7-8). Man’s free will is thus self-inclined towards sin and so chooses it freely and culpably. 

Man’s fallen nature, being wounded in the Fall, can make it appear as if there is a force acting on the will from outside, coercing it, and that man’s free choice is itself cancelled, but this would be to misinterpret the Fall. The bondage of the will does not negate its freedom, and this is key. For it is not that man is in bondage without free will, but that he is bound to his free will that is fallen. Therefore, although metaphysically man retains his free will, and so is in one sense free, in another sense man has completely lost his freedom. St. Ignatius Brianchaninov discusses this at length, and so it is worth looking into his teaching on the matter in order to get a fuller picture of the Orthodox teaching on the freedom of the will. He states:

The entire race of man is lost, in a fallen state. We were deprived of communion with God in our very root and source - in our forefathers, thanks to their willing sin. (The Refuge, pg 274)

This clearly establishes the nature and extent of the Fall. Communion is ruptured, radically, at the root and source. The consequence for mankind is that:

Having willingly rejected submission to God, having willfully submitted themselves to the devil, they lost their communion with God, their freedom and dignity, having abandoned themselves to submission and slavery to the devil. (ibid, 274)

In other words, the radical deprivation of communion with God and willing submission and slavery to the devil has deprived man of his connection with the source of his freedom in God, and so his freedom has in this sense been lost. The image of God in man has been defiled and the likeness destroyed (ibid, 275). The natural good deeds and virtues that man performs are not denied, but they:

are defiled by the contamination of evil, and so are unworthy of God and actually hinder communion with Him. Thus, they counteract our salvation. (ibid, 276)

In other words, man’s fall has so degraded him that he is unable to perform any deed that is not contaminated by evil, and so even the natural virtue that is freely willed is corrupt. This denies libertarian free will any access or claim to true virtue, for the rupture with God renders the unregenerate free acts of fallen man damnable. In short, fallen man’s virtue is sinful insofar as it is always contaminated by sin. Therefore, “all the virtues of a Christian must flow from Christ, from the human nature renewed by Him, not from our fallen nature” (ibid, 276). Of these natural virtues, St. Ignatius states: “Let us, therefore, reject this so-called good or, better yet, this great evil!” (ibid, 276)

In light of the foregoing, to talk about freedom of the will in the context of man’s fall is thus of an entirely different order than merely affirming man’s mere ability to choose or to choose otherwise. Man is radically corrupt. The freedom retained by man to choose good or evil is not absolute, for his good is always tainted with evil. In his freedom, fallen man runs with evil even when he runs with virtue. If Christ is not the source, and faith is not the foundation, then the good deed freely chosen is still only a “great evil,” one which will actually “counteract our salvation.” The problem with libertarianism is that it is only fit to refute fatalism, but the doctrine of theological free will does not require a libertarian free will in order to refute fatalism.

Man’s freedom is retained in the Fall, but is so radically corrupted that the freedom is rather a source of judgment. Carnal freedom does not carry with it a possibility of pardon. Man’s unregenerate free will ends only in death. The striving towards true virtue can, at best, only prepare for or render one capable of receiving salvation, but it does not ensure it (ibid, 277). Only faith in Christ gives salvation. Of natural virtue, St. Ignatius continues:

Such virtue only has worth when it brings one to Christ. When it is content with itself and leads a person away from Christ, then it becomes the worst evil, depriving us of the salvation given by Christ (for it cannot give salvation by itself). (ibid, 277)

How many think that a virtuous lifestyle takes one to heaven! "He was a good man," they say. But was he a man of faith? If one is not brought to Christ, and if one’s virtue does not flow from Christ, then one is lost and one’s virtue is of no avail. It can even serve to lull a person into the false security of complacency, which is opposed to the assurance of faith. The libertarian position, which is essentially will-worship, makes virtue to flow from fallen man’s free will, and establishes virtue there on man’s bare and fallen freedom, but the Gospel wants virtue to flow from Christ, and to be established on Him. St. Ignatius warns: 

Equally soul-destroying is the sin of those who, blinded by their pride and self-conceit, ascribe unnecessary importance to their own good deeds, the deeds of their fallen nature. (ibid, 278)

These are the ones who establish virtue in man’s personal, autonomous freedom, not recognizing the depths to which the Fall has brought mankind. Not trusting in Christ as their Savior, they seek rather to establish a man-centered righteousness, even if it is ostensibly in the name of Christ, not realizing that virtue’s value is not merely in that it proceed from a free will, but from Christ indwelling. This throws into high relief the supernatural element essential to Christianity.

