Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

No antecedent negative reprobation from eternal life is to be admitted.

« Since the will of God, asserted so that all men be saved and none of them perish, seems not to be sufficiently reconcilable with negative reprobation from heavenly glory, which many theologians have thought must be ascribed to the antecedent will of God. »

First, in this thesis we shall set out the diverse opinions of Catholic theologians on what they call antecedent negative reprobation; then, from the teaching of the Scriptures on the antecedent will of God that all men be saved, and from the explanations of the Fathers, we shall demonstrate that no such antecedent reprobation can be admitted. Although in this matter, as in the connected questions on predestination, grace and free will, all Catholics acknowledge many things authentically defined by the Church, and in these matters of faith there is unanimous agreement of all; yet there are not a few matters which the Church, even when appealed to for her judgment, has not wished to define in either direction, and in these, with faith and charity preserved, there can be some diversity of opinions. Among these opinions, indeed, that must surely be followed which coheres with the revealed truths or with theologically certain principles and can be demonstrated as true from them; but opinions which can be clearly shown to contradict even a single theologically certain principle are to be set aside.

As for the sequence of the whole treatise, the objective order of things would seem to require that predestination be treated first and reprobation after it. But, as I said above, since it follows most clearly for us from the principles on the antecedent saving will already demonstrated what is to be thought about reprobation, and with the false concept of reprobation removed the true teaching on predestination is very easily demonstrated; therefore, in the inverted order, we first inquire in this thesis into reprobation, and demonstrate the falsity of the opinion which is necessarily connected with the teaching that predestination to glory is absolutely antecedent to the foreseeing of merits.

I. Theologians who hold that predestination to glory, that is, the absolute decree in the divine mind of conferring eternal glory on angels and men, belongs to the antecedent will prior to all foreseeing of free merits, do not all explain or defend this their opinion in the same way.

1°. There are some among them who think that just as the predestination of the angels was made and completed before the foreseeing of the good or evil use of free will, so also the predestination of men was made and completed absolutely antecedently and independently of the foreseeing of all created acts, even of original sin itself. If we now speak of the predestination of men alone, leaving aside the predestination of the angels and of Christ as man, about whose order others think otherwise, some of those theologians set up this order of the divine decrees. a) The first act of the divine will concerning men to be saved was love, by which God willed and intended to give them glory by an absolute and efficacious will. b) By that gratuitous and absolute decree God not only willed glory indefinitely for his elect; but he also prepared it for each one at a certain and defined degree, by the same act and in the same manner pre-ordaining that variety of mansions which Christ said are in the kingdom of his Father: for that whole elect city was chosen so that it might be one bride of Christ, who afterwards is prepared through grace just as she was chosen; and this is consonant with the perfection of that kingdom, in which nothing ought to be except by singular (antecedent) divine predefinition. Thus c) to those predestined to a certain degree of glory God then, by an absolute and efficacious will, predefines all meritorious acts with all their circumstances, so that the merits correspond exactly to the degree of glory predestined. d) So that these predefined good works and merits may come about in time, God at last prepares efficacious graces, with which (either middle knowledge or knowledge of simple intelligence, according to the different opinion of those theologians on the efficacy of grace) he infallibly foresees that those works and predefined merits are connected. See Suarez de Praedest. l. I. c. 8. sqq. et alibi; Didacum Alvarez de Auxil. disp. 37.

Indeed, besides this absolutely antecedent predestination, there is no other according to the opinion of all these authors; and by this absolute decree, before the foreseeing of any acts of creatures, all those to be saved are predestined. Hence it necessarily follows — and the authors themselves profess this as most true, and prove it from the very nature of predestination — that all the others who were to be created besides those antecedently elected were passed over, as they say, or not comprehended in predestination to eternal life, antecedently and independently of every foreseeing of sins, whether absolute or conditional, even of original sin itself. Indeed, they think the permission of sins, on account of which angels and men are positively reprobated and damned, is an effect certainly following necessarily from that absolutely antecedent negative reprobation. They do not call the reprobation negative in the sense that there is no positive act in God; for although some seem to conceive it as non-predestination, as a mere negation or absence of the act of predestining — a negation of this kind is also made with regard to men who are merely possible — yet the more sincere admit that it is a positive act, and that God positively wills that all those men not be predestined, or, as others speak more clearly, not be admitted to the heavenly kingdom, or be excluded from glory as from an undue benefit. But because reprobation, they say, can be taken as rejection from an undue good, or as rejection from a good and at the same time as condemnation to punishment, they call this second reprobation positive, which all Catholics acknowledge presupposes the foreseeing of fault; the former they have been pleased to call negative¹. Thus they say God conceives this *negative reprobation or exclusion from the undue good from himself, no fault of man being presupposed.

