Do we cooperate in our salvation? Do our efforts
make a difference?
These
questions lie at the heart of a centuries-old religious debate in Christianity.
Classically, the Protestant reformers said, “No,” to these questions, arguing
that we are saved solely and utterly by God’s grace, His unmerited favor. The
Catholic Church replied that “faith without works” is dead and that faith alone
is insufficient.
This
debate, with various twists and turns, has continued down through the centuries
of Christian culture. At one point, there were complaints of “cheap grace,”
where the exaltation of pure grace over works led to a very complacent and lazy
Christianity. There were also periods of extreme reaction, with guilt-driven
excesses of devotion.
Eastern
Orthodoxy is a late-comer to this debate, but it is not a stranger.
Contemporary Orthodox are quick to latch on to the doctrine of “synergy” and
take sides against the cheap grace of Protestant Evangelicalism. Classically,
Orthodox thought holds both that we are saved through the action of God
(grace), but that we necessarily cooperated in that work (synergy=cooperation).
For many converts, this balance has seemed attractive and a needed corrective
to the feel-good theology of contemporary Christian culture. But it has a dark
side.
That dark
side is found in the echoes of the guilt-ridden specters of
works-righteousness. How much cooperation is enough? For it is obvious that we
do not pray as we should or give as we should – or do anything as we should. If
our cooperation is required, are we failing? For many in our culture the answer
is inevitably, “Yes.” They never do enough, anywhere at any time. Their lives
are haunted with disapproval and shame, well-worn paths that rarely let them
venture into joy.
But it is
a mistake to embrace synergy as part of the classical Protestant/Catholic
debate. It was an answer to a question asked in a very different context and in
centuries that long-predated the modern conversation. Synergy is not a
talking-point within the grace-versus-works debate.
Synergy
is certainly an affirmation of the human role in salvation. Its most famous
example is found in the ‘yes’ of the Mother of God in the Incarnation of
Christ. Her acceptance and embrace of the heavenly announcement are seen as
necessary components in God-becoming-man. God does not impose Himself upon
human freedom. Our free response is required for the life of true Personhood that
is the hallmark of salvation.
Synergy
is properly seen as response rather than work. The whole life of salvation is
marked by grace and is gracious in all its aspects. Consider this statement in
St. Paul:
Now to
him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who
does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
accounted for righteousness…(Rom 4:4-5).
There is
a kind of work that has no wages and does not belong to the world of debt
described by St. Paul. And it is this sort of work that is encompassed in the
term synergy. That work can be described as gracious response. It is worth
noting two instances in which the work of our spiritual lives is described:
Then they said to Him, “What shall we do,
that we may work the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the
work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” (Joh 6:28-29)
and
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in
everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
(1Th 5:16-18)
In the
first case, “work” is equated with believing. It means that the work we do is
to love Christ and to keep His commandments. In the second case, the “will of
God” is fulfilled in giving thanks for all things. The dynamic of saving grace
in our lives is marked by becoming like God. God gives graciously and freely.
We receive graciously and freely by giving thanks for all things.
In this
manner, our own “work” is itself marked by a kind of grace. We cannot hear the
meaning of grace in English, but in the Greek, it also carries the meaning of
“gift” (it’s the same word). Gifts are never given with an expectation of
return – they are gracious and free. But they are only rightly received with
thanksgiving. This is true of the life of grace in the believer.
There is
a highly moralized version of synergy, in which God is seen to give us grace,
but we must do something in our lives to make it effective. In this model we
are always judging the “results” of our “cooperation” with grace, and assuming
that the lousy outcomes we see are simply our fault. This experience becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy of failure and remorse. It is a distortion of
grace-filled synergy.
I have
written (and been criticized for it) about the “unmoral Christian.” My
intention has been to unmask and disarm this false notion of synergy. We indeed
are not saved through the “works” that Protestants tend to criticize. The
“work” we do is largely a state of heart from which all subsequent
grace-empowered actions flow. That state of heart is best described as
“grateful thanksgiving.” The Eucharistic life is the true existence of the
Christian. The giving of thanks is the first of all works and the sine qua non
of the spiritual life. Everything that proceeds from the giving of thanks works
to our salvation. That which does not proceed from the giving of thanks tends
to work to our destruction.
