De Deo uno

Name: De Deo uno
Author: Heinrich Lennerz

Heinrich Lennerz (1880–1961)

First published 1955

Lennerz's De Deo uno (Romae, 1955, editio quinta): his Gregorian course on the one God. The rights of the original Latin are held by the Deutsche Region der Jesuiten, K.d.ö.R., München.

Thesis I: God governs by his providence all things that he has created

S. TH., 1 q. 22; 103; 104; Contra gent., 3, 64; De Veritate, q. 5; SUÁREZ, De Deo, l. 3 c. 10; LESSIUS, De perf. moribusque divinis, l. 11; RUIZ, De providentia praedefiniente ac praebente praedestinationis exordium, tract. primus; PETAVIUS, De Deo uno Deique proprietatibus, l. 8 c. 1-5; BILLOT, thes. 30; PESCH, prop. 49; MUNCUNILL., nr. 666-686; VAN DER MEERSCH, nr. 511-527.

369. God created the world, not blindly, but with the highest wisdom according to an eternal plan, and ordered it to its end. Just as the exemplar idea of each created thing is in God, so too is the exemplar idea of the whole order of things toward their proper end (De Veritate, q. 5 a. 1 ad 1). This plan existing in the divine mind is called providence. According to this plan God governs the world. Hence:

providence is “the plan for ordering things to an end” (1 q. 22 a. 1 in c. et ad 2); it is eternal and internal to God:

government is “the execution of the order” (ibid. ad 2); it is temporal and may be conceived as an effect of providence.

Providence pertains to intellect and will; according to St. THOMAS, it is essentially in practical cognition.

All things that he has created: these words indicate the object of providence, namely, all creatures with all their operations, necessary and free; good and evil, physical and moral. Providence as such is immediate with respect to all things, even the least; nothing escapes the plan of order. In its execution, however, God employs means, directing lower things through higher ones, making one dependent on another (1 q. 22 a. 3). Since God's care is not equal for all things, a distinction is usually made between general providence, which concerns all creatures; special providence, toward intellectual creatures, which, unlike irrational creatures, are not ordered immediately to other creatures as their end, but only to God himself; and most special providence, toward his friends, children, the just, the predestined, or others who, by reason of their office, are subject to a special providence.

370. Providence is denied by all who do not admit a personal God, and likewise by those who posit two active principles of the world, good and evil. Providence is also excluded by Fatalism, according to which everything in the world occurs by inevitable necessity. It appears in various forms: either a “fate” is posited, some higher entity that blindly causes all events; or all freedom is denied, so that everything is already determined by the nature of things; or the events of this sublunary world are said to depend necessarily on the motions of the heavenly bodies. Deists do admit the existence of a supreme being, author of the world, but deny that he cares for the world he produced.

CHURCH TEACHING

371. COUNCIL OF BRAGA, against the fatalism of the Priscillianists: “If anyone believes that souls are bound by a fatal sign, as the pagans and Priscillian said, let him be anathema” (Denz 239)¹.

INNOCENT III, in the profession of faith prescribed for the Waldensians: “We believe with our heart and confess with our mouth that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, of whom we speak, creator, maker, governor, and disposer of all things bodily and spiritual, visible and invisible” (Denz 421).

JOHN XXII, errors of Eckhart, 14: “A good man ought so to conform his will to the divine will that he should will whatever God wills: because God wills in some way that I have sinned, I would not want not to have committed sins; and this is true repentance” (Denz 514; condemned as heretical, Denz 529).

COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE, session 8, errors of Wyclif, 6: “God ought to obey the devil” (Denz 586); 27: “Everything happens by absolute necessity” (Denz 607).

COUNCIL OF TRENT, session 6, canon 6: “If anyone says that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that God works evil deeds just as he works good ones, not by permission alone but properly and of himself, so that Judas's betrayal is his own work no less than Paul's calling, let him be anathema” (Denz 816).

PIUS IX, Syllabus, proposition 2: “Every action of God upon men and the world must be denied” (Denz 1702).

VATICAN COUNCIL, session 3, ch. 1 § 3: “God, indeed, preserves and governs by his providence all things that he has created, reaching mightily from end to end and ordering all things sweetly². For all things are naked and open to his eyes³, even those that are to come about through the free action of creatures” (Denz 1784).

This paragraph was added by amendment 8 in place of “most provident,” which appeared in the first paragraph (above, no. 254). The definition presents 1) the fact of providence; 2) its effect: it preserves and governs; 3) its object: all things he has created; 4) its manner: mightily, sweetly.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

372. Scripture bears abundant witness to providence, in words and deeds.

Deeds. Sap 10 sqq. describes how God, by his wisdom, guided individual persons and peoples. Exod 1, 11; 14, 22; 16; Num 20 etc. Act 2, 23; 4, 28; Rom 9; Act 14, 16 sq.; 17, 26.
Words. Ps 26, 10; 32, 13; 144, 15 sq.; 146, 9; Sap. 6, 8; 8, 1; 11, 21; 12, 13; 4, 3; Eccli 11, 14; Is 42, 2 sq.; 46, 10; 49, 15 sq.; Matth 6, 25 sqq.; (Luc 12, 22 sqq.); 5, 45; 10, 29 sqq., Phil 4, 6; 1 Petr 5, 6 sq.; Iac 4, 13 ss.

1 Cor 9, 9 denies special providence concerning animals.

All things, then, are under divine providence: plants, animals, human beings, the good and the evil. God especially cares for human beings, in which his great kindness is manifest; hence we ought to have great trust in God, without anxious care.

Indeed, even evils, which seem to pose a great difficulty for admitting God's providence, are also under his providence: Ps 72; Iob; Eccle; Tobias 2, 10-18; 12, 13; Sap 3; 5, 6. 8. 9; Hebr 12, 6; Rom 5, 3; 1 Cor 15, 19.

373. This teaching of Sacred Scripture contains principles for resolving similar difficulties: the happiness that the wicked enjoy from wealth and honors is only apparent and will soon end; the good, however, though poor and despised, enjoy true happiness, peace, and friendship with God. Nor is it true that all the just are always and necessarily in want and disgrace.

Earthly goods and honors must be judged according to the truth: earthly life as a whole is only a preparation; earthly goods are merely means to an end, hence their value is relative. No one lacks what is required to attain his end. In distributing goods God is entirely free.

Some physical evils, however, are necessary and good for the universe; for lower things are ordered to higher ones, for the latter's good; the death of one is the life of another. Man is lord of the visible world, and the world exists for his good. Thus a physical evil in a particular case may be good for the whole; or a physical evil for a lower creature may be good for a higher one.

And so physical evils and the distribution of goods are subject to divine providence (cf. S. Th. 1 q. 22 a. 2 ad 2).

On moral evils below, nr. 375.

THE FATHERS

374. Since this teaching is stated so clearly in Sacred Scripture, it suffices to cite one or two passages from the Fathers.

ST. IRENAEUS, Adv. haeres., l. 2 c. 26 nr. 3: “But what if someone should ask us whether ... each of them received, according to God's providence, the measure proper to it; and, as we agree and confess, that none at all of the things that have been made and will be made escapes the knowledge of God, but that each of them has received and does receive, through his providence, its own state and order and number and measure ...” (MG 7, 801; R 202).

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, Strom. 5, 1, 6, 1: “There are also some things deserving of punishment; such as asking for proofs whether providence exists” (MG 9, 16; R 422).

ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, Orat. 40, 45: “Believe that the whole world ... was made by God from nothing, and is governed by the Creator's providence” (MG 36, 424; R 1014).

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, De consubstantiali, homily 12, 4: “For God not only brought forth the creature, but also preserves and sustains it once brought forth; whether you speak of angels or archangels, of the higher powers, or of absolutely all things that fall under sight: if deprived of his effective action, they dissolve, fall apart, and perish” (MG 48, 810; R 1134).

ST. JEROME, In Habacuc, l. 1 c. 1 nr. 14 (supra nr. 252).

Cf. how, according to the Fathers, the world leads to knowledge of its provident governor (supra, de cognoscibilitate Dei).

375. A special difficulty concerns providence with regard to moral evil. Sin cannot impede the very end of creation, since a human being who refuses freely to offer God formal glory manifests God's majesty and justice through his punishment. But sin itself, too, does not escape divine providence. This is more readily understood with respect to the material aspect of sin, but it also holds of sin's formal aspect. God cannot, of course, will formal malice as a means to a good end, as he can physical evil, for it is incapable of being intrinsically ordered to the good. Therefore God cannot will it positively and directly, but he can permit it, by not preventing it. Sin, once permitted and committed, is subject to providence and is ordered externally to some good. If this were impossible, God could not permit it either. “For God Almighty—for even unbelievers confess that he has supreme power over all things—since he is supremely good, would in no way allow anything evil to exist in his works unless he were so almighty and good that he could bring good even out of evil” (ST. AUGUSTINE, Enchir. ch. 11. ML 40, 236). That good in no way has the character of a final cause for the permission; rather, it is a condition without which God would not permit it. Examples: sin and the virtue of penance; sin and martyrdom; cf. Act 2, 23; 4, 28⁴.

