ACC ~ Mark 14 v21b

WHETHER GOD MADE A MISTAKE IN CREATING FREEDOM

JOHN OF DAMASCUS: Knowledge is of what exists and foreknowledge is of what will surely exist in the future. [1] For simple being comes first and then good or evil being. But if the very existence of those, who through the goodness of God are in the future to exist, were to be prevented by the fact that they were to become evil of their own choice, evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God. In this way God makes all his works good, but each becomes of its own choice good or evil. Although, then, the Lord said, “Good were it for that man that he had never been born,” [2] he said it in condemnation not of his own creation but of the evil which his own creature had acquired by his own choice and through his own heedlessness. EXPOSITION OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH 4.21. [3]

[1] To know something is to know that it now exists. To foreknow something is to know that it will exist.

[2] Mt 26:24; Mk 14:21.

[3] NPNF 2 9:94; TLG 2934.004, 94.5-14. God makes all his works good, but each becomes of its own choice good or evil.