There has
grown up a virtual cottage industry of Orthodox commentary (particularly on the
internet where all of us can self-publish). This commentary (including that by
some priests) is often marked by poor theological training or understanding, by
argument and debate, and by an extreme lack of experience in the actual
guidance of souls towards healing and salvation. That is to say – much of it is
worthless and some of it is actually damaging.
This can
especially be true in discussions of synergy. The wrong treatment of such
pastoral matters can produce despair and distrust in naive readers whose
expectations have been raised through the reading of the lives of the saints
and yet whose experience is marked by the same repeated moral failures that
they have always known. Well-intentioned but ignorant writers argue that what
is needed is yet more moral goading. I have been criticized for possibly
lightening the moral load or suggesting that all moral effort is of no use.
One form
of moral effort (the most common) is indeed of no use. It belongs to the same
category as the works criticized by Protestant theology. We pray, with no
understanding, laboring to complete a prayer rule that amounts to little more
than “going through the motions.” We fast as though every slip were a matter of
sin in need of confession. Some go so far as to carefully search through the
labels on every grocery product, seeking for tale-tell signs of “milk
products,” having invented for themselves a new yoke of bondage that turns
Orthodox fasting into a new version of kosher. In short, there is a form of
asceticism that is ill-taught and ill-practiced and produces either despairing
Christians or oppressive Pharisees (sometimes in one and the same person).
The
grounding of the Christian life is thanksgiving. If you cannot fast with
thanksgiving, your fast will be of little use. The same extends to all
Christian practices and commandments. The essential work of the Christian life
is grateful thanksgiving. It is for this reason that Fr. Alexander Schmemann
wrote: “Anyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation.”
There are
very deep forms of asceticism, but even these are rightly rooted in the giving
of thanks. In the 20th century, perhaps no saint is better known for his
ascetical achievements than St. Silouan of Athos. He is known to have endured
some 15 years of the experience of hell in his prayers. At its depth, he heard
Christ say, “Keep your mind in hell and despair not.” His interpreter and
biographer, the Elder Sophrony of Essex, however, is reported to have said, “If
you will give God thanks always and for all things, you will fulfill the
saying, ‘Keep your mind in hell and despair not.’”
The first
duty of a spiritual father is to lead a soul into the practice of giving
thanks. In this manner they will acquire the Spirit of Peace and be able to
sustain the Christian life. But without thanksgiving, they will only fall into
despair or delusion. Thanksgiving is the foundation of the Christian life. When
this is understood and in place, other things can be properly understood.
For
example, it is common to read in the spiritual writings of Orthodoxy (and to
hear in the services) terms such as “self-loathing.” This is quite common, for
example, in the Elder Sophrony’s work. It is very easily taken in the wrong way
and those without a proper foundation will likely come away with a terrible
distortion.
“Self-loathing,”
in the sense that it is used, is not brought about by the contemplation of our
sins (a moral condemnation and disgust with the self). It is rather brought
about by the contemplation of God’s love and His fullness of being. It is only
as we see ourselves in the light of God Himself, that we can “achieve” the
“self-loathing” that Sophrony describes. But even this is joyful, because it
takes place in the gracious presence of the grace-giving God.
Thanksgiving,
as gracious gift, draws us into the very life of the Trinity. For it is that
Life that is described by St. John Chrysostom in his Liturgy:
The priest prays: “…but account me, Your
sinful and unworthy servant, worthy to offer gifts to You. For You are the
Offerer and the Offered, the Receiver and the Received, O Christ our God, and
to You we ascribe glory, together with Your Father, Who is without beginning,
and Your all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto ages
of ages.”
It is
this gifting life of the Offerer and the Offered, the Receiver and the Received
that we enter as we rightly give thanks always for all things. This is our
work, our true synergy, without which we cannot be saved.
By Fr. Stephen Freeman
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/04/17/the-work-that-saves/
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