Historical survey

377. The GNOSTICS distinguished three classes of people according to whether the share of light predominated in them (πνευματικοί), or neither share did (ψυχικοί), or matter did (ὑλικοί). The first cannot do evil and will infallibly be saved; the last are sinful and vicious and will not be saved; the middle, however, can act well or badly, be saved or be lost.

The MANICHAEANS, teaching that there are two souls in a person, a good one and an evil one, said that it was not so much the person who sinned as the evil soul and the body, in which the good soul is enclosed as in a prison.

Against errors of this sort, and against the FATALISM of the pagans, Catholics had above all to insist on this: there is no fate; all things are under God's providence; yet under this providence of God a person is entirely free, sins through his own fault, and, if he is damned, perishes through his own fault.

378. When answering the argument by which the Marcionites tried to prove that God is the author of evils because he blinded Pharaoh, St. IRENAEUS says: “If, then, even now God, who knows beforehand all things, handed over to their unbelief all those whom he knows will not believe, and turned his face away from such people, leaving them in the darkness they themselves chose, what is surprising if he then handed Pharaoh, who would never believe, together with those who were with him, over to his own unbelief?” (Adv. haeres., l. 4 c. 29 nr. 2; MG 7, 1064).

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: God is good and wills the salvation of all people; yet he wills to save us “from ourselves” (Strom. 6, 12, 37; MG 9, 317). Hence, among all those called, “called” are those who wished to obey (Strom. 1, 18, 32; MG 8, 804). God rebukes people so that they may be converted, for God knew that people are converted through fear (Paedag. 1, 9; MG 8, 352 sq.). All things are under God's providence (Stromata 6, 17; MG 9, 388 sqq.; cf. R 429; 430).

Against those who say that some are destined by nature for salvation and others for destruction, St. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM says: “We shall not tolerate those who perversely interpret the saying, ‘By this we know the children of God and the children of the devil,’ as though there were some people among human beings who are saved or perish by nature. We are raised to this holy adoption not by necessity but by a free decision of the mind. Judas the traitor was not by nature a son of the devil and of perdition; otherwise, from the beginning he would never have cast out demons in the name of Christ, for Satan does not cast out Satan” (Catech. 7, 13; MG 33, 620).

379. Rejecting various opinions on this matter in response to Christ's words, “Not all can receive this saying, but those to whom it has been given” (Matt. 19:11), St. GREGORY NAZIANZEN says: “When you hear ‘it has been given,’ do not be seized by any heretical bias, nor introduce multiple natures—earthly, spiritual, and intermediate. Some are so badly disposed that they think some are wholly of a lost nature, others destined to receive salvation, and still others are as the will has led them, either to virtue or to vice. I grant that some may have a greater or lesser aptitude than others; but I maintain that aptitude alone is by no means enough to attain perfection. There must be reason to stir it, so that nature comes into action, just as flint is struck with iron and fire is drawn forth. When you hear ‘it has been given,’ add: it has been given to those who are called, and to those so disposed in mind. For when you hear, ‘It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy’ (Rom. 9:16), I think you should understand the same thing. Since there are some who, because they have acted rightly, are so elated that they ascribe the whole thing to themselves and give no thanks to the Creator, the author of their wisdom and provider of all good things, Paul teaches them by these words that even the right willing itself needs divine aid; or, to speak more accurately, their very willing and choosing what is right and dutiful is a divine gift, proceeding from God's goodness. For our salvation must be both from us and from God. That is why he says, ‘not of him who wills,’ that is, not of him who wills alone, nor of him who runs alone, but also of God who shows mercy. Thus, since willing itself too comes from God, he rightly ascribes the whole to God. However much you run, however much you strive, you need the one who gives the crown.” He then adds a similar saying spoken by Christ to the mother of Zebedee's sons (Matt. 20:20), and says: “They shall indeed drink the cup; but to sit at my right and left is not mine to grant, but to those to whom it has been given. Is the mind, then, which leads and governs worth nothing? Is toil nothing? Is reason nothing? Is philosophy nothing? Is fasting nothing? Keeping vigil through the nights? Having the ground for one's bed? Pouring out streams of tears? Will none of these things help, and will Jeremiah be sanctified by some lot and law of fate, while others are rejected from their mother's womb? I fear that some may be overtaken by an absurd and perverse thought, as though the soul had existed somewhere else and had then been bound to this body, and, according to its conduct there, some receive prophecy while others, who lived wickedly, are condemned. But since this is too foolish and absurd to think, and foreign to the Church's faith and teaching (let others play with doctrines of this sort if they wish; it is not safe for us to amuse our minds with such games), here too add to the words ‘to whom it has been given’: to those who are worthy, and who have not only received from the Father that they be such, but have also made themselves such” (Orat. 37 c. 13 sqq.; MG 36, 297-301; cf. R 1003 sq.).

380. According to St. CHRYSOSTOM, a person needs divine help, grace, to which he assigns the principal role in our sanctification; grace does not, however, take away freedom but requires our cooperation (In epist. ad Rom., hom. 19, 1; MG 60, 583; In ep. ad Hebr., hom. 12, 3; MG 63, 99; cf. R 1219). God wills to save all people and offers grace to all, but “he saves those who are willing, not those who are unwilling” (In ep. ad Rom., hom. 18, 5; MG 60, 579; R 1118). A twofold will is distinguished in God: the first, by which he wills to save all, even those who perish; and the second, which follows foreknowledge of sins, is the will to punish sinners (In ep. ad Eph., hom. 1, 2; MG 62, 13; R 1202), and does not confer glory on the predestined except consequently upon foreseeing their good will (In ep. ad Rom., hom. 16, 5 sqq.; MG 60, 554 sqq.).

St. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: “Behold, he called all to himself; thus no one is deprived of the grace of the call, for by saying ‘all’ he excludes no one. Those whom he foresaw long beforehand as to what they would become, he predestined to share in the future goods; he also called them, so that through faith in him they might attain justification and no longer sin again” (In epist. ad Rom. 8, 30; MG 74, 828 sq.).

St. JOHN DAMASCENE distinguishes in God an antecedent will, by which he gratuitously wills the salvation of all, and a consequent will, by which he wills the punishment of sins (De fide orthod., l. 2 c. 29; MG 94, 968; R 2358). Grace is offered to all, but a person is free and can follow God, who calls him to virtue, or turn away from virtue (ibid. c. 30; MG 94, 969; R 2359). God's predestination is a predefinition according to his foreknowledge (Dialogus contra Manichaeos 73; MG 94, 1572; 78; MG 94, 1577).

381. On the words “Many are called, but few are chosen,” St. HILARY says of divine election: “Election, then, is not a matter of indiscriminate judgment, but a distinction made by selecting according to merit. Blessed, therefore, is the one whom God has chosen; blessed because he was worthy of being chosen” (In Psalm. 64, n. 5; ML. 9, 415).

St. AMBROSE teaches that the foreknowledge of merits precedes the predestination of rewards: “The Apostle says, ‘Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined’; for he did not predestine them before he foreknew them, but predestined rewards for those whose merits he foreknew” (De Fide, ad Gratianum, l. 5 c. 6 nr. 83; ML, 16, 665; R 1272).

382. The doctrine contained in what has been said so far is this: All things are subject to divine providence; God wills the salvation of all people and offers grace to all, without which they cannot attain salvation; but a person must freely cooperate if he wishes to be saved. God's antecedent salvific will is therefore universal, but not absolute: it is conditional. The absolute will to reward or punish follows God's foreknowledge of people's good or evil will. They set out this doctrine simply as the true, undisputed teaching prevailing in the Church, against the errors of the Gnostics, Manichaeans, Fatalists, and others.

383. St. AUGUSTINE had defended true human freedom against the Manichaeans. When the dispute with the Pelagians arose (from 412 onward), it was much more necessary to insist on the need for grace for salutary works. Hence some thought Augustine denied human freedom¹. Thus in 427 the monks at Hadrumetum in Africa thought that freedom and just retribution at the Last Judgment were denied in Letter 194, sent to the priest Sixtus in 418 (some passages from this letter are found in R. 1449 sqq.), and that, according to this doctrine, correction was superfluous and useless. In 427 St. Augustine explained the teaching of the earlier letter to Valentinus, abbot of that monastery, in Epistula 214. He also wrote De gratia et libero arbitrio (ML 44, 881-912; R 1936 sqq.) and sent it to the same abbot. Since difficulties still remained—namely, what purpose commands and correction served if God works all things in us—Augustine wrote a second book for the same abbot, Liber de correptione et gratia (ML 44, 911-944; R 1944 sqq.). In it he shows that the present economy of salvation is entirely gratuitous, and that neither its beginning nor perseverance is to be ascribed to the natural powers of the will and its merits; just as the conferral of grace itself is gratuitous, so too is predestination to it. Correction is nevertheless not superfluous, because the will also cooperates².