Let us hear one or another. « First conclusion: the eternal reprobation of God includes a positive act by which he willed not to admit certain persons to eternal life.... Second conclusion: if exclusion from the heavenly kingdom is considered insofar as it formally has the character of a pain of loss, it presupposes a fault... Third conclusion: the positive act by which God from eternity willed not to admit certain persons into his kingdom was not conditional, but absolute, antecedent in the order of reason to the foreknowledge of the future evil use of free will, on the hypothesis that the order of things would be set up in such a way.... The truth of this conclusion rests chiefly on that opinion which asserts that there is no cause on our side with respect to the whole of reprobation..... If therefore there is no cause of reprobation, then reprobation does not depend upon a foreseen evil use of free will, even as a condition sine qua non; then it implies an absolute act in God. » Thus Didac. Alvarez disput. 109. n. 5.

Suarez is somewhat more timid; for he wished to leave himself an open path for reconciling contradictories, namely for composing such an absolutely antecedent reprobation of all who perish with the sincere antecedent will of God that all these men be saved. But once the principle is admitted that the absolute predestination of all the saved to glory is completed antecedently and without regard to the foreseeing of the acts of creatures, Suarez himself and all the other followers of this opinion are at last compelled to cling to the same notion of reprobation. « I judge it more probable, he says, that God in that sign (where he predestined all the saved to glory before any foreseeing of merits) did not so choose the reprobate for glory as to have a positive act of will of not choosing them, or of willing not to choose them » Suarez de Praed. l. V. c. 4. n. 5. Nevertheless, shortly before, in chapter 3, he had proved at length that it is not consonant with sound theology to affirm that God, antecedently to the foreseeing of final sin, willed some « to be excluded from the heavenly kingdom » or « not to be admitted to the kingdom » (ib. n. 13.), because this is repugnant to the antecedent will that all men be saved. We are taught, therefore, that there is no antecedent will of not admitting some to the kingdom, because that is repugnant to the universal saving will; but there is a positive antecedent will of not choosing for the kingdom all those, angels and men, who have been and will be damned. The distinction would be easy to grasp between the antecedent will of not admitting to the kingdom, or of excluding from the kingdom as punishment and vengeance, and the antecedent will of not choosing for an undue good: for it could be said that the former is repugnant, because a punishing will presupposes a fault; whereas the latter is in itself by no means repugnant, because an undue good can be denied² with no fault presupposed. But when it is now established that all men are, by God's antecedent will, destined to the undue good of the heavenly kingdom, and that God, in the words of Chrysostom, wills antecedently with « intense desire » that all obtain this undue good; how, I ask, can a positive antecedent will of not choosing for this good consist together with this will of salvation? But how this antecedent will of not choosing some is at odds with the universal saving will will appear lower down, in the other part of the thesis; for now we are confined only to the historical exposition of opinions.

2°. There are among the defenders of predestination to glory before foreseen merits others who, as regards the predestination and reprobation of angels, indeed agree with those whose opinion we have so far set forth, but think that the predestination and reprobation of men must be explained a little differently. These, namely, say it was made consequently to the foreseeing of original sin, but antecedently and independently of the foreseeing of all other actions of the created order, and in particular of all supernatural acts. These theologians think that all men who are not saved, and therefore also those to whom original sin was to be remitted and was remitted, were in this way negatively reprobated as a punishment for original sin. So they teach, with others: Did. Ruiz de Praedest. disp. XIV. sqq.; Gonetus disp. V. a. 3. etc.

Indeed, this opinion can be refuted by special arguments, especially insofar as it speaks of the negation of predestination as a punishment of original sin that is remitted and has been remitted, since from the definition of the Council of Trent, session V: « there is nothing of damnation for those who are truly buried together with Christ through baptism into death. » Nevertheless, the same common principle suffices to demonstrate its falsity: that the will of God that all men be saved is not only universal antecedently to the foreseen original sin, but also consequently to it, in this present order of fallen nature, and restored by the merits of Christ the Redeemer; indeed, the Scriptures and the Fathers speak directly of the universal saving will only of this present order, and in relation to men fallen in the first parent, as has been clearly demonstrated above (th. XLVII. XLIX. sqq.). Hence in our disputation, to keep to brevity, we shall keep directly before our eyes negative reprobation from eternal salvation, insofar as it is ascribed to the absolute antecedent will with regard to every foreseeing of works and conditions, especially as Suarez, above the rest, has sought to soften it; for the arguments which militate against this milder opinion will apply all the more strongly against the other, harsher forms.

