Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

On the various sense in which predestination is taken in the manner of speaking of Scripture and of the Fathers.

« The counsel of the saving will, by which God has decreed from eternity to adorn man with supernatural benefits pertaining to salvation, namely faith, justification, and glorification, by the effect itself, is called, according to the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the Fathers, and especially of Augustine, predestination, election, purpose. Whence it is demonstrated that these names, and those twin to them, are to be understood not always in one sense, but according to the nature of the benefits, now in a fuller sense, now in a less full sense. »

Preliminary notions. 1°. Predestination (προορισμός, ὁρισμός) in a generic sense may be called every counsel of God by which in eternity he disposes and wills the existence of any of his external works. For such a counsel is truly a destination in the divine mind, and, both in duration and as cause, preceding the existence of the work itself through all eternity; and so it is predestination. Thus Ambrose, in Hexaem. l. II. c. 5. n. 21., calls the idea and creative will of this universe predestination, inasmuch as it precedes « the completion of the work; » and so Dionysius also calls the divine ideas, with the will added, practical « predefinitions » or « predestinations » προορισμούς.

2°. In a more restricted sense and in common usage predestination is said only of the disposition of God's works with a view to the eternal salvation of rational creatures. Nevertheless, by Augustine and the other Fathers who followed him, God is sometimes said to predestine even to perdition and to punishment for sins, because punishment is indeed a work of God, disposed from eternity with sins foreseen; but sins can in no way be said to be predestined, because they are not works of God: « those to be damned are predestined on account of the iniquity of pride » Aug. de pecc. mer. et remiss. l. II. n. 26. « The unbelief of those who do not believe the gospel is by no means generated by the predestination of God; for God is the author of good things, not of evil. Therefore the predestination of God is always in good, either pertaining to the retribution of justice or to the donation of grace » S. Prosper ad cap. XIV Gallor. « The Lord predestined the wicked and impious to perdition, which the wrath of the just judge rendered to sinners; not to that perdition by which the iniquity of sinners provoked the wrath of God upon themselves » S. Fulgent. ad Monim. l. I. c. 26. From these things it is most clear that the Fathers never had in mind that sense of the name predestination by which the particle prae would designate antecedence not only with respect to the existence of the divine work, but also with respect to every foreseeing of a human work.

Moreover, in the more frequent and by now common usage of the Fathers, the imposition of punishment and damnation is called reprobation; but the name predestination is reserved for the disposition of God's works leading to eternal life, and to eternal life itself. Indeed, since among these works some are per se and ontologically natural, and are only external gifts of grace presupposed to the supernatural gifts (benefits reckoned per se natural being creation itself, the time and place of birth, the condition and morals of parents, a good natural disposition, and many others), therefore, from the more solemn use and manner of disputing among Augustine, whom others at least for the most part follow, predestination is considered with respect to those supernatural goods alone that are ordered to eternal salvation, which, the general foundations of redemption, the institution of the Church and of the sacraments being presupposed (for the present state of fallen nature), are prepared for individual men.

Further, the graces to which predestination refers can still be considered first, as they are prevenient, abstracting from the effect for which they are given, whether that effect is obtained or the fault of man prevents it; then as graces conjoined with the effect. Indeed, in the former sense all graces could also be called predestined, for they are truly a gift of God disposed from eternity. But since graces not conjoined with the effect, although ordained to salvation by the antecedent will of God, do not in fact lead to salvation; and since Scripture itself expressly notes this difference in distinguishing the called and the elect (Matth. XX. 16.): hence predestination is said only of the grace which obtains its effect, and of the goods themselves that are conferred through grace.

3°. Chiefly here comes into consideration the definition of predestination often repeated by Augustine. It is said first that predestination is « the preparation of grace, » which, when it is given, has in time the effect of a good work. The work itself of faith, of justification, of the increase of justice, and of perseverance, is the work of God, whether the acts of faith, charity and of all the other virtues are considered, or the habits infused in us by God are regarded. Yet this ought not to be understood as if God made acts in us without us, or as if the habit of grace were infused into adults without preceding free dispositions. The acts themselves are said to be the work of God, and we are said to be « created in Christ Jesus unto good works » (ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς, ad opera bona) Eph. II. 10, inasmuch as God by his grace makes us act. « To will and to work, God works in us; not because we do not will or do not act, but because without his help we neither will anything good nor act » Aug. de grat. Christi c. 25. « Scripture for the most part speaks in such a way that what a creature does by the gift of God, God is said to do.... what you do by his gift, he is said to do; because without him you would not do it, therefore God is said to do it, when you do it » id. in Ps. 58 n. 5. (cf. supra p. 429. 430.). Therefore not only the grace which is poured into us by God without us, but also the goods which we freely do through grace, are works of God; and accordingly the disposition of these works in the foreknowledge of God, according to the sense and manner of speaking of Augustine, is predestination.