384. Many in southern Gaul were offended by St. Augustine's doctrine, for reasons like those of the monks at Hadrumetum. In particular, JOHN CASSIAN, abbot of St. Victor's at Marseilles, set out their opinion in Conference 13 (ML 496; R 2050 sqq.)³.

The beginning of faith, that is, the desire for salvation and the invocation of divine aid, are attributed to a person's natural powers; the increase of faith is the work of grace, while final perseverance depends on the person's free will. God wills all people to be saved without distinction, if they freely will it; grace is offered to all without distinction. The difference among people therefore comes from their free will: predestination to grace is not gratuitous. HILARY OF ARLES and PROSPER OF AQUITAINE asked St. Augustine to answer this doctrine; in their letters (ML. 33; R 2021 sq.; 2024 sq.) they set out the doctrine itself. St. Augustine replied in two works: the first, De praedestinatione Sanctorum (ML 44; R 1978 sqq.), in which he shows that even the beginning of faith is a gift of God, which he grants to some through mercy and denies to others by a just judgment; the second, De dono perseverantiae (ML 45; R 1992 sq.), in which he shows that final perseverance is not from a person's merit but is a special grace of God.

But why is the grace of final perseverance given to one person and not to another? St. AUGUSTINE answers: “Of two infants equally bound by original sin, why is this one taken up and the other left behind? And of two impious adults, why is one called in such a way that he follows the one calling, while the other is either not called or not called in that way? God's judgments are inscrutable. But of two devout people, why is perseverance to the end given to one and not to the other? God's judgments are still more inscrutable” (De dono persev., c. 9 nr. 21; ML 55, 1004; R 1995). Therefore, whoever is saved from the mass of damnation is saved by God's mercy: the ultimate reason for salvation is not human merit but God's mercy and grace.

385. There is no doubt that St. Augustine taught the universal salvific will of God at first. Thus in 412 he interprets 1 Tim. 2:4 in a universal sense: “God wills all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth; yet not in such a way as to take away from them free will, by using which either well or badly they are judged most justly. When this happens, unbelievers act against God's will when they do not believe his Gospel; yet they do not thereby overcome it, but defraud themselves of a great and supreme good and involve themselves in penal evils, destined to experience in their torments the power of him whose mercy in his gifts they scorned” (De spiritu et littera, c. 33 nr. 58; ML. 44, 238; R 1735). In addition, three other interpretations of this text are found in St. Augustine:

a) All who are saved are saved by God's will; no one is saved unless God wills it. Epist. 217 (ca. 427) 6, 19 (ML 33, 985; R 1457); Contra Iulianum (421) l. 4 c. 8 nr. 44 (ML, 44, 760; R 1906); Enchiridion, (421) c. 103 (ML 40, 280; R 1927); De praedestinatione Sanctorum (428-429) c. 8 nr. 44 (ML 44, 971; R 1983).

b) “All” means “every kind of human being ... distributed across all its differences.” Enchiridion, c. 103 (ML 40, 280; R 1927); De correptione et gratia (426-427) c. 14 nr. 44 (ML 44, 943; R 1962).

c) “It can also be understood in this way: God wills all people to be saved because he makes us will it, just as he sent the Spirit of his Son crying, ‘Abba, Father,’ that is, making us cry out.” De correptione et gratia, c. 15 nr. 47 (ML. 44, 945; R 1964).

It cannot be said that these interpretations deny a universal salvific will, since that will is an antecedent conditional one, whereas here Augustine seems to be speaking of a consequent, absolute will. Nor is it proved that St. Augustine, as some think, no longer admitted an antecedent universal salvific will in fact toward the end of his life; he clearly taught that Christ died for the salvation of all people⁴.

386. After the death of St. Augustine (in 430), St. PROSPER OF AQUITAINE⁵ defended his teaching against the Massilians. He had already written De gratia et libero arbitrio and Peri achariston, hoc est de ingratis (ML 51). Shortly after St. Augustine's death, the Gauls published fifteen propositions on St. Augustine's doctrine, to which Prosper replied in Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum (ML 51; R 2026 sqq.). At Prosper's request, CELESTINE I sent a letter to the bishops of Gaul (in 431), praising Augustine and his doctrine (c. 2), though without defending all of his opinions (c. 13). (Denz 128; 142). VINCENT OF LÉRINS (probably) composed sixteen propositions in which he asserted that Augustine's doctrine denied the universal salvific will and that Christ died for all people; indeed, according to this doctrine, God was the author of the sins committed by the non-predestined. In its defense Prosper wrote Responsiones ad capitula obiectionum vincentianarum (ML 51; R 2031 sqq.). Against John Cassian he published De gratia et libero arbitrio librum contra collatorem (ML 51; R 3034 sqq.), in which he shows that the beginning of faith and of good will never comes from human free will alone, but from God's grace.

387. St. PROSPER defends the universal salvific will: “Likewise, one who says that God does not will all people to be saved, but only a fixed number of the predestined, speaks more harshly than one ought to speak of the depth of God's inscrutable grace, since he wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth⁶” (Resp. ad cap. ob. Gall., sententia super cap. 8; ML 51, 172; R 2030). If someone is not predestined, this is not due to some antecedent will of God, but follows from foreknowledge of sin: “He foresaw that they would fall by their own will, and for this reason he distinguished them from the children of perdition by no predestination” (Resp. ad cap. ob. Gall., resp. ad cap. 7; ML 51, 161). “Those of whom it is said, ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us’ (1 John 2:19), went out by their own will and fell by their own will. And because they were foreknown as going to fall, they were not predestined. They would have been predestined if they were going to return and remain in holiness and truth. Accordingly, God's predestination is a cause of standing for many, but a cause of falling for no one” (Resp. ad cap. obi. Vincentianarum, ad obi. 12; ML 51, 184; R 2033).

388. From what has been said, it is clear that St. Augustine's teaching was understood or explained in the sense of predestinarianism. The priest Lucidus taught this error⁷. According to predestinarianism, some people are predestined by an absolute divine decree to goodness and glory, while others are destined to evil and eternal punishment; freedom, extinguished by original sin, has no value in the work of salvation; grace necessitates the will and is given only to the predestined. Hence people are led invincibly to the end appointed for them. FAUSTUS, bishop of Riez, demanded that the priest Lucidus retract these errors; Lucidus submitted at the COUNCIL OF ARLES (475). In his libellus of submission, among other things, he condemns the opinion “that says that Christ our Lord and Savior did not undergo death for the salvation of all; that says that God's foreknowledge forcibly impels a person to death, or that those who perish do so by God's will; ... that says some are appointed to death and others predestined to life.... I therefore affirm God's grace in such a way that ... I declare ... that the one who is saved can be in danger, and the one who perished could have been saved. Christ, God and Savior, also offered the price of his death for all, insofar as concerns the riches of his goodness; and since he does not will anyone to perish, he is the Savior of all, especially the faithful, rich toward all who call upon him” (Denz 160 a et b).

389. FAUSTUS⁸ wrote De gratia Dei et humanae mentis libero arbitrio (ML 58) to expound the doctrine of the Council of Arles and of Lyon against Predestinarianism. The Scythian monks in Constantinople, thinking that the work contained errors concerning freedom and grace, sought the opinion of Pope HORMISDAS and of the African bishops, who were exiled in Sardinia. FULGENTIUS replied in the name of the other bishops (Ep. 17; ML 65, 451; R 2241 sqq.). From Sardinia he also wrote three books Ad Monimum, the first of which concerns God's twofold predestination, “one of the good to glory, the other of the wicked to punishment” (ML 65, 151 sqq.; R 2253). In this work he answers his friend Monimus, who thought that according to Augustine God predestined people to good and evil. At the Scythian monks' request, Fulgentius wrote seven books against Faustus, now lost. After returning to Africa, he wrote three books De veritate praedestinationis et gratiae Dei (ML 65, 603 sqq.) and Epistulam Synodicam episc. afric. de gratia (ep. Fulg. 15; ML 65, 435 sqq.; R 2276 sqq.).

