Four Hundred Texts on Love (Fourth Century) 14

40.  The Lord is wise, just and mighty by nature. Because He is wise, He could not be ignorant of the way in which to heal human nature. Because He is just, He could not save man, whose will was in the grip of sin, in a tyrannical fashion. Because He is almighty, He could not prove unequal to the task of completing His healing mission.

The above, of course, succinctly dismantles the core foundation of Calvinism. God knew how to heal human nature, which is common to all humanity. At the same time he is just (and his justice is love and mercy), by which St. Maximos means he could not force ‘salvation‘ on anyone. Calvinism, by contrast, holds that God unilaterally saves some and damns others and their individual wills are ultimately overwhelmed by the divine will. In some ways it’s Nestorianism or monothelitism applied to salvation instead of the nature of Christ. The last sentence reveals the Cross itself as the glory of Christ. That was the supreme task that revealed him as God. The Cross becomes the tree which heals the tree.