In light of some arguments I have been having (such as here) with fellow Lutherans about synergism and monergism, I found the following observation by the Orthodox priest Fr Stephen Freeman quite remarkable:
... forgiveness, like repentance, is not automatic, or even the sort of thing we can “do,” in and of ourselves.
We may need to forgive someone desperately and yet not find it within ourselves to do so. In the words of Fr. Thomas Hopko, the most we can sometimes do is to “want to want to forgive.”
Neither is repentance a natural given. We are given the call to repentance - but at the heart of its meaning - a “change of the mind (nous)” repentance is no more within our own power than forgiveness. These are outright miracles - the working of grace in our lives.
I don't know, but that sounds like Lutheran-style monergism to me -- just as article II of the Formula of Concord sounds like Orthodox synergism to me.
Read the whole post at Father Stephen's weblog.
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