By the action of God's will, the visible and invisible worlds were created, man was created and redeemed, all events, public and private, have been accomplished and are taking place, from which God's goodness, God's omnipotence, God's wisdom shine like the sun from heaven. By God's permission, by the will of creatures, evil appeared with all its consequences: by God's permission, by God's own will, the angels fell, man fell, men did not accept God and departed from God, redeemed by the incarnate God; by God's permission, by the evil will of the angels, rejected and fallen men, the earth was corrupted by the crimes and impiety of these angels and these people. By God's permission and judgment, various sorrows and calamities, public and private, are and will punish the universe; by God's permission and judgment, eternal torment will befall apostates from God, the enemies of God, in the fiery, gloomy abyss of hell, for which they have prepared themselves arbitrarily.

The Apostle looked with a pure mind, with a mind illumined by the rays of holy Truth, he looked at the unattainable height of God's destinies, and in holy horror at the vision of these destinies he exclaimed: O depth of the riches and wisdom and understanding of God! For His judgment shall not be tried, and His way shall not be searched. Who is the understanding of the Lord? Or who was His counselor? (Romans 11:33)

The Apostle exclaimed this, talking about a terrible crime, about the arbitrary rejection of the Redeemer by the Jews, about the frenzied rejection, which was crowned with a monstrous crime: the murder of the Redeemer. Speaking of the crime of men, which fully depended on their free will, the Apostle expresses himself as if the crime had been committed by God. God shut up all the Jews in opposition (Romans 11:32). God has given them the spirit of tenderness (hardness, insensibility, blindness of mind and heart), eyes not to see, and ears not to hear (Romans 11:8). God's allowance is called God's action. Unlimited in power and authority, as it were, He limited Himself, without changing the will of man, without stopping the actions of men, who entered into stubborn resistance, into fierce opposition to the will and action of God. The will of creatures, all their efforts, would not be able to resist the almighty right hand of the Creator. This has not been done. These are the destinies of God (Romans 11:33). It is impossible to comprehend them, as it exceeds the reason of rational creatures. The investigation of that which cannot be comprehended is a vain work, devoid of meaning. The investigation of God's destinies is forbidden by God as an undertaking inspired by blind arrogance, as an undertaking inspired by a false view of the subject, as an undertaking leading to inevitable error, to blasphemy, to the destruction of the soul. Following the example of the Apostle, one should see and contemplate the destinies of God with the eye of faith, with the eye of spiritual reason, and, not allowing oneself to make fruitless judgments according to human principles, one should reverently plunge into sacred perplexity, into sacred spiritual darkness, which is at the same time a wondrous light, with which God is hidden from the eyes of the mind, both human and angelic (Psalm 17:12).

"Evil has no essence," said the Fathers, "it appears from our negligence about virtue and disappears from our zeal for virtue" (St. Abba Dorotheus, Homily 9). Evil, being a lack of good, can only refer to limited rational creatures, in which the good is limited. Lack has no place in the infinite, nor does it take place. God is infinite, and His goodness is infinite. The infinite, by its nature, does not decrease with all possible numerical subtractions from it, nor does it increase with all such appendices to it. Neither evil nor good of creatures has and cannot have any influence either on God or on His actions. The destinies of God stand on a height inaccessible and inviolable; they stand on a height independent of both demonic and human actions. The action of God exists with its own property and meaning, regardless of what the action, both human and demonic, may be, united in outward appearance in one action with the action of God.

A striking example of such an action is a great event: the suffering and death of the God-Man. On the one hand, the incarnate God deigned to submit to these sufferings and this death according to His all-holy will: on the other hand, the Jewish chief priests, led also by their own will, subjected the incarnate God to the most humiliating dishonor, cruel tortures and shameful death. Demons participated in the wickedness of men, as the leaders of the evil deed (John 13:2,27). Here the action of God was united, outwardly, into one action with human and demonic action; but, in essence, action differed from action by an all-perfect difference. "Ye have rejected the Holy and Righteous One," said the Apostle Peter to the Jews; you will kill the Author of life; But God, Who foretold the mouth of all His prophets to suffer Christ, do so (Acts 3:14, 15, 18). The same idea was expressed by all the apostles in the prayer which they pronounced at the news of the persecution of the Church in Jerusalem. They said in their prayer, "O Lord, Thou art God, Who hast made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them: Who by the Holy Spirit hast spoken from the mouth of our father David, Thy servant, Thou hast staggered tongues, and men have learned in vain! The kingdoms of the land appeared, and the princes gathered together against the Lord and His Christ. For thou hast truly gathered together in this city against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, and Herod and Pilate of Pontius, with the tongues and people of Israel, to do what Thy hand and counsel were foretold" (Acts 4:25-28).

God's destinies and actions go their own way; human and demonic actions also follow their own path. Crimes and atrocities do not cease to be crimes and atrocities in relation to their own doers, even though those who commit evil with evil intent are at the same time only instruments of the will of God. The latter is a consequence of the unlimited wisdom of God, the unlimited power of God, because of which creatures, acting according to their free will, together remain unnecessarily in the power of the Creator, without understanding it, they fulfill the will of the Creator without knowing it.

The destinies of God are present and act in the midst of events performed by men and demons, as the subtlest spirit among matter, not dependent on matter, not constrained by matter, acting on matter and not being affected by matter. The destinies of God are the omnipotent action in the universe of the all-perfect God, the one, in the strict sense, Spirit, who fills the universe and everything that is beyond the universe, incomprehensible to the universe. God is not embraced by the material world, which is subject to our senses; does not embrace God and the world of spirits, which is not subject to our senses. His actions and His destinies correspond to God: and they are incomprehensible. Let both men and angels be reverently silent before them! In relation to God, spirits are the same substance: they differ from God both in essence and properties, differ in immeasurable difference, differ as much as gross matter differs [17]. Such is the law for the relation of the infinite to all that is limited and finite. No matter how limited objects differ from each other, no matter how much they increase or decrease, their difference from the infinite does not change and can never change: it is always equal, because it is always infinite.