390. FULGENTIUS entirely rejects a twofold, equal predestination to good and glory and to evil and punishment; he also rejects Faustus's doctrine. God's salvific will is not universal, for God's will is omnipotent; therefore, if not all are saved, he does not will to save all (De veritate praedest., l. 3, 18; ML 65, 661). On 1 Tim. 2:4 he gives explanations similar to St. Augustine's. He sets out the doctrine of predestination as follows: “He predestined to punishment those whom he foresaw would depart from him through the fault of an evil will, and he predestined to the kingdom those whom he foresaw would return to him with the help of prevenient mercy and remain in him with the help of subsequent mercy, mercifully granting the latter what he promised and justly repaying the former what he foretold. Thus God did not promise everything he foretold, although he foretold everything he promised; just as he did not predestine everything he foreknew, although he foreknew everything predestined. For he foreknew both the good and evil wills of human beings, but predestined not the evil wills, only the good. Although it was not part of his predestination to give malice to the human will, it was part of his predestination what he would repay for the malice of the human will. Therefore, because, as the psalmist testifies, the Lord is merciful and just, he predestined the just to glory and the wicked to punishment. For those to be justified and glorified, he both foretold and promised the work of his mercy that he had predestined; but for the wicked, he only foretold, and did not promise, the work of his justice that he had predestined” (Ad Monimum, l. 1 c. 24; ML 65, 171)⁹.

391. Pope HORMISDAS replied in 520 to the inquiry of the Scythian monks (above, nr. 389) in his Epistula ad Possessorem episcopum. Concerning Faustus's books, he says that “neither he nor anyone whom the examination of the Catholic faith or ecclesiastical discipline does not receive among the authority of the Fathers can give rise to ambiguity or occasion prejudice to the faithful.” On the question under debate, he says: “As to free choice and God's grace, what the Roman—that is, Catholic—Church follows and observes can be fully learned from the various books of blessed Augustine, especially those to Hilary and Prosper (that is, De praedestinatione Sanctorum; De dono perseverantiae). Yet the Church's archives also contain explicit chapters (Celestine's ‘Indiculus’?), which we will send if they are missing there and you consider them necessary. Anyone who carefully considers the Apostle's words, however, will clearly understand what he ought to follow” (ML 63, 492 sq.; Denz 173 a).

392. In Gaul, CAESARIUS, bishop of Arles, defended St. Augustine's doctrine against the followers of Cassian and Faustus. Pope Felix IV, whose mind on this controversy Caesarius had asked, sent him twenty-five chapters: the first eight were taken from “St. Augustine's Chapters,” which John Maxentius had sent to Rome against Faustus's doctrine; the rest came from Prosper's Book of Sentences Drawn from the Works of St. Augustine. Caesarius added a profession of faith and presented the whole to the bishops who had gathered at Orange to dedicate a church; they all accepted it (SECOND COUNCIL OF ORANGE, 529; Denz 174 ss.). Boniface II, Felix's successor, approved the confession (Denz 200 a et b). Semipelagianism is rejected; those who teach predestination to evil are anathematized with every expression of abhorrence (Denz 200)¹⁰.

Predestination to evil was rejected in 785 by HADRIAN I, in his letter Institutio universalis to the bishops of Spain (Denz 300).

393. In the ninth century the question of predestination arose anew¹¹. The monk GOTTSCHALK taught a twofold predestination. In the profession of faith he presented to the Synod of Mainz (848), he says: “... I believe and profess ... that there is a twofold predestination, namely, of the elect to rest and of the reprobate to death; for just as, before the foundation of the world, the immutable God immutably predestined all his elect to eternal life by his gratuitous grace, so likewise the same immutable God, by his just judgment, immutably predestined all the reprobate who will be condemned on the day of judgment because of their evil merits to a merited eternal death” (in HINCMAR, De praedest., c. 6; ML 125, 89). He also taught: “All those impious and sinful people for whom the Son of God came to redeem with his poured-out blood, the goodness of almighty God wills only to be saved irrevocably, as those predestined to life; and, on the other hand, all those impious and sinful people for whom that same Son of God neither assumed a body nor offered a prayer, let alone shed his blood, and for whom he was in no way crucified—since he foreknew they would be most wicked and had justly ordained them to be cast into eternal torments—he wholly and forever wills not to be saved” (ibid., c. 27; ML 125, 275). Rabanus reports that he taught that the reprobate do no good, but only sin; the actual words of Gottschalk expressing this are not extant. (Two other professions of faith are found at ML 121, 347; 350).

It seems, then, that he taught: 1) a twofold predestination; 2) that Christ died only for the predestined; 3) that God's salvific will is directed only toward the predestined; 4) (probably) that the reprobate do no good, but only sin¹².

394. He was condemned at the SYNOD OF MAINZ in 848 and sent to Hincmar, archbishop of Reims. Under Hincmar's presidency, the SYNOD OF QUIERZY (Chiersy) was held in 849, at which Gottschalk was condemned again. Hincmar wrote Opusculum ad reclusos et simplices to explain the matter under discussion to the monks. Not everyone agreed with Hincmar, however. Thus the monk of Corbie RATRAMNUS, the abbot SERVATUS LUPUS, PRUDENTIUS the bishop, and REMIGIUS the bishop, although rejecting Gottschalk's doctrine, nevertheless thought that a twofold predestination could be admitted, though they did not understand it as Gottschalk had. Hincmar asked JOHN SCOTTUS to write against Gottschalk, which he did in his book De praedestinatione (851; ML 122, 355), in which he himself nevertheless laid down false propositions. Thus Catholics debated on both sides.

395. In 853, with Charles the Bald present, Hincmar held a SYNOD at QUIERZY, where four chapters on predestination were established (Denz 316 sqq.): 1) there is one predestination; 2) we have free will for good, preceded and aided by grace, and for evil, when deserted by grace; 3) God wills the salvation of all people; 4) Christ suffered for all.

PRUDENTIUS composed four chapters against these (in HINCMAR, De praedest., preface; ML 125, 64): 1) on freedom and the necessity of grace; 2) a twofold predestination, to life and to punishment; 3) Christ shed his blood for many, for believers, but not for others; 4) God's salvific will is directed only toward those who will be saved.

Likewise, Bishop REMIGIUS wrote against those chapters Libellum de tenenda immobiliter Scripturae veritate etc. (ML 121, 1083). When many bishops met at VALENCE in 855 for another reason, Remigius, presiding over that synod, took the opportunity to add six dogmatic canons against Hincmar, the chapters of the Synod of Quierzy, and John Scottus (Denz 320 sqq.); these opposed the doctrine of the Synod of Quierzy more in manner of expression than in substance. For the single predestination of the Council of Quierzy has two objects, namely, the gift of grace and the repayment of justice (Denz 316); the twofold predestination of the Council of Valence, however, is the predestination of the elect to life and of the impious to death—that is, to punishment, not to evil (Denz 322). The doctrine of the Synod of Quierzy that Christ died for all (Denz 319) is attacked in the Council of Valence (Denz 323) as if Christ's passion could still have benefited those who had already been damned before Christ's passion. Thus Hincmar could rightly complain that the sense of the chapters had been changed¹³.

396. Two weeks before the national council at Toul, at Savonnières near Toul, the bishops who had attended the Council of Valence met at Langres and removed from canon 4 the words “four ... but also other,” that is, the censure of the Council of Quierzy. At the Synod of Toul itself, attended by bishops from twelve provinces, Hincmar and Remigius were also present. The chapters of the Council of Quierzy and the amended canons of the Council of Valence were read, but discussion of the whole matter was deferred to the next council.

In October 860 a Synod of bishops from fourteen provinces was held at TOUCY. They approved the synodal letter written by Hincmar, which contained truths acknowledged by all: God wills the salvation of all; Christ died for all who are subject to the law of death; after Adam's sin free will remains, liberated, healed, and helped by grace; the world is saved because of grace and judged because of free will; the predestination of the elect from the mass of perdition is to be affirmed as an act of divine mercy (Synodal Letter in Hincmar, ep. 21; ML 126, 122 sqq.).

Thus the dispute was over.

397. PETRUS LOMBARDUS¹⁴ does not state the universality of the salvific will clearly everywhere. Nevertheless, he fully maintains it, since he says: “Without respect of persons, [God] calls all to salvation, not reckoning their transgressions against them” (In ep. ad Gal. 2, 6; ML 192, 107). On the words of Heb. 2:9, “We see Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for all,” he notes: “For all, namely, the predestined, who were redeemed and saved through his death. Or he died generally for all people, because the price was sufficient for all. Thus he properly said ‘for all,’ because he died not only for the faithful but for the whole world. Even if not all believe, he nevertheless did what was his to do” (ML 192, 419). On 1 Tim. 2:4 he offers several interpretations, as St. Augustine did, the first of which is: “God wills all to be saved if they come to him. For he does not will them to be saved in such a way that the unwilling are saved; rather, he wills them to be saved if they themselves also will it” (ML 192, 338). In Book 1 of the Sentences, distinction 46, he understands the Apostle's words only of God's absolute will, by which God “has done whatever he willed” (Ps. 113:1). He does not yet know John Damascene's distinction between antecedent and consequent will. William of Auxerre (early thirteenth century) seems to have introduced it among Latin theologians¹⁵.

