John Cassian

⭐ First note what he took himself to be: Olson observes that he and his companions considered themselves absolutely orthodox Catholic theologians, whose only aim in the debate was to fend off Augustine's monergism as an innovation — in their eyes Augustine was the innovator, and they were the ones keeping to the old ways. They knew that the whole Eastern church held a synergistic view, and, as Olson puts it, they were full of confidence that this was the ancient faith of the church. His position is put in the mouth of Abbot Chaeremon in the Conferences: “when He sees in us some beginnings of a good will, He at once enlightens it and strengthens it and urges it on towards salvation, increasing that which He Himself implanted or which He sees to have arisen from our own efforts.” ⚠ He left no room at all for predestination, and held that the heart of the interaction between God and humans is a mystery: “how God works all things in us and yet everything can be ascribed to free will, cannot be fully grasped by the mind and reason of man.” ⚠ And his self-defense must be recorded too: “let no one imagine … that the chief share in our salvation rests with our faith … we plainly assert our unconditional opinion that the grace of God is superabounding, and sometimes overflows the narrow limits of man's lack of faith.”