Synergy (Free Will & Grace)

Orthodoxy teaches synergy, synergeia, the working together of divine grace and human freedom. Grace goes before, awakens and enables; the will must consent and keep consenting, and it remains free to refuse. This rules out Pelagianism, which makes salvation the work of human effort, and it rules out absolute predestination, the decree that saves or damns without regard to the will. Scripture does speak of those God foreknew and predestined, and the Fathers read that as foreknowledge, not as compulsion: God knows what a free creature will choose without choosing it for him.