It isn't, I like to cite a favorite article that deals with the topic more from the angle of Predestination and Orthodox dialogue with Calvinists.
Webmaster Note: What follows is an email exchange between Father John and a few Calvinist Protestants:
FJ: "...St. Augustine is as close to a patristic basis for the Calvinist idea of free will and predestination as one can find, and yet where does he say that the fall was unavoidable? Where does he say anything about God withdrawing his grace—but on the contrary, we have God's grace available to a man who could either cooperate with it, or reject it.
Thus, as wrong as St. Augustine was on other points in this regard, he clearly did not hold to the idea that God determined that Adam would fall, irregardless of how he would respond to God.
CP: Either it's (a) you or (b) God who is ultimately responsible for your salvation. Pick one. If (a), then you're a Pelagian heretic. If (b), then either you're a closet Calvinist, or you don't really mean what you say about the grace of God.
FJ: How about God is responsible for my salvation,
and I am responsible for my response to his offer of salvation? God holds those responsible who reject the gospel, which would be senseless, if they were not in fact responsible for their response.
CP: But if you say that you are "influenced" by the grace of God to the point where the grace is salvific, then what has happened to your "free will?" Methinks that grace has somehow overriden your free will without becoming externally coercive, and if so, then welcome to the Wonderful World o' Calvinism and glad to have you aboard.
FJ: How about God reveals himself to men, and they must choose to either accept his grace or reject it. If they accept it, they are saved, are being saved, and will be saved. You claim that I add to my salvation by my response. I say you are looking at it wrongly to begin with.
It is not God's Grace (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) + my response (1) = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,001. Rather it is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000 (God's grace) x 1 (my response) which only = 1,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000. Thus God gets all the credit. But if my response is no (0), it is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 0 = 0.
Dialogue on Free Will & Determinism