I am not sure that this is what it is. It seems to me that since God is outside time and foreknows does not require predestination.
I agree, as otherwise there is no free will, for we agree that God does indeed know all things (all of that which has happened and is happening and will happen).
It is certainly true that it is possible some will not be saved.
Yes.
But it would be predestination to assert that some will be lost (insofar as the free-will of those being lost is denied them).
I agree. To assert that I know for a fact that hell is occupied would likewise be a pretentious sense of judgment and a compromise to free will.
So far you've described exactly how I understand the Orthodox take on this: I am free to HOPE and PRAY that hell is empty, but not free to proclaim that is empty doctrinally. Similarly, I may suspect that there are some who are condemned, but knowing the mercy of God and my own inability to judge, it would be foolish to speculate.
There are, however, several prayers in Holy Week that seem to suggest rather strongly that Judas is condemned. That is, of course, only one part of the tradition, but it is telling.
However, I'm not convinced that asserting that hell COULD be occupied is a violation of free will. We protect free will by REFUSING predestination of any sort. Even so, the concept that SOME are condemned by their continual denial of the Holy Spirit seems both consistent with free will (as it is their choice, though foreknown by God), and the Scriptures as commonly understood.
In contrast, asserting that EVERYONE is saved seems to deny free will because it means that my choices don't have real consequences. If there is no real consequence, then there is no real choice. It's like if someone asks me if I want peanuts or ice-cream and I say peanuts, but they give me ice-cream anyway because they know it tastes better and doesn't have salmonela. Perhaps, after tasting it, I will agree, but my short term free will has still been violated and the illusion of a choice was just that: an illusion. The person presenting the choice knew ahead of time that my choice meant nothing. This isn't foreknowledge of what choice I'll make, but rather foreknowledge that
there is no real choice.
That's how I understand dogmatic universalism (rather than just the hope of universalism). It proclaims that there isn't, ultimately, a choice between heaven and hell, life and death, because whichever we chose in the end we end up with life, without contingency on the choices we make. Rather, I understand foreknowledge to imply that God KNOWS the choices we make, but we are still the one's making that choice, and that choice is still subject to consequences.
What I am saying is that God foreknew our fall (without predestinating it) and foreknows the end (telos) to which all creation is heading.
Sure.
If scripture can be read in the way St. Gregory and Isaac did it than God has revealed that the end He has foreknown is that all will be reconciled with Him. If it cannot be read that way than some will be lost (again this is not pre-determined).
Again, it seems that we are free to hope in the salvation of all, and our meditations on Scripture may lead us to that, as it did for these venerable saints (I've not read them in enough depth to know - I thought Isaac HOPED for the salvation of the devil and PRAYED for him but didn't teach that he was, necessarily, redeemed in the end).
But doesn't claiming this as dogma - as knowledge - place us too much in the seat of judgment and, as outlined above, compromise free will by shifting the foreknowledge to God knowing that no real consequence exists as opposed to merely foreknowing what choices (and therefore what consequences) we'll accept?
He seems to have made an attempt at explaining the principles of first and second cause - the idea that God's elect will be infallibly saved because God's will created their wills such that they freely choose to be saved. Which is single predestination and is a doctrine I do not accept (though it has been around ever since St. Augustine of Hippo and is under no condemnation to the best of my knowledge). I am aware of several attempts of reconciling free-will and single predestination but none of them have succeeded in convincing me.
Unless you are merely stating that you HOPE all are saved, I don't see how the view you are presenting isn't a form of single-predestination. It is just that you see ALL wills as ultimately created by God to accept Him, and thereby ALL "chose" to be saved. I think I'm missing something here, so please feel free to clarify.
Perhaps. It certainly ought to raise a flag for us. Yet the failure of the Church to condemn saints and theologians of the past and present who adhere to versions of universalism ought to qualify the perceived consensus of the Church - I mean it should bring into sharper focus what it is that is being rejected and what is not. The kind of universalism defended by St. Gregory, and St. Isaac has not been condemned and should qualify any statement concerning the status of universalism in the Orthodox Church.
Is it not possible that the Church saw their universalism as incidental to their core theology, and affirmed them as saints for their quality of life and defense of the Gospel? No saint has a carte-blanche to do theology, but we must look at them in balance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but on balance most saints affirmed the idea that hell was probably not empty and denied dogmatic universalism, yes? The hymnity of the Church seems to suggest so, as do several passages in Revelations, and Matthew 25.
I mean, I grasp that the non-condemnation of these two saints means that this part of their theology didn't compromise their sanctity, but Constantine is a saint in our Church - does the failure to condemn significant numbers of his actions mean the Church
condones those actions? I can't think that's the case.
To me, though this may be a simplistic understanding, it is the balance of Orthodox thought that counts, not only today (where the balance seems rather clearly against universalism), but also in history (where the same balance seems to have existed). How could I not be obedient to that?
The core of the question is really this: "Can foreknowledge exist without predestination?"
That depends on WHAT is being foreknown, and does that which is foreknown directly compromise free will (see above).
Sts. Gregory and Isaac certainly seemed to think so - as do I - but this opinion (for that is what it is) is not without philosophical problems (and for that matter neither is any other opinion in this regard). The difference between me and your friend is that I believe foreknowledge and predestination are two concepts that do not share a causal relation. In fact, not only do I find double predestination unacceptable but I would include single predestination among unacceptable doctrines.
I agree with this.
Again, I am aware that Thomists and Neo-Thomists (and some Orthodox friends of mine) have vigoroulsy defended the idea that free-will and single predestination are compattible (in the sense described above of first and second cause), but I remain unconvinced that there can be such a thing as single predestination (I think predestination is always double and therefore never acceptable).
I'm inclined to agree with this as well. If the single predestination is not to universal salvation, then by mutual exclusion those not predestined to be saved are predestined to be condemned.
But neither of us is advocating predestination. The question is whether or not the view you are claiming is, in fact, predestination. I'm still not convinced that it isn't, unless I'm misunderstanding you and you are simply expressing the very strong hope that hell is empty, and the potential that it is empty. In which case, I fully agree with you and hope alongside you.
Forgive me,
Macarius
