Dr. David Bradshaw
“St John Chrysostom on Grace and Free Will”
St. Paul exhorts us, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” How is it possible that salvation can be both our own work and that of God? Can our own work somehow add to that of God? And if God is truly working in us “to do of his good pleasure,” how can we be free? This talk will examine the teaching of St. John Chrysostom about grace, free will, and divine-human synergy, viewing it especially in relation to its sources in Scripture and the Holy Fathers.
You can read a transcript of Dr. Bradshaw’s lecture here.
David Bradshaw is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge U.P., 2004), a comparison of the theology of the Greek Fathers with the Latin scholastic tradition. He is also the author of several recent articles including “The Divine Energies in the New Testament” (St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly), “The Divine Glory and the Divine Energies” (Faith and Philosophy), and “Time and Eternity in the Greek Fathers” (The Thomist). He and his wife and daughter attend St. Athanasius Orthodox Church (OCA) in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