Lombard understands predestination completely, as being to grace and glory. “Foreknowledge, or providence, concerns not only future things but all things, namely, good and evil; disposition concerns things to be done; predestination concerns all who are to be saved and all the goods by which they are delivered here and crowned in the future. For from eternity God predestined people to good by choosing them and predestined goods for them by preparing them” (Sent. lib. 1 d. 35). “Predestination properly speaking is the foreknowledge and preparation of God's benefits by which all who are delivered are most certainly delivered. Predestination, therefore, is the preparation of grace, which cannot exist without foreknowledge. Foreknowledge, however, can exist without predestination. For by predestination God foreknew what he himself was going to do; but God also foreknew what he himself was not going to do, that is, all evils.... Accordingly, God's predestination, which is to good, is, as I said, a preparation of grace; grace, in turn, is, as I said, the effect of predestination. And accordingly explain the text this way: ‘For God predestined’ means that in his foreknowledge he prepared from eternity, that is, chose for the promised rewards, those whom he foreknew would be conformed to the image of his Son, so that we might bear the image of the heavenly one, that is, Christ, just as we bore the image of the earthly Adam” (On Rom. 8:29; ML 191, 1449). Since he considers predestination completely, as being to grace and glory, he can infer its gratuitousness from the fact that grace is not merited: “Since, then, the grace added to a person for justification has no merits, much less can there be any merits of predestination itself, by which God chose from eternity whom he willed” (Sent. lib. 1 d. 41).

398. St. BONAVENTURE¹⁶ teaches, with John Damascene, that God's antecedent salvific will is universal and conditional, whereas his consequent will is absolute with respect to those who are in fact saved. “Antecedent will is a will regarding that for whose sake God made the human being, and it is invariably for good. Consequent will is a will—not one that follows merits, but one that wills things according to foreknowledge of merits.” In 1 d. 46 q. 1.

399. He formulates the principal question about predestination and reprobation as follows: Whether predestination or reprobation has a meritorious cause in us.

“I answer: To understand this, one must note that three things are understood in predestination: first, the eternal purpose; second, temporal graciousness; and third, eternal glorification. Likewise, three things are understood in reprobation: the eternal purpose, temporal hardening, and eternal damnation. As regards the first and last, the judgment is the same: the last, namely, punishment and glory, simply fall under merit; the first, namely, the eternal purpose, cannot have merit precisely because it is eternal. The middle, which is graciousness and hardening, must be judged differently. For hardening simply falls under demerit, or evil merit, whereas graciousness falls neither simply under merit nor simply outside it. There are merits of congruity, worthiness, and condignity. Merit of congruity occurs when a sinner does what is in his power and for himself. Merit of worthiness occurs when a just person acts for another. Merit of condignity occurs when a just person acts for himself, because grace is ordered to this by condignity; but not wholly by condignity to merit grace for another, because the sinner is unworthy of every good, nor merely by congruity, because the just person is worthy to be heard. Graciousness, then, can fall under merit of congruity as regards the person made gracious, under merit of worthiness as regards another holy person, and under neither as regards merit of condignity; this is the proper meaning of merit.

“Therefore, in answer to the question whether predestination and reprobation fall under merit, one must say that, speaking simply and with regard to their principal signification, neither falls under merit; but with regard to what they connote, reprobation simply falls under merit, whereas predestination does so in a qualified sense.” In 1 d. 41 a. 1 q. 1.

400. Whether predestination and reprobation have a motivating reason in God; ibid. q. 2.

“I answer: When it is asked whether God's eternal purpose, or election or reprobation, has a reason, this is not understood with regard to the divine will or its act, which is God, but with regard to the ordering of what is willed to his will. And if a causal or meritorious reason is sought, the answer is no.

“If, however, a reason of fittingness and propriety is sought, some answer that God's will itself is a reason for itself, and there is no other reason why he chose this person except that it pleases him. This reason is sufficient in every way, because it is the cause of causes and reason of reasons; and simply because it pleases him, it is right, on account of the supreme rectitude of his will, which is not only right but also the rule. Yet one must be careful lest, while wishing to magnify God's will, we instead detract from it. For if there were no other reason why God chose this person and not that one except that it pleased him, then the divine judgments would no longer be called hidden but manifest, since anyone could grasp that reason; nor would they be called wondrous, but rather arbitrary.

“And for this reason one must say that the eternal purpose, as Augustine says and as is found in the text, and that will are most reasonable and have a reason; and just as they existed from eternity, they had a reason from eternity—not another reason because of their essence, but because of what they connote. What that is in the election or reprobation of people is neither wholly known to us nor wholly unknown.

401. One must therefore note that some works proceed from the divine will together with another thing, in an order of necessity directed to that end, whether we take necessity in causing, meriting, or disposing, as with raining and rewarding, or damning and saving. With respect to such things, the divine will has a reason both generally and particularly. Thus if it is asked, ‘Why does God will it to rain?’ the answer is, ‘For our benefit.’ Likewise, if it is asked why he wills to reward some, the answer is, ‘For his glory.’ It also has a particular reason: if it is asked why God wills it to rain in winter rather than summer, the answer is that watery vapors are more abundant in winter than in summer. Likewise, if it is asked why he wills more to save Peter than Judas, the answer is that this one had good merits, whereas the other had evil ones. But some works proceed from the divine will together with another thing in an order of fittingness, such as our being made gracious or justified, which comes from the divine will with the cooperation and preparation of free will; this is because ‘he who created you without you will not justify you without you’ (Augustine, sermon 169 c. 11 nr. 13). This is said according to fittingness; for we are God's fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9). Nevertheless, God justifies without preparation and cooperation, as is clear in the case of those sanctified in the womb and, as some say, Paul. With respect to works of this kind, the will has a reason both generally and particularly, but the general reason is certain while the particular one is hidden.

402. “For if it is asked, ‘Why does God will to justify?’ the answer is, ‘To manifest his mercy.’ And if it is asked, ‘Why does he not will to justify all people by his good pleasure?’ one must say, ‘To manifest his justice.’ Hence Augustine says in the twenty-first book of The City of God: ‘If all remained in punishment, the merciful grace of the redeemer would not appear. Again, if all were transferred from darkness to light, the severity of retribution would appear in no one; for this reason there are more in the former than in the latter, so that what was owed to all might thus appear.’ If it is asked particularly why he wills to justify one rather than another, when two similar people are presented, many reasons of fittingness may exist, and therefore there is no certainty on the side of the thing itself. Since our knowledge depends on the certainty of the thing, no one can discover a certain reason unless he has revelation from one to whom doubtful things are certain. This knowledge was not expedient for our salvation; rather, concealment was necessary for humility. Therefore God did not wish to reveal it, and the Apostle did not dare to inquire, but showed the limit of our understanding when he cried out in Romans 11: ‘O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways,’ and so on.”

403. St. THOMAS¹⁷ treats of God's salvific will in In 1 d. 46; d. 47 q. 1 a. 1; De veritate, q. 23 a. 2 c.; S. Theol. 1 q. 91 a. 6 ad 1; and of predestination in In 1 d. 40 et 41; De Veritate, q. 6 a. 1-6; S. Theol. 1 q. 23; 24.

With John Damascene, he teaches that God's antecedent salvific will is universal, but not his consequent will. “God antecedently wills every human being to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned according to the demands of his justice” (S. Theol. 1 q. 19 a. 6 ad 1).

On predestination, S. Theol. 1 q. 23 says roughly this: On the part of the act, predestination has no cause; on the part of its effect considered generally—that is, the whole effect—the reason is divine goodness itself, with no cause on our part; but on the part of the effect in particular, one effect is the reason for another. The reason why there are predestined and reprobate at all is divine goodness itself, to be manifested in his mercy and justice; but why he chose these for glory and reprobated those has no reason other than the divine will. St. Thomas, S. Th. 3 q. 1 a. 3 ad 4: “Predestination presupposes foreknowledge of future things; and therefore, just as God predestines the salvation of a person to be accomplished through the prayers of others, so too he predestined the work of the Incarnation as a remedy for human sin.”

404. Theologians of the thirteenth century take as the object of predestination the graces conferred in this life and eternal glory; therefore they treat predestination completely¹⁸. For this reason they can prove its gratuitousness from the fact that grace itself is not from human merit. The gratuitousness of predestination to glory considered precisely cannot be proved from the gratuitousness of grace. A different line of consideration begins with Scotus¹⁹. He thinks the Apostle's words in 1 Tim. 2:4 are better explained “of the antecedent will, that is, [God] wills to save all people and that they be saved, insofar as it depends on him and on his antecedent will, since he gave them natural gifts and right laws and common aids sufficient for salvation.” In 1 d. 46 q. unica.