From the diversity by which the term of predestination is a work of God, it is clear that the foreknowledge which Augustine requires for every predestination, and in which God is said to dispose his future works, is not always to be understood in one and the same way, but differently and differently, according as the term to be predisposed is either a work of God alone, with no cause supposed on the part of man; or a work of God to be done by us freely with the powers of grace superadded by God; or a work of God alone, yet with our free acts presupposed as dispositions or merits required according to the order of divine providence. Therefore it is in vain that theologians contend, appealing to Augustine, that this foreknowledge presupposed in predestination is, some say, the knowledge of simple intelligence, others say middle knowledge, others say the knowledge of vision; for, as I have said, it is diverse according to the diversity of the predestined work of God.

As is now already clear from what has been said, predestination can be considered either incomplete, with respect to each supernatural work predisposed in the divine counsel for the salvation of the rational creature; or complete, as it refers to the whole series of these works of God from the first calling to the beatitude and eternal glory. Hence there is, with Augustine, a twofold definition of predestination. Of the former, considered in the incomplete manner, it is said: « in his foreknowledge, which cannot be deceived or changed, to arrange his future works, this altogether, and nothing else, is to predestine. Just as he who foresaw that someone would be chaste, although he holds this uncertain, acts so that he may be chaste; so he whom he predestined to be chaste, although he holds this uncertain, does not therefore fail to act so that he may be chaste, since he hears that by the gift of God he is to be what he will be » de Dono persev. c. 17. n. 41. To predestination considered in the second way, and fully, belongs the definition: « this predestination of the Saints is nothing other than foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits of God, by which those who are set free are most certainly set free » ib. c. 14. n. 35. It is clear that Augustine regards in recto the gift or thing predestined, which is customarily called the term of predestination, and in obliquo the person who is predestined to the gift or to the term, and who is by some called the object of predestination. St Thomas, however, in the inverse order, considers in recto the object, in obliquo the term, when he defines predestination fully considered: « predestination is a certain reason for the ordering of some to eternal salvation, existing in the divine mind » 1. q. 23. a. 2.

4°. While we affirm that all supernatural gifts which in fact attain the effect for which they are given by God are said to be predestined, by this very fact we do not deny that theologians, and common usage, rightly speak of predestination and of the predestined simply only where the ultimate effect of eternal life, to which the others are ordered, is actually obtained. Nor, therefore, do we deny that supernatural gifts, in those alone who are predestined to glory, can rightly be called the effect of predestination, simply and absolutely so named; but in others they can be called effects of common providence. Yet we contend that in the Scriptures and according to the doctrine of Augustine predestination is frequently regarded only with respect to the proximate effect of faith, justification, and the increase of justice; and so is taken in a less full sense, without regard to the actual attainment of the ultimate term. With these preliminary notes, both for the present and for the following theses, we proceed to the demonstration.

I. He would err most of all, and in grasping the genuine sense would block its paths, who came to the reading of the Scriptures and the Fathers with a preconceived opinion that by the names recorded in the thesis the divine decree of eternal glory, considered in itself, is always, or at least for the most part, designated¹ in the way in which the theologians dispute about predestination to glory. Those words are indeed never used in the Scriptures of the antecedent and conditional will of God, which has no effect, but constantly of the efficacious will of God; yet quite frequently they are referred to supernatural benefits common to all Christians, or at least to Christians who are just. Thus the words predestination and predestined are plainly used at Eph. I. 5. 11; 1. Cor. II. 7. ²; propositum Rom. IX.11; Eph.

I. 11; 2. Tim. I. 9; election and the elect Rom. IX. 11; XI. 5. 7. 28; 1. Thess. I. 4; Rom. VIII. 33; XVI. 13; Coloss. III. 12; Tit. I. 1; 1. Pet. I. 1; the saved, in inchoate salvation, are all Christians, Act. II. 47; Rom. VIII. 24; Eph. II. 5. 8; 2. Tim. I. 9; Tit. III. 5. ³.

II. According to this manner of speaking of the Scriptures, the Fathers and Augustine in particular also employed the names predestination, election, and purpose, as can easily be shown by many testimonies, of which we shall select a few.

