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Consider the following paradox. We read "God is Love" [1John 4:16]. We read "who will have all men to be saved, and to come to a knowledge of the truth" [1Timothy 2:4]. We are saved through the Gift of Faith, for we read "For by Grace are ye saved through Faith; and that not of yourselves: It is athe Gift of God" [Ephesians 2:8]. And yet, we read that "the Lord said unto Moses, when thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go."
Now Pharaoh was a man. God must have loved Pharaoh and desired that he be saved. Why is it written that God hardened Pharaoh's heart? Why did He not give Pharaoah the Gift of Faith, so that Pharoah might believe in God and follow Moses to the Promised Land?
Several Church Fathers address the question of God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart:
If, therefore, in the present time also, God, knowing the number of those who will not believe, since He foreknows all things, has given them over to unbelief, and turned away his face from men of this stamp, leaving them in the darkness which they themselves have chosen for themselves, what is there wonderful if He did also at that time give over to their undelief, Pharaoh, who never would have believed, along with those who were with him?" As the Word Spake to Moses from the bush: 'And I am sure that the King of Egypt will not let you go, unless by a mighty hand.' And for the reason that the Lord spake in parables, and brought blindness upon Israel, that seeing they might not see, since He knew the [spirit of] unbelief in them, for the same reason did He harden Pharaoh's heart; in order that, while seeing that it was the finger of God which led forth the people, he might not believe, but be precipitaed into the sea of unbelief, resting in the notion that the exit of these [Israelites] was accomplished by magical power, and that it was not by the operation of God that the Red Sea afforded passage to the people, but that this occured by merely natural causes." [Iraenaeus Against Heresies, pg. 502]
"Now how could [Pharaoh] be condemned, if he were disposed by divine constraint to be stubborn and obstinate... Pharoah is not hardedned by divine will.. For if this were to be willed by the divine nature, then certainly any human choice would fall into the line in every case, so that no distinction between virtue and vice in life could be observed. It lies within each person to make his choice. The Egyptian tyrand is hardened by God not because the Divine Will places resistance in the sould of Pharaoah but because the free will through its inclination to evil does not receive the Word which softens resistance." [Life of Moses, pg 69]
"11. For when God in His Supernal goodness creates each soul in his own image, He brings it into being endowed with self-determination. By exercising this freedom of choice, each sould either reaffirms its true nobility or through its actions deliberately embraces what is ignovle." 12. God, it is said, is the Sun of Righteousness and the rays... shine down on all men alike. The Soul is was if it cleaves to God, but clay if it cleaves to matter. Simliarly every soul that despite God's admonitions... hardens like clay, drives itself to destruction, just like Pharaoh did." [Philokalia Vol II pg. 116]
Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid, For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So it is not of him that willith or of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith unto Pharoah, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hat He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom he will He hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" [Romans 9:14-18]
God is Love. There is no hate or revenge in God. God is good. All that God has created is good. There is no evil in God. God has crated men and angels with free-will. God loves all of His creation and desires salvation for all angels and men. Fatih is a Gift from God. This gift is not given to all. The Gift of Faith is a great mystery. God has created all which exists. God is all-powerful, present everywhere, and all-knowing. God is everywhere present at every moment of time, and yet He transcends the physical world and the passage of time. God is more than simply eternal. He is pre-eternal insofar as He created all which is eternal. It is very difficult for us who are in time to understand time as it is known by the pre-eternal God.
Try to imagine God in an eternal Now, for whom all time is present. now God is saying "Let there be Light", now Adam and Eve are being cast out of Paradise, Now the Red Sea is being divided, Now the wise men are presenting their gifts at the manger, Now Christ is being nailed to the Cross, Now you are sitting and reading the words on this page, Now the dad are rising for the Judgement at the Second Coming. We read that "... with the Lord one day is as 1000 years in thine eyes, O Lord, and a thousand years as one day," [2Peter 89:4] and "... a thousand years in thine eyes, O Lord, are but as yesterday that is past, as a watch in the night." [Psalm 89:4]. Will not our experience at the Judgement be something like this eternal Now, as all men who have ever lived stand before the Throne of God, recalling their every word, deed, and thought in the twinkling of an eye?
The outcome of each man's free-will choices are foreknown by God from before the foundation of the world. Yet God's foreknowledge of our free-will choices inno way robs us of our free-will or predetermines our choices. God foreknows who will accept the precious Gift of Faith before it is ever offered and He foreknows what they will do with that Gift if they receive it. Our salvation is somehow a product of the mystical interaction between the Gift of Fiath and our Free-will acceptance and cultivation of that Gift, and God's Foreknowledge of our acceptance and cultivation.