A virtuous act must certainly be uncoerced and so free, but such freedom is insufficient as regards its value in the eyes of God. If virtue is merely a matter of free will, then a free act of virtue ought to be accounted virtuous, but it is not. It must be energized by Christ. Both virtue and vice are sinful outside of Christ, even though the virtue is not in itself sin. In this way man’s free will is in bondage for, no matter what it freely chooses outside of Christ, it is still sinful. After quoting the Scriptures and multiple Church Fathers in this regard, St. Ignatius states: 

There is nothing pure left in our nature, nothing left undamaged, nothing uninfected by sin. We can do nothing of ourselves without the contamination of evil. When water mixes with wine or vinegar, every drop ceases to taste like water. So also our nature, being infected by evil, contains impurity in every manifestation of its activity. All our inheritance, all our dignity, resides exclusively in the Redeemer. (ibid, 278)

Man is thus, according to St. Ignatius, thoroughly pervaded by the stain of sin. Even if it is but one drop of vinegar that fell into the waters of the soul, the entirety of it is yet stained. And since sin is not sin apart from man’s will, it would be utter foolishness to try to assert that fallen man’s free will and uncoerced virtue is somehow preserved from evil. As shown above, its freedom to “do otherwise” is preserved as regards the choosing of this or that particular act, and so there is no question of coercion. But its freedom is yet not free from sin, and so to assert with the libertarians that righteousness can be had on the basis of fallen man’s free will is tantamount to rejecting Christ:

Striving to preserve for yourself the righteousness of the fallen nature, corrupted by sin, is an active rejection of the Redeemer. (ibid, 278)

St. Ignatius presses the point further:

A frame of mind that admits the worth of personal human righteousness before God after the coming of Christ is a form of blasphemy that perverts such a frame of mind entirely. Such a frame of mind does not consider Christ as necessary for salvation; it is no different than a complete rejection of Christ. (ibid, 278)

It would be hard to find a clearer indictment against the libertarian view of man’s free will, not the denial of the existence of free will but of its bondage to sin. Fallen man’s will is uncoerced by any extrinsic evil, but his free will is yet in bondage to his own evil, the evil that is bound up with his fallen soul, the evil that is “overwhelming all its powers” (ibid, 278). No one forces his hand to sin; he cannot say that the devil made him do it. But he cannot free himself by virtue of his native freedom, either. Thus free will and moral responsibility are preserved, but he is nonetheless unable to rid himself of his own sinful self.

Fallen man is born clutching to the seeds of pride, lust, and anger, and as his free will develops with age he finds that, although he is able to “do otherwise,” he is unwilling to drop them. By the force of his own will his sin clings to him, and as a consequence his slavery to the devil is established even in his fallen exercise of virtue. The argument then that seeks to preserve for man a libertarian free will, a will not radically twisted by sin, a will neatly poised between good and evil, is thus the rejection of Christ.

Libertarianism may find need to repent of poor choices, but it cannot repent of itself, of its own inner corruption. For it sees no radical flaw and so concludes there is no absolute need for repentance. It is simply a matter of training, and hence proceeds a corrupt form of asceticism. Libertarianism would not even know what to repent of, except to regret the past and try to do better in the future. The sad consequence of this is the inability to repent:

This means that those who do not admit their sins to be sins, or their righteousness to be merely useless rags, defiled and ripped apart because of communion with sin and Satan, are strangers of the Redeemer. Perhaps they confess Him with their lips, but with their actions, and in their spirit, they reject Him. (ibid, 278-79)

St. Ignatius is merciless towards the hidden refuge of fallen autonomy’s libertarian pride, for even in the context of a Christian confession it can lurk as a refusal to utterly disown one’s self. We are Christ’s or we are Satan’s, and there is no middle ground, no neutral and uncontested space. Repentance must be total and thorough, a radical denial of the autonomous will and all of its schemes at reasserting self as a source of personal justification or goodness. There is no holy ground other than a holy dependence on Christ: 

For there is no possibility of approaching Christ and becoming assimilated to Him without first sincerely admitting yourself to be a sinner, a lost sinner, having no personal justification, no personal dignity. (ibid, 279)

This radical confession must go to the core of one’s being. There is no personal ground of justification, which is to say self-justification: “Self-justification… is an acknowledgment that our actions according to our own will are fair or even righteous” (ibid, 299). Such self-justification is condemned, for Christ is the only ground of justification. Faith in Christ is the only ground of justification and salvation. Moreover, faith in Christ alone is the only ground of works.