Woe to the world because of temptation: for need is to come by temptation. Woe unto that man, for to him stumbling block cometh (Matt. 18:7). This was said by the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is said about the events that are taking place before our eyes and are yet to take place, in which the all-holy destinies of God merge into one with the criminal and disastrous consequences of sinful, lustful, and hostile to God human will.

Need to come by temptation: with these words God's predestination is declared, God's destinies are declared, incomprehensible to man and inaccessible to his comprehension. Woe to that man, for by him the temptation comes: by this the wrath of God is declared to the ministers, preachers, protectors of sin, sowers and distributors of sin in human society, enemies and persecutors of the true knowledge of God and worship. Their mood and activity have already been condemned by God; thunderous threats have already been uttered against this mood and this activity; Eternal hell with its prisons, with its terrible tortures and executions, has already been prepared for their retribution. But the activity and mood of men, which are hostile and opposed to God, are permitted by God. Such are the destinies of God. The evil committed by creatures cannot violate in God, in the all-perfect Good, the indestructible, inviolable abiding in His unchangeable attributes and dignity, cannot hinder the boundless wisdom of God from the fulfillment of Her all-holy, omnipotent will.

What is God's predestination? This is the image of expression used by Holy Scripture, by which the majesty of God is depicted, which surpasses all image. The concept of predestination has many similarities with the concept of destinies: the concept often merges with the concept. Let us explain, as far as we can, the predestination of God, the existence of which is testified to in the Holy Scriptures (Rom. ch. 9), by the incorrect understanding of which many are drawn into the fatal abyss of error.

God is not subject to time [18]: time does not exist for God. The word time expresses the concept formed in rational creatures from the impression produced in them by the changes in the phenomena of nature. Thus time is determined by science. And there was evening and there was morning, the day was one (Gen. 1:5). Thus the Scriptures present the origin of the concept of time, which is in full agreement with the conclusion of positive science. It is obvious that impressions from outside cannot act on God, otherwise He would not be perfect and would be subject to applications and belittlements, which is not characteristic of the infinite. In general, there is no time for God: there is no future time for him. That which is to be accomplished is before the already perfected face of God, and the fate of each person beyond the grave, which must flow as a natural consequence of his earthly, voluntary activity, is already known to God, has already been decided by God. Thy eyes have seen what I have not done (Psalm 138:16), O all-perfect God! An inspired prophet confessed this: every person should confess this, according to logical necessity.

"I am predestined! I have no opportunity to resist predestination, to change or destroy God's predestination. Why force oneself to the inexorably strict Christian virtue? Why subject oneself to innumerable deprivations and live in constant renunciation of life? I'll live as I want and like! I will hasten to what my dream beckons me to, drawing before my eyes charming pictures! I will amuse myself to my heart's content with all pleasures, even sinful ones! They are scattered luxuriously throughout the universe, and an unbearable curiosity draws you to taste and get to know them by experience! If I am predestined to be saved, then, in spite of all my wickedness, God will save me. If I am destined to perish, then I will perish, in spite of all my efforts to obtain salvation." Such a judgment is proclaimed to be ignorance of the mysteries of Christianity! It is proclaimed to be falsely named reason and carnal wisdom. A terrible, incomprehensible blasphemy is pronounced in it! Unfortunate, completely erroneous reasoning is recognized and accepted by many as an irrefutable truth: on it is based a self-willed life, a life that is lawless and depraved. On earthly vicious life is based an eternally sorrowful life, an eternally miserable life, in the land beyond the grave.

False, soul-destroying speculation about predestination and fate arose from the confusion of actions inherent in the one God with human actions. One error necessarily leads to another error; it leads to many errors, if it is made in the initial, initial thought. Man, having confused his action with the action of God, has already naturally subordinated both actions to one law, one court, the court of his reason. From this an immense field of error opened up for him. Having placed himself as the judge of God's actions, he necessarily ascribed to God the same attitude towards good and evil as man has towards them. He recognized the attributes of God as identical with human attributes; he subordinated the thinking of God to the laws of human thought: he also established a certain distinction, but the difference was not infinite, but some kind of his own, indefinite, alien to correctness and meaning.

From His beginningless beginning, God was and is satisfied with His one Word. The Word of God is at the same time His thought: the Word was from time immemorial to God, and God was the Word (John 1:1,2). Such is the property of the boundless Mind. In His infinite perfection, God has one and only Thought, despite the fact that this Thought is expressed in the realm of rational creatures by an innumerable multitude of thoughts. Let us separate from ourselves by an infinite distance the essence of God, and His attributes, and His actions: then our judgment of fate and predestination will receive due foundation. The predestination of man's fate is fully befitting God because of the unlimited perfection of God's mind, because of God's independence from time. Predestination, showing man the greatness of God and remaining a mystery known to God alone, does not in the least restrict the free activity of man in the entire field of earthly life, has no influence on this activity, no relation to it. Having no influence on human activity, God's predestination does not and cannot have any influence on the consequences of this activity, on the salvation and destruction of man. As a guide to our behavior, on the one hand, reason and free will, on the other, the revealed teaching of God. The revealed teaching of God declares in the most satisfactory detail the will of God as a means of salvation, proclaims God's favor that all men may be saved, and proclaims eternal torment for the trampling of the will of God. Hence the clear consequence: the salvation and destruction of man depend solely on his arbitrariness, and not on the unknown determination of God.