ACC ~ Romans 9 v20

WHO ARE YOU TO ANSWER GOD? ORIGEN: I do not think that, if you are a faithful and discreet servant of God and want to understand and admire the wisdom of the Lord, he will say to you: “Who are you?” … If we want to know something of the secret and hidden things of God and if we are not people of lusts and contentions, then let us inquire faithfully and humbly into the judgments of God which are contained more secretly in holy Scripture. For even the Lord said: “Search the Scriptures,” knowing that these things are applicable not to those who are busy with other matters and only hear or read the Bible from time to time, but to those who with a pure and simple heart endeavor to open up the holy Scriptures by their labor and constant attention. I know well enough that I am not one of them! But anyone who is, let him seek and he will find. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

ORIGEN: Such a rebuke does not refer to one who is faithful and lives a good and righteous life and has confidence towards God. … This rebuke is not for the faithful and the saints but for the unfaithful and the ungodly. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.1.22.

AMBROSIASTER: It is a great indignity and presumption for a man to answer back to God—the unjust to the just, the evil to the good, the imperfect to the perfect, the weak to the strong, the corruptible to the incorrupt, the mortal to the immortal, the servant to the Lord, the creature to the Creator! COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

THE FAITHFUL FREELY YIELD TO THE POTTER’S HANDS. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul says this in order not to do away with free will but rather to show to what extent we ought to obey God. We should be as little inclined to call God to account as a piece of clay is. We ought to abstain not only from complaining or questioning but from even speaking or thinking about it at all, and instead we should become like that lifeless matter which follows the potter’s hands and lets itself be shaped in whatever way the potter wills. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 16.

AUGUSTINE: As long as you are just a creature, says Paul, like this lump of clay, and you have not been led to spiritual things, so that as a spiritual man you might judge all things and be judged by no one, it is right for you to hold back from this kind of inquiry and not to answer back to God. For everyone who wants to know God’s plan ought first to be received into his friendship, and this is only possible for spiritual people who already bear the image of the heavenly. AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 62.

PELAGIUS: Some people say that Paul is still speaking here in the role of those who object, because to say that nobody can oppose the will of God, who has mercy on one and who hardens another, and to add that nobody should criticize God amounts to the same thing. But others say that from here on the apostle replies that, even if there were a reason for them to make an accusation, they ought not to talk back to their Creator, for in comparison with God, we are like a piece of pottery in the hands of the potter. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

THIS VESSEL CANNOT RIGHTLY SCOLD THIS POTTER. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Now the apostle lunges out at the man who was contradicting him [in the above verses], showing that it is of God’s own will and decision. … There is no difference in the clay which the potter molds in his hand. He can make whatever kind of vessel he wants to, and the vessel cannot answer back and say how it would prefer to be made. But here, in words like “resist” and “find fault with God’s will,” he shows the free will of the one who dares to draw back from the will of God. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: How can the thing which is made blame its Maker for the construction of its own nature? Everything must be content with its own nature, whatever that may be. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

WHY HAVE YOU MADE ME THUS? THEODORET OF CYR: If you did not have your own independence, and if you did not choose what you do by your own free will, you would have to be quiet in the way that inanimate objects are and simply acquiesce in what is given to you. But as it is you have reason, and you can both describe and do the things which are shown to you. Instead you do not like what has happened and are trying to investigate the causes of the divine plan. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

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