Works cannot be established on their own foundation, much less on self. They must be founded on faith in Christ, they must “flow from Christ,” and not self. The Confession of Dositheus affirms this understanding when it states that not only is “no one to be saved without faith,” but that this faith must be “working by love” (Decree 9). The Confession is even clearer when it states that “a man is not simply justified through faith alone,” which is to say a bare, notional assent, “but through faith which worketh through love” (Decree 13). Notice that it is the faith which is working; it is not some second thing, not a working that stands aloof from a believing that has to somehow be coordinated, but precisely the faith which is itself working, and it is this working faith that is indicated by the phrase, “faith and works” (Decree 13). Works, moreover, are not merely a witness, a tacked on carnal effort to prove faith, but are “fruits in themselves” of the root which is faith (Decree 13).

Not bare faith, it is faith through works, otherwise works are just mere will-worship. This is why St. Ignatius states that:

According to the immutable law of asceticism, an abundant acknowledgement and perception of one’s sinfulness, given by the grace of God, comes before all other gifts of grace.” (The Refuge, 279)

Without this grace-given perception, ascetical efforts, good works, and virtuous acts will always be attempted on the false foundation of self. “What belongs to us?” asks St. Tikhon in a quote by St. Ignatius, “Only weakness, corruption, darkness, evil, sins” (ibid, 279). If one cannot admit to the depravity of one’s soul, including the free will, thoughts, and affections, then one will have rejected Christ:

Let us beware of this death-bearing delusion! Let us fear to reject Christ! Let us fear the definite loss of salvation for assimilating such false thoughts, so hostile to faith! (ibid, 279)

According to St. Ignatius it is precisely in this age in which this doctrine must be emphasized, when “the preaching of the exaltedness of the virtues and success of fallen mankind is spreading with especial insistence” (ibid, 279). This attracts:

all to the doing of such virtues and such successes. Mocking the all-holy goodness of Christianity, this preaching tries to inspire disdain and hatred for Christianity. (ibid, 279)

The stakes could not be higher, and this age only places more and more confidence in man’s native abilities. Man’s free will, however, is insufficient as a ground for righteousness, only to condemnation, and so it is only in a clear vision of one’s personal sinfulness, not just one’s particular sins, that repentance is possible. Dositheus echoes this in that portion of the Confession which deals with Original Sin, when he affirms that man has been “utterly undone” (Decree 14). 

Obviously, the good that man does by nature, his natural virtue, is not in itself sin, but the good that man does is neither purely good nor saving, and thus natural man is condemned apart from Christ, for “it contributeth not unto salvation thus alone without faith” (Decree 14). It is only in the regenerated that:

what is wrought by grace, and with grace, maketh the doer perfect, and rendereth him worthy of salvation. … for the works of the believer being contributory to salvation and wrought by supernatural grace are properly called spiritual. (Decree 14)

Man apart from grace is thus dead in sin, and:

he is not able of himself to do any work worthy of Christian life, although he hath it in his own power to will, or not to will, to co-operate with grace. (Decree 14)

The supernatural element cannot be minimized, for only the grace of God offered to man in the power of the Gospel enables him to co-operate with God. And thus from beginning to end it is the grace of God that supernaturally works in and with the regenerate. God’s grace does not meet man as an equal, but meets him as a sinner in need of grace. The man thus contributes nothing natural to his salvation, and certainly contributes nothing in the sense of adding to Christ’s accomplishment on the Cross, but in the sense of faithfully cooperating with God’s proffered grace, receiving it freely and obediently, and working out that faith in love. This is what Dositheus means when he states that grace renders a man “worthy of salvation,” not that man perfects himself according to natural ability, but that he becomes entirely responsive to God’s grace. The operation of grace renders a regenerate man perfect in his cooperation with said grace, not the working of the fallen free will empowered by a covering of grace.