II. With these things premised, we now come to the demonstration of the incompatibility of that antecedent negative reprobation with the most certain teaching on the antecedent divine will, that all men be saved. We demonstrate the incompatibility from the very nature of that negative and antecedent reprobation by four arguments: because 1° the antecedent will of denying predestination is an antecedent will of not saving; 2° because from that antecedent will of God alone, independently of all acts of the creature, the attainment of salvation would be metaphysically repugnant; 3° because it posits in God a plan of leading a man to ruin against the manifest attestations of God himself; 4° because according to the doctrine of the Fathers, negative reprobation, just as positive, is not of the antecedent will of God but consequent upon the foreseeing of final sin.

1°. The first argument is entirely clear. For a) while by an absolute will, before any foreseeing of what the creatures would do, God predestines all and each of those to be saved to glory, and so completes the number of the predestined, at the same time, in the same sign, he conceives from himself and antecedently to every foreseeing of works concerning all the others who are to be created a positive absolute will of not electing them; this will of not electing seems most manifestly to be a will of not saving them. But a conditional will of saving is repugnant to an absolute antecedent will of not saving; therefore, with regard to all these who are antecedently not elected, there manifestly seems to be no antecedent conditional will of God that they be saved. The minor premise is evident; the major is granted even by Alvarez, Gonet and others. Hence those authors concede, indeed even contend, that there is no properly so-called antecedent and conditional will of salvation with regard to the angels and reprobate men, such as we proved in the preceding theses. They would wish, they say, God's salvation of all these as some good, were it not that by the actual salvation of all the greater beauty of the universe and the manifestation of divine justice in the reprobate and the splendour of mercy in the elect would be prevented; and this velleity³ they themselves call the antecedent will of the salvation of all; but because that beauty of the universe demands that not all be saved⁴, God, antecedently to the foreseeing of all works, by an absolute will, which they themselves call consequent (namely, consequent upon the requirement of the beauty of the universe), wills that not all, but only those who are actually saved, be saved. See above th. XLVII. n. II. But that God wills, by an antecedent will and under the condition of cooperation on the part of men, the salvation of all adults and of all infants under other conditions of secondary causes, and that this distinction of the saving will into antecedent and consequent, which these authors introduce, is contrary to the explanation of Scripture and the Fathers, has been set out most fully above.

Therefore, supposing the genuine sense of the antecedent will, that all men be saved, which Suarez confesses and defends with us, the major premise of our argument must be demonstrated against him: namely, that the antecedent will of not electing, or of not predestining, asserted by him is an antecedent will of not saving.

That antecedent will of not predestining is not only a will of not predestining absolutely before foreseen merits, so that God by an antecedent will wills predestination for men under the condition that they cooperate with the grace to be given; it is a will absolutely and simply of denying them predestination. For if God were said only to will to predestine some before foreseen merits, and in the others to order predestination to glory according to foreseen merits; this would be the opinion of Ambrose Catharinus, which Suarez and the other defenders of the same opinion certainly reject. Moreover, if that were the sense, the whole business of predestination to glory would not be settled in that sign antecedent to all foreseeing; likewise, from that negative reprobation there would not follow an infallible loss of salvation; and so, in the end, the actual attainment of salvation would not be repugnant to the same negative reprobation. But all these things are contrary to the principles of Suarez and his followers. Undoubtedly, therefore, that positive will of not electing is a will absolutely and in no way of electing to eternal salvation. But he who wills, by an antecedent and absolute will, that is, independently of all conditions, that another not be elected to some good, cannot at the same time will to confer that good on him under the condition that he himself does what he can and ought. Therefore that antecedent positive will 'of not electing to salvation is a positive will of absolutely not conferring salvation, or of not saving. And so, since the antecedent will of not saving is manifestly repugnant to the antecedent will of saving; the antecedent will that all be saved, such as the Scriptures and the holy Fathers proclaim, cannot consist with that antecedent will of negative reprobation.

