Iv been in the Orthodox church for 2 years and read quite a few books and gone into their teachings and I havent found them teaching predestination like this.
What about the book of revelations, its full of instructions for us to not be deceived and to ensure until the end etc
I believe that the significant difficulties we have in accepting and even understanding God's predestination lie mostly in our inability to think outside of our linear spacetime. In other words, as physical creatures inhabiting a created universe, we lack the capacity to even construct a mental model of what the universe looks like from God's omniscient perspective, which is not subject to all of the constraints which limit us. These constraints extend to things we usually don't even recognize, such as being itself (i.e. I am
scorpion, therefore I cannot
also be Samseau. But God is not constrained by being, as he is both the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit simultaneously). Similarly, God is not constrained by causality - from His perspective, there is no contradiction or incompatibility between predestination and human free will to exercise faith. The problem lies in our extremely limited human perspective, which can only process information through sensory input and which is trapped in linear spacetime. In contrast, God's omniscient understanding transcends space, time and the physical universe we perceive as reality itself. This why the Bible wisely teaches us to walk by faith, not by sight, because the limited capacities of human perception and reason cannot even begin to unravel the mind of God absent whatever He explicitly chooses to reveal to us. And he has revealed to us repeatedly in scripture that predestination plays a large role in his redemptive plan for believers.
You quoted Scorpion and I both, and I'd like to see his take as well.
How's that for a take?
We need the Holy Spirit's guidance, through our bishops and priests, to properly understand the Bible.
While the guidance of a priest or elder is certainly advantageous in most cases, the vast majority of the Bible can be fully understood by most believers with a modest degree of effort and study, because the Holy Spirit guides the understanding of Christians. Paul writes that after receiving the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we literally have "the mind of Christ" within us (1 Corinthians 2:14-16). However, this obviously doesn't mean that every Christian is equally gifted in discernment, understanding and capacity for understanding and interpreting scripture, however. But those who have been gifted with those qualities should help instruct their brothers. This is not a role required to be performed by a priest.
Remember that a Church creates Scripture, Scripture cannot create a Church.
The church did not create scripture, the church recognized - through God's ordained divine providence - the scripture that was written by His chosen men under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God created scripture.
Everything aside from Orthodoxy is a separation from Christ's original church and will never come to the right interpretation because without God it is impossible.
This is a ridiculous statement given that there are plenty of scriptural interpretations on which Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox have unanimous agreement.