1°. That predestination according to Augustine is the eternal counsel of the divine will, not only that by which he decreed to confer glory itself upon men, but also that by which in his foreknowledge he prepared the beginning of faith and its increase, justification, and perseverance, is beyond controversy. But those theologians who wished to find predestination to glory everywhere before foreseen merits think that all these gifts are not called predestined by Augustine, unless in the divine decree they are so bound up with salvation that God, predestining antecedently to heavenly glory by an absolute will, then from this antecedent predestination to glory decides to confer those gifts as means to the predestined end. We affirm on the contrary that by Augustine all these (excepting perseverance) are often called predestined, even if they are not bound up with the attainment of eternal salvation. Much less, therefore, is it true that these same gifts are called predestined only insofar as they proceed from absolute antecedent predestination to eternal glory. This ought to be manifest to readers of Augustine's books de Praedestinatione Sanctorum, and de Dono (Bono) perseverantiae; Fulgentius, book I to Monimus, and the epilogue of the book de Incarnat. et gratia; Prosper's responses ad cap. Gall. XV. and ad Excerpt. Genuens. IX.

In the first place⁴ St Augustine generally defines that no grace is conferred in time, nor can be conferred, that is not answered by the eternal predestination of God. « Between grace and predestination, he says, there is only this difference: predestination is the preparation of grace, but grace is already the donation itself » Praedest. SS. c. 10. « Predestination of God, which is in the good, is the preparation of grace; but grace is the effect of predestination itself » ibid. In de Dono persever. c. 14. seqq. he enumerates the individual virtues, all of which he teaches are predestined by the very fact that they are gifts of God, and that God foreknew that he would give them; for by this double character, according to St Augustine's constant definition, the notion of predestination is completed. « What I said, he says, of chastity (that it is predestined), this of faith, this of piety, this of charity, of perseverance; and, not to go on through each one, this can most truly be said of all obedience by which one obeys God. But those (the Semipelagians) who place in our own power the beginning of faith and perseverance to the end, in such a way that they do not think these are gifts of God... the rest they concede that he gives, since they are obtained from him by the faith of the one believing... perhaps they do not say that these too are predestined? Therefore they are not given by God, or he did not know that he would give them. But if both they are given and he foreknew that he would give them, he has certainly predestined them » de Dono persev. c. 17. n. 42. The grace of faith and of justification of any Christian, insofar as it is considered in the foreknowledge and eternal will decreeing to confer these gifts in time, is called predestination of the Saints ⁵. « By this grace (that is, by a gift so gratuitous) every Christian is made at the beginning of his faith, by which grace that man was made Christ from his beginning... by the same Spirit the remission of sins is effected in us, by which Spirit it came about that that man had no sin. God certainly foreknew that he himself would bring this about; this, therefore, is the predestination of the Saints » de Praed. SS. n. 31.

Hence it is altogether evident that, according to Augustine's manner of speaking and thinking, predestination extends as widely as the variety of graces which are conferred on any men along with the proximate effect itself.

In the same way St Fulgentius also thinks and speaks. « All these things, that is, both the beginnings of our calling and the increases of justification and the rewards of glorification, God has always had in predestination, because in the calling, in the justification, and in the glorification of the Saints he foreknew that the works of his grace would be future » ad Monim. l. I. c. 11; cf. epilog. de Incarn. et grat.

Undoubtedly those predestined gifts are, in many but not in all, crowned by the gift of perseverance, which itself, just as it is given in time, so is predestined from eternity. Therefore, since Augustine, against the remnants of the Pelagians, keeps before his eyes chiefly the beginning of faith and perseverance in faith as gifts of God, and thus as predestined, some theologians have been led by such passages into the opinion that by Augustine only those gifts conjoined with perseverance, and consequently with eternal glory, are called predestined. To predestination considered in this way belongs that celebrated definition described above (from 1. de Dono persev. c. 14.), where, by including perseverance, predestination is said to be « the foreknowledge and preparation of God's benefits, by which those who are set free are most certainly set free. » In this way too he considers predestination throughout almost the whole book de Corrept. et grat., from chapter VI onwards. But the reason why grace and manifold gifts are called predestined, according to the doctrine of Augustine, is most certainly not placed in connexion with perseverance, much less in derivation from antecedent predestination to glory. For Augustine places the essence of predestination, as is evident from what has been said, solely in this: that the gift of God is supernatural, conferred in time by the effect itself, and prepared from eternity in divine foreknowledge; whence he also calls it the predestination of the Saints, by which faith is prepared and by which the remission of sins is prepared, « of any Christian whatever, » with no account taken of perseverance and of predestination to glory (Praed. SS. n. 31.).