b) The contradiction between the antecedent will of God that all be saved and that antecedent negative reprobation can be proved from the very words of Suarez. He himself asserts first that « the election of the predestined is to be understood by way of a singular predefinition, which God had from himself alone and from his mere good pleasure (before any foreseeing of merits), absolutely intending such an eternal kingdom consisting of such persons and members. » Then, lest he close off for himself every path to defending the universality of the saving will, he concludes against the principles of the whole system thus. « By the force of this election (before any foreseeing of merit) that number of the saved remains so certain, both formally (as to the number in itself) and materially (as to the determinate persons and the determinate degrees of each), that it cannot be diminished; yet it does not pertain to the efficacy of that will that it cannot be increased, because God from himself did not will positively to exclude all the others from the kingdom; and therefore together with that election God had a true will of saving others, not however absolute but under the condition, if it did not stand in their way » l. I. c. 12. n. 16. We accept the author's admission that God would not have a will of saving others if that number predestined antecedently could not be increased. But it is evident that that number can no more be increased than diminished. I prove this from the principles of Suarez himself. For in this very place he asserts that what is antecedently predefined is « such a kingdom consisting of such persons and members. » Now by his principles, the number of citizens belongs also to the predefined beauty of that kingdom, so that there are neither more nor fewer. For according to his doctrine the angels and men to be saved are predestined each in his own degree, and at the same sign, « from a reason often given, he says, that God intends the kingdom of the elect by way of one body or heavenly city; therefore he at the same time intends also all the members of which such a body consists; for from their multitude and variety the beauty of the whole body results » ibid. n. 4. Therefore it is false that God wills to add more members to this body predefined antecedently, if it does not stand in the way through the men themselves; and it is false that, besides those predestined by an antecedent will, God in that sign of reason wills to save still others, if it has not stood in the way through them. Indeed, from the express opinion of Suarez it was necessary that the whole number of the saved be concluded by antecedent predestination, and that no one enter it who was not elected by that antecedent predefinition. « In the state of glory, he says, the whole number of the saved will be from the direct and absolute intention of God; therefore it was necessary that God have this from himself (before foreseen merits) concerning all who were to be citizens in that kingdom........ and this is consonant with the perfection of that kingdom, in which nothing ought to be except by singular (antecedent) divine predefinition » ib. c. 8. n. 45. But if it was necessary that God have that antecedent absolute intention concerning all the citizens of that kingdom, and if nothing there ought to be except by such predefinition; then by this very predefinition the number is so closed that no one who is not so predestined, or negatively reprobated, can enter into that number; and so the number antecedently predefined can be neither diminished nor increased. In no way, therefore, can that antecedent negative reprobation be conceived without its being understood, by that very fact, that the number of the saved is so closed by God's antecedent will that it cannot be increased. This being supposed, Suarez himself is compelled to admit that the antecedent saving will is not universal. And indeed it is the same thing: not to will some men to be comprised in the closed number of the saved, which no other can now enter, and not to will to save all those not comprised. But it has been demonstrated by us, and Suarez himself demonstrates it admirably in book IV, that God by an antecedent sincere will of prosecution wills all men to be saved; therefore God, by his antecedent will, before any foreseeing, does not reprobate any man from eternal beatitude by that negative reprobation.

2°. God, by his antecedent will, sincerely wills all men to be saved under the condition that the men themselves (speaking of adults) cooperate; and by that same antecedent will he also wills that they cooperate and actually be saved. Therefore God, from himself, has no such absolute antecedent will with regard to any man, from which alone, antecedently and independently of every foreseeing of secondary causes, it would follow with metaphysical certainty that the man is not to be saved, and with which the actual attainment of salvation would be repugnant. But from that antecedent will of God of denying predestination alone, independently of all future acts of the man, it is metaphysically certain that the man is not to be saved, and with such an antecedent will of God the attainment of salvation is metaphysically repugnant. Therefore God, by the very fact that by an antecedent will he wills all men to be saved, has no such antecedent will of denying predestination with regard to any man at all. And if God from himself had such an antecedent will with regard to some man, by that very fact he would not will by his antecedent will that that man be saved.