St. John Cassian expresses the crux of our difficulty in discussing the Gift of Faith:
"For the God of all must be held to work in all, so as to incite, protect, and strengthen, but not to take away the freedom of the will which He Himself has once given. If however any more subtle inference of man's argumentation and reasoning seems opposed to this interpretation, it should be avoided rather than brought forward to the destruction of the faith (for we gain not faith from understanding, but understanding from faith, as it is written: 'Except ye believe, ye will not understand' [Isaiah 7:9]
of man." [First Conference of Abbot Nesteros, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers xi, pg. 434-435]
We see from what St. John Cassian says that we must first be given the gift of Faith before we can begin to understand it. Conversly, and this is a very important point to understand,
If Faith could come through such means,
The philosophies of such as Plato or Aristotle would have sufficed. On the contrary, we read that "the wisdom of the wise is made foolish", that "the reading of many books is a wearyness to the flesh", that "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity". And as for unaided human intellectual ability, we read "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher that the earth, so ar My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." [Isaiah 55:8]
It is God who converts the soul of man, as we read in Psalm 19, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." Human wisdom, cleverness, and sophistication is often an impediment ot the achievement of Divine Wisdom.
Let us examine what is said in the Holy Scriptures concerning the Gift of Faith. Christ says to the Samaritan woman at the well "If thou knewest the Gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked him..." [John 4:10].
Is the "Gift of God" which our Savious mentions any other than the "Gift of Faith"? For we see the Samaritan woman shortly thereafter exclaiming "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ." [John 4:29]. We learn from the Holy Tradition of the Church that the Samaritan woman received Holy Baptism and became St. Photini... (Iso-Apostolic or Equal to the Apostles)
We further read of the gift of Wisdom, which sounds very much like the "Gift of Faith":
"When I perceived that I could not otherwise obtain her (Wisdom), except God gave her me;
I prayed unto the Lord, and besought Him, and with my whole heart I said.." [Wisdom of Solomon 8:21]
"And thy counsel who hath known, except thou give Wisdom, and send thy Holy Spirit from above? For so the ways of them which lived on the earth were reforme, and men were taught the things that are pleasing unto Thee, and were saved through Wisdom." [Wisdom of Solomon 9:11].
"There is one wise and greatly to be feared, the Lord sitting upon His throne. He created her (Wisdom), and saw her, and numbered her, and poured her out upon all His works.
..and he hath given Her to them that love Him." [Ecclesiasticus 1:8]
In Proverbs we read:
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom" [1:7]
"Wisdom crieth without..."[1:20] saying... "... behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded.." [1:23,24]
"Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For they hated Wisdom, and did not choose the fear of the Lord..." [1:28,29]
"Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled wth their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them..." [1:32,32]
We can vividly see in the above passages that God offers His gift of Wisdom or Faith to all, pouring out his spirit upon all, but some refuse and turn away through the exercise of their free-will. Theefore, the "Gift of Faith" is not offered. Or rather, the "Gift of Faith" is offered to all from before the foundation of the world and yet the hearts of some have been hardened by their intrinsic nature, through the propensity of their free-will, so as to be impervious and immune to this light from the Sun of Righteousness. And God, being outside of the constraints of time, foreknows the hardness of their hearts. By the same token, God foreknows the hearts of those who will be receptive to the "Gift of Faith".
Wehn God directed Samuel to anoint David (whose idendity was yet unknown to Samuel), Samuel was incapable of discerning which son of Jesse should be chosen. We read "But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him [Eliab]: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." God is the knower of all men's hearts. "Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart." [Psalm 44:21]
Christ, in His Divine Foreknowledge, foretold to Peter that Peter would deny Him thrice. Inspite of Peter's priveledged knowledge of God's foreknowledge, inspite of Peter's vehement rejection of the notion that he would ever deny Christ, when the time came and the rooster crowed, Peter denied Christ. Peter was not compelled by God's foreknowledge to deny Christ. God, who is beyond time, saw the very moment within the Pre-Eternal Now. God, the knower of hearts, saw the weakness of Peter's heart at that moment, saw the two laws at war within his flesh. So sacred and inviolable in God's eyes is His gift of Free-Will to man, that not even through those rare Revelations of His foreknowledge to an individual will He allow him to be coerced contrary to his Free-Will and the nature of his heart to behave or choose otherwise. This is why Abraham, in whose bosom reclined Lazarus, replied to the rich man in Gehenna, "even if one were to be sent back from the dead, they would not hearken to him."