2°. That election is most frequently understood by Augustine as election to the grace of faith and justification will be clear, even from reading the chapters 17-19 of de Praed. SS. alone, where he repeats nothing more often than that they become elect by the calling to faith, and all to whom faith is given are called elect. « We understand the calling by which they become elect, not those who are chosen because they believed; but those who are chosen, that they may believe⁶. » « He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Which, surely, if it was said for this reason, because God foreknew that they would believe, not because he himself would make the believers; against that foreknowledge the Son of God speaks: You did not choose me. » « He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish. Not therefore because we were going to be, but that we might be. Surely it is certain, surely it is manifest: for this is why we were going to be such, because he himself, predestining, chose that we should be such through his grace » etc. So also in Io. tract. 86. n. 2. « You did not choose me, but I chose you. This is that ineffable grace... For we had not already believed in him, that he should choose us; for if he chose believers (as the Semipelagians said), he chose the elect ⁷... They are not elect because they were good; those who were not good, unless they had been elect... What therefore shall we say when hearing, You did not choose me? Unless because we were evil, and we are elect, that we might be good through the grace of him who chooses us. » The sentences quoted are clear in themselves; but here again we willingly concede that with Augustine election is indeed in other places also referred to the gift of perseverance, or even to glory; as in the very book cited, de Praed. SS., in the closing sentences of chapter XVI, and elsewhere.

3°. As to the last point, concerning the expressions taken from the Apostle Paul, where it is called a calling according to purpose, a calling without repentance; not only Jansenius but also not a few Catholic theologians hold that by Augustine no gifts are said to be predestined unless those which are conferred according to purpose; purpose, they say, in Augustine is always to be understood of predestination to glory; whence they conclude that all gifts are called predestined only insofar as they proceed from purpose, that is, according to their interpretation, from the antecedent efficacious will and from absolute predestination to glory. But truly this whole interpretation seems to be accommodated to a preconceived system, and not deduced from the sentiments and contexts of Augustine himself.

Most certainly purpose and predestination are said to be synonyms in Augustine. And therefore, just as predestination (from what has been demonstrated), so also purpose signifies God's eternal merciful will of conferring supernatural gifts in time; which will is not merely antecedent and conditional, destined to lack its effect, but is an efficacious will, that is, one which actually effects its term. Therefore what we have said of predestination holds equally of these other formulas; for in the Augustinian manner of speaking, purpose and calling without repentance extend as widely as the manifold supernatural gifts which are offered to men not only through prevenient grace, but are conferred by the effect itself. This is most evident from 1. de Praed. SS. c.16. n. 32. compared with c. 15. n. 31. There Augustine speaks of predestination and calling, that we may believe and that we may be members of Christ, conformed to Christ through the justice which is from faith; of predestination, I say, and of the calling of all those who believe and who are justified in Christ; not only of those, however, who are predestined also to perseverance and to glory. And he says that all believers are called according to purpose; and therefore by the name called according to purpose he does not distinguish those predestined to glory from others not predestined to glory; but rather he distinguishes all believers and the justified, as called according to purpose, from those who, when called, were unwilling to believe. « God calls the predestined many of his sons, he says, that he may make them members of his only predestined Son; not by that calling by which those were called who were unwilling to come to the wedding; for by that calling the Jews too were called... When they were called, says the Apostle (that Christ is the power of God), that he might show that those (others, for whom Christ is a scandal and foolishness) were not called, knowing that there is a certain definite calling of those who are called according to purpose... He said therefore: but from him who calls, not by any calling, but by that calling by which one is made to believe » Praed. SS. n. 32. To whom, I ask, is it not evident that calling according to purpose here means an efficacious calling? Likewise, from the fact that Paul gives thanks to God for the faith of all the Thessalonians, Augustine concludes that faith is the gift of God not only of the predestined but of all believers, from the calling according to purpose. « God therefore, the holy Doctor infers, works in the hearts of men by that calling according to his purpose, of which we have spoken much, so that they do not hear the gospel in vain, but, having heard it, are converted and believe » ibid. n. 39. He had called this same efficacious calling of all believers, a little earlier, a calling without repentance. « Not because we have believed, but that we may believe, are we called; and by that calling which is without repentance, it is altogether done and carried through, that we may believe » ib. n. 38.

In vain would the passages of Augustine be objected, where purpose and gift without repentance are referred also to perseverance and, inclusively, to glory. De Dono persev. cc. 7. 13. 14. 17; de Corrept. et grat. passim, especially cc. 10–13. For no one denies that purpose, as we have said of the names predestination and election, also pertains to these chief gifts of perseverance and of the eternal crown. It is worth noting, however, that in the books of Augustine against the Pelagians and the Massilians, predestination and purpose are never referred to glory considered per se and separately, without being included at the same time with predestination and purpose of the conferring of grace and of merits.

That one thing we affirm in the thesis, and by the testimonies adduced have clearly demonstrated: that the names predestination, election, divine purpose are used by Augustine also of the counsel of conferring any supernatural gifts whatever, per se and not by reason of perseverance and of predestined glory; and thus it is false that other gifts are said by Augustine to be predestined only insofar as they are decreed and conferred from antecedent predestination to glory. See Tricassin. de Praedestinat. p. 847. sqq.; 417. sqq.; I.B. Faure ad Enchirid. c.98. nota 2°.