In other words, we can say the same thing. It is indeed impossible to understand that God, from himself and abstracting from all secondary causes, absolutely wills something with which the salvation of a man is repugnant, and yet by his antecedent will wills that man's salvation. But negative reprobation is such an absolute antecedent will of God, from which alone, antecedently and independently of every foreseeing of secondary causes, it follows with metaphysical certainty that men so reprobated are not to be saved, and with which the attainment of salvation is repugnant. Therefore, by the very fact that the antecedent will of God to save all men is certain, there is no antecedent negative reprobation from eternal beatitude. The minor premise is manifestly proved both in itself and from the principles of Suarez himself and of his followers. Undoubtedly it is metaphysically repugnant that one not predestined be saved; and for those negatively reprobated, before any foreseeing of what they themselves will do, predestination, which is called before foreseen merits, is denied to them by the absolute will of God; and every predestination after foreseen merits is denied by these theologians; therefore, from that antecedent will of God alone denying predestination before the foreseeing of works, it is metaphysically repugnant that any of them be saved. The theologians whom we are attacking are themselves compelled to confess this. « I say, it is not in the power of man, with non-election by God, or with non-predestination, or, what is the same, with negative reprobation, actually to posit or to compose his own eternal salvation. » So Suarez, l. V. c. 8. n. 8.

Therefore, according to this opinion, God by his antecedent will wills that with which the attainment of salvation is repugnant, namely the denial of predestination with regard to all who are not predestined; therefore it follows from this doctrine that the antecedent saving will pertains only to the predestined. How false this is has been demonstrated; and these very theologians concede that it is false. Therefore no antecedent negative reprobation can be admitted, because the antecedent will of the salvation of all men must be admitted.

3°. These theologians teach that God, toward men to whom by his antecedent will he has denied predestination to glory, does not indeed exercise that special providence which belongs only to those antecedently predestined; yet they do not deny them sufficient graces by which they may avoid evil and do good; that they do not do good is their own fault. So indeed Suarez and his disciples teach; for Alvarez (disp. 113.) and others also think that sufficient graces are denied to many by the divine counsel before the foreseeing of free acts, and so by that will which we call antecedent. But whatever they say about sufficient graces, it seems most manifest that, the positive antecedent denial of election to glory being supposed, God must, for the sake of himself and his immutable destination, provide that none of these enter the number of the saved. Therefore, since that predestination and negative reprobation precede every decree concerning the distribution of graces, this distribution toward the non-elect must necessarily by God be made in such a way that it grants none of them any grace with which he foresees final perseverance will be joined. The very foreseeing, therefore, that a man would cooperate with some grace unto final perseverance would be, by virtue of that negative reprobation, for God a reason not only sufficient but necessary for denying that grace to all those men. Nor do those doctors shrink from this inevitable consequence. Let them speak for themselves. « Election to the end is the reason for giving efficacious or infallible means to it; therefore the negation (antecedent) of that election will be, in its own way, the reason for not giving congruous and infallible means for attaining that end; nor does a new difficulty remain in this » Suarez l. V. c. 7. n. 14. In the most crude words Gonet asserts, disp. V. n. 37. 38, that God first intends as the end exclusion from eternal glory, and then, as the means to obtain that proposed end, intends the negation of efficacious grace and the permission of sin never to be remitted⁵.