“Predestination, properly speaking, denotes an act of the divine will, namely, the order of election, by the divine will, of some intellectual or rational creature to grace and glory; although it could be taken for an act of the intellect accompanying this election.” In 1 d. 40 q. unica.

405. In 1 d. 41 q. unica he asks: “Whether there is any merit of predestination or reprobation.”

First he cites St. Augustine's opinion, which Augustine himself retracted; then the Master's opinion, that there is no merit of predestination or reprobation; the third opinion is that “whatever God does concerning creatures, he does solely by the good pleasure of his will, so that no other reason or cause is to be posited for this.” He gives the arguments by which this opinion is attacked by someone²⁰. Then he proposes a fourth opinion, that of this critic himself: “There is no reason for a divine action, either as its end, except that his goodness be manifested, or as its efficient cause, except his will.” But insofar as the action terminates in some object, “a reason can be assigned whereby the being on which the action is directed, as a being ordered to an end, is fitting to that end.” In particular, this reason is “the foreseen good use of free will on the part of the elect, and the foreseen evil use of free will on the part of the reprobate.” Scotus himself attacks this opinion and then offers a fifth:

406. “One may say otherwise: there is no reason for predestination, even on the part of the predestined, in any way prior to this predestination; but reprobation does have some cause—not a cause on account of which God effectively reprobates, insofar as reprobation is God's action, as the preceding opinion argued, for then God would be passive; rather, a cause on account of which this action is directed to this object and not another.

“The first point is proved because one who wills an end in an orderly way wills the end before any of the things ordered to the end, since he wills the others for the sake of that end. Therefore, in the whole process by which a creature capable of beatitude is led to its perfect end, since the ultimate end is perfect beatitude, when God wills something in this order for this creature, he first wills the end for this creature capable of beatitude and, as it were, later wills for it the other things ordered to that end. But grace, faith, merits, and the good use of free will are all ordered to this end, though some more remotely and others more closely. Therefore God first wills beatitude for this person before any of these things; and he wills any one of them for him before foreseeing that he will have it. Therefore he wills beatitude for him on account of none of these things foreseen.

“The second point is proved because damnation seems good only insofar as it is just. For, according to Augustine, On Genesis, book 11, c. 17, God is not an avenger before someone is a sinner; for it seems cruel to punish someone when there is no prior guilt. By a similar argument, God does not will to punish someone before seeing him to be a sinner. God's first act of will concerning Judas, then, is not to will Judas's damnation when Judas is presented to him in pure nature, for then he would seem to will his damnation without guilt. Rather, Judas must be presented to the divine will under the aspect of a sinner before God wills to damn him. Therefore, since to reprobate is to will to damn, reprobation has on the part of its object some reason, namely, foreseen final sin.

“This is confirmed by Augustine's authority in the book De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, and is set out in the text.

407. Against this: Peter and Judas, equal in natural endowments, are willed by God into existence at the moment when they are presented to the divine will in their natural existence; and, on your account, God first wills beatitude for Peter. I ask, then, what does he will for Judas? If damnation, the conclusion follows, because then he reprobates him without any reason. If beatitude, then he predestines Judas.

“One may say that at this first moment he wills nothing for Judas, but there is only a negation of willing glory for him. Similarly, as it were, at the second moment of nature, when he wills grace for Peter, there is still no positive act of the divine will concerning Judas, but only a negative one. At the third moment, when he wills to permit Peter to belong to the mass of perdition, or to be worthy of perdition—whether because of original sin or actual sin—he likewise wills to permit Judas to be a son of perdition in the same way; this is the first positive act. It is uniform with respect to Peter and Judas; yet from this act the following is true: Judas will finally be a sinner, given those negations, namely, that God does not will to give him grace or glory. At the fourth moment, Judas is presented to the divine will as a final sinner, and then God wills justly to punish and reprobate Judas.

“It is no wonder that a similar process is not posited for predestination and reprobation, because all good things are attributed principally to God, while evils are attributed to us. Thus God's predestining without a reason is fitting to his goodness; but his willing to damn does not seem immediately attributable to him with respect to the object as known in its pure natural state, only with respect to the object as known in final mortal sin.

“This answer can be confirmed by an analogy: suppose two people are equally pleasing to me in themselves, one of whom I love and the other I do not. The one I love I ordain beforehand to some good by which he can please me; the one I do not love I do not ordain beforehand to such a good. If it were in my power to permit them to offend, I could will to permit both to offend; and since I do not will to lead the one to the good by which he could please me, I would foresee his perpetual offense and thus foresee that I would justly punish him. But I would foresee that the other's offense would be remitted or changed into what I willed.

408. But an objection is still raised against this: on this account, God does not foreknow with certainty that Judas will be evil. For permission of an act alone, and certainty about that permission, do not establish certainty about the act; an effective cause would also be needed. Therefore, from the mere fact that God foreknows that he wills to permit Judas to sin, he will not be certain that Judas will sin, or of Judas's sinning. Let us speak of a good and an evil angel, who were not in original sin: from this alone, it does not seem that God knows Lucifer will sin, and from this alone, it seems, Lucifer is not presented to him as a sinner.

“Furthermore, what is this willing to permit Lucifer to sin? If it is a positive act of the will with respect to sin, then it seems that God wills him to sin. If it is not a positive act with respect to the sinful act, but with respect to the act of permission, then it will be reflexive, and one must then ask what act this permission is. If it is a positive act of the will, then it still seems that God has a positive act with respect to the sin he permits.

409. The first of these objections is answered by saying that God foreknows that he will cooperate with Lucifer in the substance of the act that will be a sin. He foreknows this because he wills to cooperate with that act, if the sin is one of commission; or he foreknows that he will not cooperate with an act, if he does not will it, when this first act is a sin of omission. By knowing that he will cooperate in the substance of such an act without the required circumstances, or will not cooperate in a necessary act and hence one that will be omitted, he will know that Lucifer will sin. Thus he knows that Lucifer will sin not only because he knows he will permit him, but also because he knows he will cooperate with him in the substance of an act lacking its due circumstances, and so Lucifer will commit a sin, or will not cooperate with him in a necessary act and so Lucifer will omit it.

“The second difficulty raises a question touching on the divine will, which is to be discussed not now but elsewhere.

410. Since, in debating all these opinions about this matter, the Apostle seems in the end of Romans to leave almost everything inscrutable—‘O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’—one should not probe from depth into further depth, as the Master says, but choose whichever opinion one prefers, provided that divine freedom is preserved without any injustice, along with the other things that must be preserved concerning God as one who chooses freely. Whoever holds another opinion should answer the arguments made against it” (Op. Ox. in 1 d. 41 q. unica).

411. Scotus seems to put forward a fifth opinion as new and different from those known to him. The doctrine of predestination to glory considered precisely is clearly found in him: First God wills eternal glory absolutely for a particular person; consequently, he wills for that person everything that leads him to this end. This absolute will to eternal life precedes all merit and its foreknowledge: predestination is wholly gratuitous. Scotus's opinion also includes antecedent negative reprobation, though he does not use that term: the negation of willing glory (absolutely) with respect to Judas, with the consequence that Judas remains finally a sinner after sinning; for that reason God justly wills to reprobate him, a consequent positive reprobation. Among theologians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries this opinion appears as Scotus's view, defended by many of his disciples²¹. An explicit distinction between two kinds of reprobation is found in JOHN OF BASSOLIS (1333), who says in 1 d. 41 q. unica: “Reprobation (though not taking it in its proper sense) is spoken of in two ways. In one way, it is not willing glory or eternal life for someone, and thus it corresponds to predestination and is also understood properly. In another way, it is willing to inflict punishment on someone, and this is not properly called reprobation, but is rather something subsequent to reprobation”²².

412. Among those who follow, one who must be named because of his influence on John Wycliffe is THOMAS BRADWARDINE (1349), who insists with the greatest consistency on God's universal causality, which cannot be impeded or frustrated in any way. Even in free acts, a person is necessitated by God. “No human being, then, is altogether and absolutely the lord of his act ... but only in a qualified sense, namely, with respect to all secondary causes, while necessarily serving the first cause” (De causa Dei adversus Pelagium, l. 3 c. 9). Thus there is never “permission” on God's part with respect to a creature, but always a positive will and antecedent necessity. Hence predestination and reprobation have a reason in God alone in every respect; in fact there is a twofold predestination, in the false sense.

Likewise JOHN WYCLIFFE († 1384): “And thus it seems probable to me ... that God necessitates each creature to each of its acts, and thus some are predestined—that is, ordained to glory after their labor—and some foreknown—that is, ordained to eternal punishment after a wretched life” (Trialogus, l. 1 c. 14).

