I have received your letters, and would like to respond briefly to some of the points.
Where does the wild idea suggesting that “man is incapable of doing good by his own free will, not because of his fall, but because of his very nature received at the creation,” come from? A Christian expressing such an idea must be out of his mind. What was the sense in offering man commandments, the fulfilment of which is good-doing? Why was man’s salvation conditioned on his fulfilment of the commandments, if because of his inherent nature, he would not be able to fulfill them?
Before the fall, man was free both to choose to do good and to do good. After the fall, he became a slave of the sin. St. Simeon the New Theologian assets that after the fall, man lost the freedom of doing good, but retained the freedom of the choice to do good, to prefer good, to be willing to do good. To realize his choice for good doing, man has to appeal prayerfully to God asking Him to empower him for the fulfilment of the task. St. Isaak of Syria agrees with this statement.
Inadequate fulfilment of the commandments is to be filled in by a heartfelt regretting of the failure.
I would dare to assert that a heartfelt regret, the weeping of the heart over the failure to fulfill God’s commandments is worthier than their fulfilment executed by man’s free will, insomuch as the latter might lead the executer to feel proud of himself and thus to ruin the good of the achievement. The grieving heart, by God’s mercy, takes the place of doing and makes man humble, which is a condition, without which any work is vain and even harmful.
You ask if Bishop Theophan was right asserting that “God’s grace affects only mind and feelings, while man’s will remains untouched.”
The truth universally acknowledged is that the Lord (his grace) does not coerce man’s will. Good achieved by coercion is no good. In this sense, Bishop Theophan’s thought seems to be correct. However, while accepting the part of his affirmation that “God’s grace affects mind and feelings,” which is an action to help man find the truth and salvation, we at the same time may challenge the part about the will. Man’s soul does not consist of separate independent parts, such as mind, feelings, will and others, but is one whole entity. The cleansing, or enlightenment, of mind and heat by God’s grace would actually affect the whole soul, including the will. Won’t both ascetics’ mind, clearly seeing the truth and the consequences of sins, and their heart, striving for God, help their will choose the way to salvation, the way leading to God, and to reject way leading to darkness, evil and perish? Clearly, there is at least indirect influence on man’s will.
With regard to the above we can also say that if man sees good and prefers it to evil, if he wants to follow the way leading to salvation, he must ask God help him to achieve what he wills, and if there is something he has failed to do, he must cover by heartfelt grieving. By the way, using the phrases “grieving heat,” the “weeping of the heart,” we know little, if anything at all, what these expressions imply. The same is true with a few other phrases and words. We use words but are unaware of their force.
May the Lord enlighten you about all that is good!
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