The active, conscientious, and total dependence on God’s grace is the sine qua non of spiritual life and theosis. It is not enough simply to have lip-faith plus some good works, for this is but a white-washed tomb. Penetrating vision into one’s utter helplessness is therefore a precondition of authentic repentance, and must be had so that no confidence will be placed on natural virtue, and so that virtue and good works will be rooted supernaturally in God’s grace alone and in a total faith in Christ alone:

The works of salvation are the works of faith, the works of the New Testament. These deeds are performed not by human knowledge, not by human will, but by the will of the all-holy God, revealed to us in the commandments of the Gospel. (The Refuge, 279-80)

In other words, the works of faith are not the works of natural human willing. They are not the product of a libertarian free will. Not two, it is not faith plus works, it is works of faith: one thing. By dividing off faith from works the fallen human will sets itself to accomplish all that it naturally can, unto damnation. Faith and works must be so united that it is the faith that is working itself out in love, where the works are the loving operation of faith only. Faith cannot be without works, and works cannot be without faith. Works, however, must be “the result of faith” (Patriarch Jeremiah, pg 46; cf. 37-38, 42, 88, 95, 180, 182-83), which is to say faith's own outworking. The works of faith, moreover, must be the result of the grace of the indwelling Christ, in union with Him, and not an appendage tacked on by fallen man’s self-efforts. For “Christian perfection is a gift of God, not the fruit of human labor” (The Refuge, 287). Otherwise, the eye of man will be riveted to himself  and his own “spiritual” efforts, and not to God. In this light, St. Ignatius asks:

What does it mean to love your life? It means to love fallen nature, its characteristics, defiled by the Fall, its falsely named wisdom, its desires and enticements, its “truth.” What does it mean to save your life in this world? It means to develop the characteristics of fallen nature, to follow your own reason and your own will, to create your own righteousness from the so-called good deeds of fallen nature. (ibid, 298)

When fallen man hears the idea of “good works,” he almost involuntarily thinks in terms of personal effort, of action performed according to fallen reason and will, and of personal righteousness. What does it mean, then, to preach to fallen man the independence of good works? He will only condemn himself. Without repentance, and not understood as the outworking of faith, good works are a snare. The libertarian, however, insists on the intrinsic ability of fallen man to produce righteous, God-pleasing action. St. Ignatius, however, refutes this in the continuation of his questioning:

What does it mean to lose your life for the sake of Christ and the Gospel? What does it mean to hate your life? It means to admit and know the Fall and the disorder of your nature by sin. It means to hate the state produced in us by the Fall and to mortify it by rejecting all actions stemming from our own reason, our own will, our own desires. It means to forcibly assimilate the reason and will of the nature renewed by Christ. (ibid, 299)

To conclude, although Orthodox theology necessarily affirms the free will of man, it does not thereby ascribe to fallen man’s disordered, sinful nature a virtuous free will. Orthodoxy teaches that “fallen nature is hostile to God” (ibid, 299), and that as a result man’s fallen free will is “distrubed,” bound to sin even though in relation to any particular act of sin it can “do otherwise.” Man’s disturbed will is by no means coerced or compelled to sin by any external force, and so he is terminally responsible for his actions. Man’s free will is thus preserved, and his responsibility maintained, for the disorder of man’s fallen nature, his inborn sinfulness, does not destroy his free will; it just sets him inexorably on the free choosing of sin unto just condemnation. Even though he knows better, he freely refuses, and because of the pervasive contamination of sin even his virtues are “a striving toward sure, eternal damnation” (ibid, 299). Those who do “good deeds” in the power of fallen nature, no matter how “exalted, blameless, holy” they may seem, they “are always mixed with evil," for they are "the defiled virtues, from which the Lord turns away His all-holy gaze as from a Satanic abomination” (ibid, 299-300). It is thus not that fallen man cannot but sin, but that he will not but sin. His constitutional position is disturbed, but retaining his free will he stands justly condemned. Man’s willing communion with evil thus places him under the power of the devil, in communion with evil, and he cannot naturally escape. Nor can he extricate himself from his fallen nature. Try as he might, he cannot purify his deeds or justify himself through natural willpower or moral perfection. Man requires Christ to free him from his will’s free bondage to sin, his autodoulia to Satan, for at all times the evil one presses his advantage over man’s fallen nature. Fallen man thus requires a power greater than his personal freedom and resolve to overcome his thralldom; he requires the energy of God’s grace working in him to lead him in free submission to God’s will into true freedom in Christ.