413. The same ideas occur among the REFORMERS of the sixteenth century. According to LUTHER, God is the absolutely free and effective cause of everything that happens; and since God knows what he wills, his foreknowledge is infallible. Whatever God wills, he wills freely; hence we cannot scrutinize the reasons why he wills one way or another. Whatever God wills will necessarily happen. Even what a person does freely or attributes to free will is in fact necessary; a person moved by God is necessitated, not coerced.

414. God moves everyone either to good or to evil. “When, then, God moves and acts in all things, he necessarily also moves and acts in Satan and the impious. He acts in them according to what they are and how he finds them: that is, since they are turned away and evil, and are swept along by that movement of divine omnipotence, they do only what is turned away and evil. It is as when a horseman drives a three-legged or two-legged horse: he drives it according to the kind of horse it is, and the horse walks badly. But what can the horseman do? He drives such a horse along with healthy horses; that one badly, these well; he cannot do otherwise unless the horse is healed. Here you see that, when God works in and through the wicked, evil things indeed happen, but God cannot do evil, though he brings about evils through the wicked, because he is good and cannot do evil. Yet he uses evil instruments, which cannot escape the seizure and movement of his power. The fault in the instruments, which God does not allow to be idle, is what causes evil things to happen, while God himself moves them”²³. “But why does he not at the same time change the evil wills he moves? This belongs to the secrets of majesty, where his judgments are incomprehensible. It is not ours to ask about this, but to adore these mysteries”²⁴.

415. “One must discuss God, or God's will, as it is preached, revealed, offered, and worshipped among us, in one way; and God as not preached, not revealed, not offered, and not worshipped, in another. Therefore, insofar as God hides himself and wills to be unknown to us, it does not concern us. Here that saying truly applies: ‘What is above us does not concern us’.... Thus we say: God, as preached, does not grieve over the death of the people that he works in them, but over the death that he finds in the people and strives to remove. For God as preached acts so that, sin and death having been removed, we may be saved. For he sent his word and healed us. But God hidden in majesty neither grieves over nor removes death; rather, he works life, death, and all things in all.... God does many things that he does not show us by his word. He also wills many things that by his word he does not show himself to will. Thus by his word he does not will the sinner's death, but by that inscrutable will he does will it.... Why and to what extent that will wills it is absolutely not permitted to ask, wish, consider, or touch upon; one must only fear and adore it. Therefore it is rightly said: If God does not will death, our own will must be charged with our perishing. I say rightly, if you mean God as preached. For he wills all people to be saved, since he comes to all with the word of salvation, and it is the fault of the will that does not receive him, as Matthew 23 says: ‘How often I wanted to gather your children, and you were unwilling!’ But why that majesty does not remove or change this fault of our will in everyone, since it is not in human power, or why he imputes it to a person when the person cannot be without it—this is not permitted to ask; and even if you ask much, you will never find the answer, as Paul says in Romans 11: ‘Who are you to answer back to God?’”²⁵.

416. “Let the countless thousands of most approved teachers be blind here, and let them pretend that Scripture is unclear and shrink from a difficult question. We have the clearest words, which say: ‘He has mercy on whomever he wills, and hardens whomever he wills’; and again: ‘You will say to me, then: Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ It is not a difficult question; indeed, nothing is easier, even to common sense, than that this inference is certain, sound, and true: If God foreknows something, it necessarily happens—once it has been presupposed from Scripture that God neither errs nor is deceived. I admit that the question is difficult, indeed impossible, if you try to assert both God's foreknowledge and human freedom at the same time”²⁶.

In such a doctrine antecedent predestination and reprobation are necessary, not only negative but also positive.

417. ZWINGLI goes further: according to him God destines some to salvation and others to destruction in order to manifest his justice. In consequence of his eternal election, God brings about faith in a person.

MELANCHTHON, initially a predestinarian with Luther, later changed his opinion; hence the question of predestination was omitted from the Confession of Augsburg. In the Formula of Concord (1580), art. 11, predestination is presented in such a way that the Gospel promise is made to all; God chooses from eternity those whom he foresees will believe; thus the reason for not being chosen lies in the person.

418. CALVIN: Whatever happens, God decreed from eternity and commands to be carried out in time. Creatures are instruments in God's hand, whose will imposes necessity on creatures but not coercion on free beings. The end of the divine will and action is God's glory, with which human salvation is bound up. God not only permits evil but positively wills it; he also wills the destruction of some people. But the evil God wills and the human being commits is not commanded to that person, and hence the person is at fault if he sins and is left by God to destruction. We cannot know why God willed such a thing; for God's will is the ultimate reason for all things, and to seek a reason for the ultimate reason makes no sense. “The first man fell because the Lord had judged it expedient; why he judged it so is hidden from us. Yet it is certain that he judged it so only because he saw that the glory of his name would thereby be rightly illuminated” (Inst. 3, c. 23, n. 8). God decreed one part of humanity for salvation and another for reprobation; this twofold decree of the divine will is predestination. The question why it is so makes no sense; namely, because he willed it. He defines predestination as follows: “We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which he determined within himself what he willed to become of each human being. For not all are created in the same condition, but eternal life is ordained for some and eternal damnation for others. Accordingly, we say that each person is predestined either to life or to death, according to the end for which he was created” (Instit. 3 c. 21 n. 5)²⁷.

419. In Holland, a much mitigated doctrine arose under ARMINIUS in opposition to Calvin's rigid, orthodox doctrine: God decreed to save from fallen humanity those who believe and persevere in faith; Christ died for all; God decreed to leave unbelievers in sin and condemn them. The Synod of Dort (1618-19) was convened against them, and the Arminians were condemned and excluded. The orthodox then set forth their doctrine. On predestination they still held two opinions: some, led by GOMARUS, retained Calvin's doctrine in its own strictness, according to which God freely and from eternity, with no regard to original sin, destined one part of humanity to salvation to manifest his mercy and another part to eternal death to manifest his justice. They are called Supralapsarians. Among other arguments, Gomarus said: “Since the end is the cause for the sake of which a thing exists, it is first in intention and last in execution” (In ep. ad Rom., c. 9). Others—and they were the majority at the synod—taught that predestination is God's eternal decree to redeem through Christ and save a part of fallen humanity, while leaving the rest to destruction: Infralapsarians. Although the Synod does not explicitly reject the former opinion, its doctrine is nevertheless infralapsarian. In God there is a decree of predestination and reprobation. The decree of predestination means the election of particular persons from fallen humanity for salvation, the appointment of Christ as the means and foundation of their salvation, and the conferral of efficacious calling, justification, and glorification. The decree of reprobation means that God freely decreed to leave some people in universal misery, not to confer faith or the grace of conversion on them, but to damn them in order to manifest his justice.

420. According to JANSENIUS, God predestined some people to eternal glory before foreseeing their merits; he does not, however, will the salvation of all people who sinned in Adam. Since he decreed to save only some of them from that perdition, the rest were negatively reprobated; indeed, they can be called positively reprobated, for positively to will that they be excluded from eternal life is to will that they be damned. The reason for this reprobation, then, is original sin. Christ did not die for these reprobates, but only for the predestined (Denz nr. 1096).

421. At the COUNCIL OF TRENT, predestination to evil and the doctrine that the grace of justification is given only to the predestined were rejected, Session 6, canon 17 (Denz 827). It is clear that questions of grace and free will, predestination and reprobation, were much discussed in those times, even among Catholic theologians²⁸. Two opinions were principally proposed concerning predestination and reprobation.

422. According to one opinion, especially that of the Bañezians²⁹, two decrees³⁰ are distinguished. One is called the decree of intention, by which God intends the end—that is, the glory of particular people, to a particular degree, and, in adults, this glory also as a merit. Consequently to this end, he chooses the means, grace and merits, by which these people attain that end. The order, then, is: glory, merits, grace. This decree of intention does not presuppose God's foreknowledge of the person's cooperation: it is so because God wills it. The other is the decree of execution or command, by which God decrees to carry out in time what he intended; thus, to confer grace so that the elect may perform acts, acquire those merits, and finally attain glory as God had ordained. The order, then, is: grace, merits, glory. Those who are not predestined in this way will not be saved; they are negatively reprobated. “Reprobation is divided into negative and positive. According to some, negative reprobation is merely non-election to glory. According to others, it is a positive act by which God not only does not choose some people but positively excludes them from glory. Positive reprobation is an act by which the punishment of loss and of sense is prepared for some”³¹.