Yet such an antecedent will, in a good and merciful God who so often swears by himself that he does not wish the death of the sinner, and does not wish that anyone perish, seems unworthy, and cannot in any way be reconciled with the saving and active will by which he directs all his graces, so far as lies in him, so that all attain salvation. For what, I ask, do those divine exhortations mean, addressed to all men without exception and especially to sinners placed on the road to perdition, which seem to be the lamentations of God and are most truly the tears of the Son of God incarnate over the perdition of the reprobate? « Is it my will that the wicked should die, says the Lord God?.. make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, and why will you die, house of Israel? For I do not wish the death of the dying » etc. Ezech. XVIII. 23. sq. « You have mercy on all, because you can do all things, and you overlook the sins of men for the sake of repentance; for you love all things that exist, and you hate none of the things you have made.. and you spare all, since they are yours, O Lord, who love souls. O how good and sweet is your spirit, O Lord, in all things! and therefore you correct by degrees those who go astray, and admonish and address them concerning the sins they commit, that, leaving their wickedness, they may believe in you, O Lord » (these words are said with reference to the destruction of the impious Canaanites and Egyptians) Sap. XI. 21. sq. « If you tormented the enemies of your servants, and those condemned to death, with such great care, giving time and place by which they might be changed from their malice » ib. XII. 10. 20. « The Lord does not delay (concerning the second coming and judgment).... but acts patiently for your sake, not wishing any to perish, but all to return to repentance » 2. Pet. III. 9; Rom. II. 4. « Now therefore judge between me and my vineyard; what more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done for it? Or, when I looked for it to bring forth grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? » Is. V. 4. « How often I have wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not » Matth. XXIII. 37. « Seeing the city, he wept over it, saying: If you too had known, even on this your day, the things that are for your peace; but now they are hidden from your eyes » Luc. XIX. 42. Cf. above th. XLIX. n. II. But such precepts, promises, threats and protestations, with which all the sacred documents are full, if they were directed to men antecedently, though only negatively reprobated, would seem to have no sense worthy of a good, wise, infinitely truthful God, by the same or a similar reasoning as, in the preceding thesis, we said that the positive antecedent reprobation which the heretics maintain is at odds with the divine attributes. For those precepts, promises and threats admonish all men that God is of himself most ready to perfect and give salvation under the condition that they cooperate faithfully, and that God wills this very cooperation. But if antecedently, before the foreseeing of all that men can do, there has preceded in God the will that very many not be included in the number of the saved, absolutely predestined before any foreseeing of merits; God, as has been proved above, cannot at the same time will that these enter into the number of the saved: therefore to command, to beseech, and to stir up these wretched men with promises and threats, that they may do those things by which they would be adopted into the number antecedently and immutably concluded, I do not see how this is not repugnant. Nor do I see, nor do I think our opponents would see, what exception could be made against the argument which Lessius presses. « According to the common estimation of men, it seems equal that God wills you to perish, and does not wish you to be placed in the number of his elect, nor gives you congruous grace and perseverance; for from decrees of this kind damnation follows with equal infallibility: and if one of these decrees were to be undergone, anyone would think it a matter of indifference to him which is chosen, since both are conceived before the foreseeing of works » Lessius de Praedest. sect. 2. n. 13; cf. Tertull. cont. Marc. l. IV. c. 29.

4°. Whoever reads attentively the responses of Prosper of Aquitaine to the chapters of the Gauls, II, III, VII, XII (compared with the response to objection XII of Vincent), will easily perceive that in the fifth century some were disturbed by the teaching of St Augustine, among other things also because it seemed to them, from that teaching not rightly understood, to follow that men who perish were passed over in predestination before any foreseeing of works; and from this negation of predestination they further concluded that it followed that those not predestined perish necessarily and by the will of God. Prosper plainly agrees with the critics that that teaching is absurd, and that what they inferred would follow from it; but he denies that such an antecedent negation of predestination can be ascribed to Augustine except « by calumny and a prodigious lie »; and he affirms, in every way in which he can most effectively, that the fact that someone is not predestined is entirely consequent upon the foreseen final sin of that man, and in no way from an antecedent will of God, which God would conceive from himself, not provoked by the final faults of men.

It is strange how Suarez (de Praed. l. V. c. 5. n. 7.) could have affirmed that Prosper spoke not of the denial of predestination but of positive reprobation, that is, of the decree of damnation to eternal punishment; since both the detractors and Prosper himself, in those succinct four chapters, declare at least eighteen times that they are speaking of those « who are not predestined, » « who do not pertain to predestination, » « who are not set apart from eternal perdition, » « who are not distinguished by any predestination from the sons of perdition » etc., and not once do they name reprobation or damnation by any strange term. Nay, so that Suarez's solution may be wholly refuted, Augustine's detractors and St Prosper himself expressly distinguish the denial of predestination and reprobation to punishment. They never thought that a positive reprobation to eternal punishment, but the denial of predestination to eternal life, was ascribed in Augustine's teaching to the antecedent will of God. For they said that Augustine taught that certain persons are not predestined to eternal life by the antecedent will of God; hence, however, it further followed that these men are abandoned by God and permitted to sin, and thus consequently upon sins a sentence of reprobation to eternal punishment is passed. But Prosper constantly denies that such an antecedent denial of predestination is either given or asserted by St Augustine; and he affirms that, in the same way as positive damnation follows on account of foreseen sins, the denial of predestination from the foreseeing of sins also follows. « He foreknew them as about to fall by their own will, and on this account did not distinguish them from the sons of perdition by any predestination. For how would the election foreordained in Christ have them, whom just damnation was to have as they departed from Christ? » cap. VII. Here no one can deny that by those words « how would the election foreordained in Christ have them? » is signified negative reprobation, or non-election; moreover this clause is evidently parallel with the former: « are not distinguished by any predestination from the sons of perdition; » therefore this clause also signifies negative reprobation. But this denial of distinction or of election Prosper clearly states to be on account of the foreknown ruin; and he proves that this denial of election cannot but follow, because upon that foreseeing of final ruin there follows positive reprobation itself, that is, future just damnation.