-Fr. Joshua Schooping

The Levitical Doctrine of Forensic Imputation

Some have attempted to assert that the concept of forensic imputation is a result of the speculations of 16th Century theologians. That this is not true, however, is demonstrated by the holy Scriptures themselves. The central Scriptural image for the forensic imputation of sin is actually found in the Pentateuch, specifically in the Levitical sin offering of the scapegoat. Chapter 16 of Leviticus is where this is found, and the verses of particular interest clearly show a forensic transfer of guilt:

Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities (עָוֺן ʻâvôn) of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting (נָתַן, nâthan) them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear (נָשָׂא, nâsâʼ) on itself all their iniquities (עָוֺן ʻâvôn) to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:21-22)

The key Hebrew term is נָשָׂא, nâsâʼ, which means “to lift, bear up, carry, take.” And so, according to the divine and legal logic of the sacrifice, the goat is made to take up, bear, and carry away the iniquities of the people. This method of transfer is called imputation, which means to lay the responsibility for something on someone. In the nature of the case the goat is without blemish, and must be for the sacrifice to be effective, and as such the sin is laid on or imputed to him. It is legal or forensic because it happens according to the statutory Law commanded by God for His people to obey (Leviticus 16:1-2, 29, 31, 34). In reference to Christ, then, this is the sacrificial principle by which the responsibility for iniquities (עָוֺן ʻâvôn) was put (נָתַן, nâthan) on Him in a legal transfer or imputation of guilt, which He willingly bore (נָשָׂא, nâsâʼ).

The logic of the Levitical scapegoat is not restricted to the Pentateuch. It also plays a decisive role in the prophecy of the Suffering Servant. The key verses from Isaiah 53 are:

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities (עָוֺן ʻâvôn); the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid (פָּגַע, pâgaʻ) on Him the iniquity (עָוֺן ʻâvôn) of us all. ... He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear (סָבַל, çâbal) their iniquities (עָוֺן ʻâvôn). Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered (מָנָה, mânâh) with the transgressors, and He bore (נָשָׂא, nâsâʼ) the sin (חֵטְא, chêṭᵉʼ) of many, and made intercession (פָּגַע, pâgaʻ) for the transgressors. (Isa 53:5-6, 11-12)

The logic of the Levitical scapegoat sacrifice is clearly at work insofar as Christ is made to bear (נָשָׂא, nâsâʼ) the sin (Isaiah 53:12). The language of Isaiah is even more emphatic as regards imputation, for the iniquity (עָוֺן ʻâvôn) is laid (פָּגַע, pâgaʻ) upon Him such that He bears (סָבַל, çâbal) it. And it is precisely its being laid (פָּגַע, pâgaʻ) on Him and accounted (מָנָה, mânâh) to Him that accomplishes the intercession (פָּגַע, pâgaʻ). Imputation is thus at the heart of the Suffering Servant’s sacrifice, and since this sacrifice functions within the context of God’s Law and so according to the principle of imputation, it is thus a forensic imputation.

St. Peter makes the implicit connection clear in his first epistle when he refers the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 to Christ: “who Himself bore (ἀναφέρω, anaphérō) our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24; cf. Isaiah 53:5). Christ bore (ἀναφέρω, anaphérō) our sins. The term that St. Peter uses here, ἀναφέρω, is the same term used in the Septuagint of Isaiah 53:12: “And He bore (LXX: ἀνήνεγκεν, from the root ἀναφέρω) the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa 53:12). It is thus that the Hebrew concept, נָשָׂא, nâsâʼ, being translated into the LXX of Isaiah 53:12 as ἀναφέρω, is being utilized by St. Peter to connect and even define what Christ accomplished on the Cross in imputational terms. Although Christ's Atonement is not restricted to forensic imputation, the imputational nature of Christ’s atoning work is thus unambiguously established on Scriptural grounds, and cannot be said to be the product of 16th Century theorization.

-Fr. Joshua Schooping