{"id":5416,"date":"2018-09-12T12:44:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T16:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=5416"},"modified":"2018-09-11T08:45:36","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T12:45:36","slug":"elder-st-porphyrios-on-our-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=5416","title":{"rendered":"Elder St. Porphyrios on our Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"\" data-block=\"true\" data-editor=\"4uaih\" data-offset-key=\"7jvvv-0-0\">\n<div class=\"_1mf _1mj\" data-offset-key=\"7jvvv-0-0\">\u201cThe explanation which our faith gives is as follows: evil exists and comes from the devil. Within us we have both the evil spirit and the good spirit and they battle with each other. \u2018Either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will cling to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. \u2018That is, within us a struggle between good and evil takes place. But in this struggle a person is free to decide and to choose. Consequently it is not God who pre-ordains and decides, but man\u2019s free will. God in His omniscience knows in all precision not simply beforehand, but before the creation of the world, that this person, for example, will commit a murder when he is thirty years old. But the person in his freedom of will (a gift which God gave the person and which he perverted) acts of his own volition. God is not the cause, nor does he pre-ordain us for that end. His omniscience does not constrain us. He respects our freedom He does not abolish it. He loves us; he does not make us slaves; He gives us worth.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"\" data-block=\"true\" data-editor=\"4uaih\" data-offset-key=\"1mu05-0-0\">\n<div class=\"_1mf _1mj\" data-offset-key=\"1mu05-0-0\"><span data-offset-key=\"1mu05-0-0\"> &#8211; \u2018Wounded by Love\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n<div data-offset-key=\"1mu05-0-0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5417\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/elderPorphpyrios-238x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/elderPorphpyrios-238x300.jpg 238w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/elderPorphpyrios.jpg 387w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 238px) 100vw, 238px\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe explanation which our faith gives is as follows: evil exists and comes from the devil. Within us we have both the evil spirit and the good spirit and they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5418,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5416\/revisions\/5418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}