Prosper therefore expressly distinguishes between negative and positive reprobation, as more recent writers call them; but he affirms that both bear the same relation to the foreknowledge of future sins: for just as God positively condemns on account of foreseen sins, so also, only consequently upon the foreseen ruin, he denies predestination, that is, negatively reprobates. Nor does Prosper declare this once or twice, but, as I said, many times in those few chapters: he declares it not only as his own view but as the teaching of Augustine, indeed as a doctrine which no Christian could contradict: that the negation of predestination is no other, nor can it be understood to be other, than consequent upon the foreseeing of final sin. « He who ends this life alienated from grace, what else but falls into perdition? Which, since it did not escape the foreknowledge of God, without doubt he never chose, never predestined, and never distinguished from eternal perdition as one to perish. » « That those who have fallen into these evils and failed without the correction of penance did not have the necessity of perishing from the fact that they are not predestined; but for this reason they are not predestined, because they were foreknown as going to be such through voluntary transgression. » « They were not abandoned by God so that they should abandon God; but they abandoned and were abandoned, and by their own will they were changed from good to evil; and on this account, although they were reborn and justified, by him who foreknew them to be such, they are not predestined. » « Therefore he did not withdraw from anyone the strength of obedience because he did not predestine him; but he did not predestine him, because he foresaw that he would depart from obedience itself. » « They went out by will, they fell by will; and because they were foreknown as going to fall, they are not predestined: but they would be predestined if they were going to return and remain in holiness. » Thus St Prosper, ll. cc.

Scholion. The theologians with whom we dispute in this thesis constitute the order of reprobation thus: that God, in the first sign (as it is commonly said), willed to deny predestination to glory to angels and men, and intended this non-election, or, as we have heard others say, this exclusion from the number of the predestined to glory, as an end, or, as Suarez softens it, as a non-election to the end; then, in another sign, as means to the end, or more gently as the negation of the means efficacious for the end, God willed the negation of efficacious grace or of congruous grace, which he foresaw would be joined, if it were granted, with perseverance and the attainment of glory. Hence all those theologians say that the negation of efficacious or congruous grace, and the permission of sin never to be remitted, are the effect of that antecedent negative reprobation from eternal life.

1°. In this thesis we treat solely of negative reprobation from eternal glory, and we say that it does not arise from the antecedent will of God as a foreseeing of final sin: we are by no means treating of reprobation from efficacious or congruous grace, as those theologians call it; except insofar as, by the very fact that we deny the order which they assert of antecedent reprobation from glory, we also exclude their doctrine by which they contend that reprobation from grace is the effect of antecedent reprobation from glory.

The special arguments of the opponents, by which they prove that there is no cause of negative reprobation in men, are referred (in Suarez and Gonet) to the text of Rom. IX.12.13. (of which we shall speak elsewhere), and to the often repeated saying of Augustine, that he does not know why God draws this one and does not draw that one. But these and similar things might perhaps prove that there is no cause in man of reprobation, as they call it, from efficacious or congruous grace, a question of quite a different kind; but they certainly in no way suggest an antecedent negative reprobation from glory, which would be without a cause on the part of men; nor do they suggest that this reprobation from glory is the cause of reprobation from efficacious grace. Indeed, that often repeated saying of Augustine supplies one of the arguments by which it can be demonstrated that the negation of predestination to glory, arising from the antecedent will of God and without any cause on the part of men, never entered the mind of that holy Doctor. For whoever, with these theologians, thinks that the negation of efficacious or congruous grace is the effect of an antecedent negative reprobation or non-election to glory, cannot say that he does not know why God draws this one and not that one, so that he may also arrive at what he is drawn to: for in the very antecedent non-election to life the cause is evident why God does not give, or rather why, without denying himself, he cannot give, the grace with which he foresees the attainment of salvation will be joined. They cannot find the inscrutable mystery in the different distribution of graces, but solely in the absolute antecedent negation of election to eternal life, where we have shown there to be a manifest contradiction with the antecedent will of the salvation of all men. Augustine, on the contrary, proceeds in the inverse order in all the passages in which he marvels at the depth of the inscrutable judgments of God. Thus, for example, in De Corrept. et grat. n. 16. 17., to the question why many of those who believe and are baptized and live according to God are nevertheless not among the number of the finally elect, he answers not, as our opponents do, that there is no cause of this non-election apart from the free will of God; but he says the cause is that God « knew that they would not have the perseverance which leads the elect to life, and knew that they would so stand that he foresaw they would fall. » In agreement with Augustine, St Prosper also answers concerning the twelfth chapter of the Gauls: « He did not on that account withdraw from anyone the strength of obedience, because he did not predestine him; but he did not predestine him, because he foresaw that he would depart from obedience itself. » But when it is further pressed why God does not give them the grace with which he foresees perseverance will be joined, and why he permits them to fall, Augustine does not assign, as our opponents do, an antecedent non-election or exclusion from predestination as the cause of this negation of efficacious grace and of the permission of sin; but he answers that he does not know this, because it belongs to the inscrutable judgments of God. « If someone asks me here why he did not give perseverance to those to whom he gave the love by which they lived as Christians for a while, I answer that I do not know. For I do not hear this arrogantly, but acknowledging my small measure, I hear the Apostle saying: O man, who are you to answer back to God? and: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.... Why one receives this gift and another does not receive it, I think that you too do not know, and that both of us cannot penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God here. »