Psalm 139 (King James) demonstrated the foreknowledge, omniscience, and omnipresence of God, the Knower of hearts. "O Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; you understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it."
This Psalm continues, "Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were non of them."
The Psalm ends "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
When God chose the child, Jeremiah, to be a prophet he said, "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knw thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." [Jeremiah 1:5]
God's foreknowledge of us precedes our creation, and while we are still in the womb we are capable of sanctification and divine wisdom. St. John the baptist, while still in his mother's womb, recognized the Divinity of the unborn Christ, still in His mother's womb.
We read in Psalm 22 "But you are He who took me out of the womb, You made me trust when I was on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth. From mymother's womb you have been my God." Our Fre-Will predisposition to evil is also fully active fromthe moment of conception. We read in Psalm 58 "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies."
We see the foreknowledge, omnipresence, and omniscience of God in many plaes in the scripturs. Jesus, the Knower of Men's hearts, seeing Nathanael coming to Him, says "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile," Nathanael replys "Whence knowest thou me?" And Jesus answers, "Before that Philip called thee, twhen thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." Nathanael exclaims "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou aret the Kind of Israel." Jesus answers him saying, "Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou. Thou shalt see greater things than these... Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." [John 1:45-51]
Much may be said about this encounter between Nathanel and Jesus. Was it the simple knowledge of the fact that Nathanel had earlier been locatd beneath a particular fig tree that impressed Nathanel so? I doubt it. I think Christ alluded to something which had transpired in Nathanael's heart while he was beneath that fig tree, soething which could only possibly be known by Nathanael himself, and by God, the "Knower of Hearts". And this secret which Christ perceived in Nathanael's heart was something which demonstrated Nathanael's guilelessness, or lack of deceit. Was it perhaps a temptation to eat some figs which did not belong to him, and which Nathanael resisted? We will never know. There is a second question we must ask. Was it the miraculous, supernatural nature of Christ's knowledge of Nathanael's heart which inspired Nathanael to profess his faith? We have already said that faith does not come by understanding but rather understanding comes through Faith. Nowadays many people are of the opinion that the age of miracles is past. They say, "Who would not believe in God if they were able to witness a miracle? Many asked Christ to show them some sign or miracle.
But we know from our example of Pharaoh that the witnessing of a miracle is not sufficient to bring a man to faith. Pharaoh witnessed ten miracles and then saw the very Red Sea parted in tawin. The magicians of Pharaoh, when they saw the dust turned to a plague of lice, and were unable to duplicate the miracle, confessed God's power, for it is written: "then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the Finger of God: and Pharoah's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them." [Exodus 8:19]
Pharoah himself went so far as to confess the existence of God. "And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked...". Moses replies '...that thou mayest know that the earth is the Lord's. But as for thee and thy servants, I know ye will not fear the Lord God."
We see that the demons confessed Christ as the Son of God. "And, behold, they cried out, saying What have we to do with tee, Jesus thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before our time?" [Matt 8:29] Obviously, confessing Christ as the Son of God is not sufficient for salvation of devils. There is much to be said about this confrontation between Christ and the devils. When the devils speak of Christ "coming hither to torment" them before their time, do they imagine that he is about to do some act of violence against them? When we read that the devils "cry out', it is as if they are already tormented simply by Christ's approach. The devils indicate that there is some future time appointed for their torment when they say "before our time." We also may observe that the devils do not have foreknowledge of what Christ will do next. Yet, the devils must perceive Christ as merciful, otherwise why would they beseech Him to cast them into the herd of swine? Indeed, it would appear that Christ is sufficiently merciful to the devils to indulge them in their request. In my opinion, the devils are tormented by the mere presence of the merciful, loving God. And he demonstrated his mercy to them in granting their request. To be even more explicit and to the poit,
We may read in the Wisdom of Solomon concerning God's love: "But hthou hast mercy upon all; for thou canst do all things and overlook the sins of men, because theyshould amend. For thou lovest all things that are, and abhorest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldst thou have made anything, if thou hadst hated it. And how could anything have endured, if it had not been they will? or been preserved, if not called by Thee? But thou sparest all: for they are thine, O Lord thou Lover of souls." {Wisdom of Solomon 11:23]
St. Isaac the Syrian expressed the punishment of God's love in the following: "I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of Love. Nay, what is so bitter and vehement as the torment of Love? I mean that those who have become conscious that they have sinned against Love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against Love is more poignant than any punishment. It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the Love of God. Love is the offspring of knowledge of Truth whihc, as is commonly confessed, is given to all. The power of Love works in two ways: It torments sinners, even as happens here, when a friend suffers from a friend; but it becomes a source of Joy for those who have observed its duties.
But Love inebriatd the souls of the sons of heaven by its delectability." [The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian XLVII, Pearls]
Psalm 109 (King James) also seems to support the understanding of the torment of Gehenna being the bitter regret arising from the nature which we have chosen for ourselves out of our own free-will, now engulfed in the FIERY RIVER of GOD'S LOVE. "As he loved cursing so let it come to him; As he did not delight in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing as with a garment, so let it enter his body like water, and like oil, into his bones. Let it be to him like a garment which covers him, and for a belt with which he girds himself continually."
The Psalm continues "Let them curse, but you Bless; when they arise, let them be ashamed, but let your servant rejoice. Let my accusers be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle."
Psalm 7 demonstrated that hell is of our own making. "He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown."
Also, Psalm 9, "The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; in the snare which they hid their own foot is caught. The Lord is known by the judgement He executes. The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands." The kindgoms of Heaven and Hell are within us. yet we are never without God's Love. Psalm 89, "If they break my statues and do not keep my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the Rod, and their iniquity with stripes. nevertheless, my lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him."
When God became incarnate and walked the earth as Jesus Christ, He never displayed considerable anger of violence. His most angry and violent act was to make a whip, hod it in a threatening gesture without striking, and chase the money-changers out of the Temple, overturning their tables. his only desctuctive act was to say to the barren fig tree, "Be thou withered". he taught us to turn the other cheek, and to return hatred with love. he suffered all forms of beatings insults, mockery, and spitting without once retaliating. He rebukes Peter for cutting off the ear of the High Priest's servant, by saying "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" And then Jesus healed the servants ear [Luke 22:51]. Does this sound like a vengeful sadistic God who casts souls into fire and brimstone? Is this a God who would create the tortures depicted in Dante's Inferno?
We see that the commandments are founded upon Love. When Jesus was asked "master, which is the greatest commandment I the Law?"[Matt 22:36] he replied, "THou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thye heart, and iwth all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. THou shalt love thy nieghbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the propehts." [Matt 22:37-40]
"36. The perfect peace of the Holy Angels lies in their love for God and their love for one another. This is also the case with all the saints from the begining of time. Most truly therefore is it said that "on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
"37. Stop leasing yourself and you will not hate your brother; stop loving yourself and you will love God." [Philokalia Vol II pg 104, 4th Century on Love]
We see that the commandments are founded upon Love. I believe that "Love thy neighbor as thyself" also means to stop loving the self. When we consider that God created man in His own likeness and image, and "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of my grethern, ye have done it unto me" [Matt 25:40] we see that loving our neighbor is in a sense synonymous with loving God. So the two greatest commandments may for the Saints become one, for our heighbor becomes our self, our neighbor is mystically Christ standing before us and, since God became man so that men might become as gods, the Self becomes God, and all are united forever in the Divine Fire of Love, which becomes the heaven or Hell which we have made for ourselves during our lifetime.
Faith is a Gift. Faith leads to knowledge from God. The knowldege of men does not lead to Faith. But what is the knowledge from God?
9. Created beings can be known rationally by means of the inner principles which are by nature intrinsic to such beings and by which they are naturally defined. But from our apprehension of these principles inherent in created beings we can do no more thatn believe that God exists. To the devout believer, God gives something more sure than any proof: the recognition and the faith that He substantively IS. Faith is tru knowledge, the principles of which are beyond rational demonstration; for Faith makes real for us things beyond intellect and reason." [First Century on Theology, pg. 116, Philokalia Vol.II]
St. Paul the Apostle writes;
St. John Cassian
for how God works all things in us and yet everything can be ascribed to free-will, cannot be fully grasped by the mind and reason...
Faith cannot come to us through understanding, trough syllogistic argument or rational debate, through study or contemplation, or any other intellectual process
... then the Divine Dispensation of the Logos, the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection would have been unnecessary.
... and that was a point of Wisdom ALSO, to know whose GIFT she was;
We read in the Wisdom of Seirax:
She is with ALL FLESH according to HIS GIFT,
Pharaoah's simple recognition and profession of God is not sufficient for Faith and Salvation.
the devils are tormented by LOVE
Thus I say this is the torment of Genenna: Bitter Regret (in the face of Absolute Love).
St. Maximos the Confessor says:
St. Maximos the Confessor writes:
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
[Hebrews 11:1]
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