2°. What, in the end, is that negation of efficacious grace, or reprobation, as they call it, from efficacious or congruous grace, together with the preparation of sufficient grace? Nothing other than a will to confer grace that is necessary and often even abundant, which, however, is foreseen as going to be lost through the fault of man, the effect intended by the antecedent will of God; together with an unwillingness to confer another grace, which is foreseen as going to be efficacious. Just as grace is not rendered to human merits but is given freely, otherwise grace is no longer grace; so also, all the more, there can be no merit in man by which the first grace is granted to him, the grace with which the consent to be joined is foreseen, and not another which is foreseen as going to be lost through the fault of man. In this sense, therefore, no preceding cause on the part of man is required why, especially, the first grace, foreseen as efficacious, is not given to him. But it must well be noted that sufficient grace, prepared for all, remains through the fault of man, and against the good pleasure of God, inefficacious and without the effect to which it is ordained by God's antecedent will.

Likewise, if a comparison is made between a man to whom there is given a grace foreseen as efficacious, although another could be granted to him which is foreseen as going to be inefficacious through his fault; and another man to whom there is granted a grace indeed sufficient, but which, through that man's fault, is foreseen as going to be lost in its effect, although from the treasuries of divine omnipotence another could be granted to him which is foreseen as going to be efficacious: the reason for this must certainly be referred to the gratuitous, wise, merciful and just economy by which God acts in the distribution of his gifts. When therefore it is asked why God, who wills all men to be saved, confers these graces rather, although he foresees they will be inefficacious through the fault of man, and does not confer others, which, foreseen as going to be efficacious, he could confer according to the greatness of his omnipotence; we shall answer with Augustine that we do not know this, and it will be enough for us to have known that there is no injustice with God.

But when the defenders of antecedent reprobation from glory wish to evade, by this retort, with Gonet (disp. V. n. 58), the unavoidable argument that is drawn against them from the universal antecedent saving will, as if the same difficulty remained of reconciling the denial of congruous grace with the universal saving will, they seek empty byways indeed; for the disparity is evident. By the antecedent will of salvation God destines to all men the necessary graces, yet in diverse modes and degrees according to the counsel of his wisdom, willing that all may use the graces bestowed and be saved through them; yet not in such a way as if he had bound himself, as it were, to indulge the perversity of men, so that whenever he sees one grace to be rejected by them he should choose another to which they will consent. « He indeed acts (God), so as to heal all things; but he acts by his own judgment, nor does he take the order of healing from the sick man « S. August. de Natura et grat. c. 27. n. 31. For the antecedent saving will is not absolute. Why it is not absolute, although it could be, this (as I have said) belongs to the judgment of God, who preferred to do good out of evils rather than not to allow evils to exist at all. O man, who are you, that you should answer God! Do not ask why God, infinitely wise, good and just Lord of his gifts, did not choose that economy which men devise for themselves; but ask why men whom God wills to be saved and to be blessed for ever in the divine beatitude, yet themselves are unwilling, and prefer earth to heaven, the briefest and most wretched pleasures to eternal joys that surpass all understanding, and honours to be laughed at, or rather lamented, to heavenly glory?!

ARTICLE II.

On the predestination of the supernatural gifts, considered universally.