423. God wills the salvation of all people not absolutely but conditionally; the condition is that the beauty of the universe and the universal good of justice and mercy be preserved. “Antecedent will formally implies in God a conditional act by which he would will the salvation of all, unless the beauty of the universe and the universal good of justice and mercy were thereby impeded.” “If all were saved universally, the universal good of divine providence and the perfection of the universe would be impeded, since these require different degrees among things, with some occupying the highest place and others the lowest. The manifestation of divine justice and the greater splendor of his mercy toward the elect would also be impeded; these goods are far greater than the salvation of some”³². This, then, is given as the reason why God chose an order in which not all are saved.

424. If, however, it is asked why God did not predestine these people, the Bañezians do not give just one answer.

a) The only reason is the divine will, which excludes a person from a wholly unmerited benefit. “No cause of reprobation can be given, not only comparatively but absolutely speaking. Accordingly, neither actual sin, nor original sin, nor both foreseen together were in fact a meritorious or motivating cause of anyone's reprobation as regards all its effects”³³. So ALVAREZ, JOHN OF ST. THOMAS, the SALMANTICENSES, and others.

b) Negative reprobation of people in the state of fallen nature presupposes foreknowledge of original sin: GONET, GOTTI, MASSOULIÉ.

c) Negative reprobation is not God's will to exclude some fallen angels or human beings from eternal glory, as a wholly unmerited benefit, before any foreseen actual fault. Rather, it is God's will to permit some people, once left to their own defectibility, to fall into actual sins and through their own fault to lose eternal glory, and then, after their personal sins have been foreseen, actually to exclude them from glory or the heavenly kingdom and condemn them to eternal punishment of both loss and sense. “We deny that the reprobate are positively excluded from glory before guilt, as though it were an unmerited benefit; but we maintain that before guilt they are excluded from effective election to glory”³⁴. So GOUDIN, GRAVESON, BILLUART.

This is the doctrine that posits predestination to glory before foreseen merits and negative reprobation. Its execution takes place through physical predeterminations.

425. A similar doctrine is found also among some who do not defend physical predeterminations: BELLARMINE, SUÁREZ, RUIZ.

According to BELLARMINE³⁵, no reason for predestination can be assigned on our part. On God's part, it can be said generally that it is to manifest his mercy and justice; in particular, there can be no doubt that God has his reason for willing to predestine this person rather than that one to life, although this reason is hidden from us. Predestination, however, follows foreknowledge of original sin. “Thus, according to our way of understanding, this seems to have been the order of predestination in the divine mind. First God foresaw that, if he created humanity, it would fall along with all its posterity, and at the same time he saw that he could free either all or some in various ways, as he chose. Next he willed to create humanity and permit it to fall, and mercifully to free some of the fallen, while justly leaving the others in the mass of perdition. Third, he devised remedies suitable for the salvation of the elect, among which the Incarnation and passion of the Savior held first place. Fourth, he approved those remedies, and then chose Christ and us in him before the foundation of the world. Fifth, he arranged, ordained, and in a certain way commanded that it be done thus. Of these acts, the first belonged to the intellect, the second to the will, the third to the intellect, the fourth to the will, and the fifth to the intellect. Thus the first, the middle, and the last pertain to the intellect, and the reason and essence of predestination consist chiefly in the last.” “Reprobation, which St. Augustine calls predestination to destruction, comprises two acts: one negative (God does not have the will to save) and one positive (God has the will to damn). As for the first, no cause on the part of human beings can be given for it, just as none can be given for predestination.... God frees one because it pleases him; he does not free another.”

426. Another opinion teaches that predestination, insofar as it comprises all its effects from first grace through final perseverance and attainment of glory, is gratuitous; but predestination to glory considered precisely follows foreseen merits (by the knowledge of vision). It rejects antecedent negative reprobation, which is necessarily contained in the opposing opinion, as incompatible with God's serious universal salvific will. This opinion is set out more fully in the following theses.

427. In the Epitome de Praedestinatione³⁶, Molina writes: “Providence is the reason or conception of the order of things to their ends, existing in the divine mind, together with the purpose of carrying it out by itself or through secondary causes. Predestination is the reason in God for the order or means by which he foresaw that these or those rational creatures would attain eternal life, together with the purpose of carrying out that same order”³⁷. “I said that the certainty that a predestined adult will attain eternal life is rooted as in its source in that middle knowledge. For since it precedes the free act of the divine will by which God determines to confer those very means on that adult, and by which the reason for predestination is completed, God by that knowledge certainly did not know absolutely that the adult would, through his own freedom, attain beatitude, but knew it only hypothetically, if he were to determine to confer those means on him. But by free knowledge, which he had after that determination of will, in that determination itself and with the prior middle knowledge, he knew absolutely and simply that the adult would attain eternal life and would already be his through eternal election and predestination”³⁸.

428. “The focal point of predestination, and the unfathomable abyss of God's plan, lie in this: although God knew infinitely many other ways of providing for the non-predestined by which, with the same freedom, they would have attained eternal life and consequently would have been predestined, and infinitely many other ways of providing for the predestined by which, in their freedom, they would not have attained eternal life and consequently would have been reprobate, he chose, by his free will alone and not because of the quality of the foreseen use of their free will—even as a condition sine qua non—the way of providing for both groups by which he foresaw that the former would not attain eternal life through their freedom, but the latter would attain it, and consequently that the former would be reprobate and the latter predestined, without doing injustice to either group. This is especially so since he provided both with the means by which they would have attained eternal life, for which he created them, if it were not for them to prevent it; and he provided all Adam's descendants, in their very parent, with the means by which they would have attained eternal life with the greatest ease, if it had not been for him to prevent it”³⁹.

429. He raises this objection against himself: “It follows from our opinion that it is in the power of any adult to bring it about that he was predestined by God from eternity; but this is very absurd, since the gift of predestination must be referred solely to God's free will”⁴⁰. Molina replies: “The inference must be denied. For God provides for all adults, both predestined and reprobate, in such a way as to leave them to their own counsel, making it free for them either to attain eternal life or to turn aside into utter misery. What follows from our opinion—and what we assert plainly—is this: given any such providence through certain means which God on his part determines to give an adult, whether that providence is joined to predestination because God foresees that the adult, through his freedom, will attain beatitude by those means, or joined to reprobation because God foresees that the adult, through that same freedom, will not attain eternal life but will end his life in sins for which he is damned, it always remains within that adult's free choice to do the contrary. If, as it could, the contrary were to happen, just as God would have foreseen from eternity that it would happen and not what he did foresee, so that way of providence would have been joined to the contrary reason for predestination or reprobation. Before God determined on it, however, it would have remained open to him not to choose that same order of things, or that same way of providing for the adult, but one of the infinitely many others in which he foresaw, through that person's same freedom, that the opposite would happen. Therefore, it is not in the power of an adult to bring it about that he was predestined by God from eternity; rather, this depends solely on God's free will, although, in whatever order of things he is placed, it is in that person's free choice to do the contrary of what he will in fact do”⁴¹.

430. This opinion is defended by many Molinists: LESSIUS, GREGORY OF VALENCIA, VÁZQUEZ, and many others. In a letter to Lessius dated August 26, 1618, St. FRANCIS DE SALES says: “I learned that Your Reverence embraces and defends that most ancient, agreeable, and naturally Scriptural opinion on predestination after foreseen works. This gave me great pleasure, since I have always considered it truer and more agreeable to God's mercy and grace, and more attractive; I also indicated it to some extent in my little book On the Love of God (book 3, chapter 5)”⁴².

431. Opinions on predestination and reprobation can therefore be reduced to four classes.

The first class defends these propositions:

Predestination considered completely is gratuitous.
Predestination to glory considered precisely is gratuitous (without regard to merits).
Positive reprobation, and indeed reprobation antecedent to sin:

a) antecedent to original sin: Supralapsarians;

b) consequent to original sin, but antecedent to personal demerit: Infralapsarians.

The universal salvific will of God is denied:

a) simply: Supralapsarians;

b) with regard to the present order of fallen humanity: Infralapsarians.

Hence Christ did not die for all people.

Such is the doctrine of the Calvinists (nr. 418 sq.); earlier a similar doctrine was held by the priest Lucidus (nr. 388) and Gottschalk (nr. 393).

The second class defends these propositions:

Predestination considered completely is gratuitous.
Predestination to glory considered precisely is gratuitous, that is, before foreseen merits.
Antecedent negative reprobation.
A universal conditional salvific will, conditioned by something that neither includes nor takes account of the use of free will (for example, the manifestation of some divine perfection).

This class includes:

Scotus (nr. 406 ss.).
The Bañezians (nr. 422 ss.), according to whom the efficacious graces by which the predestined are led to beatitude are physically predetermining. As for negative reprobation, however, there are three opinions among them:

a) God wills to exclude some from glory as a wholly unmerited gift, prior to original sin;

b) Negative reprobation presupposes foreknowledge of original sin;

c) The reprobate are not positively excluded from glory before sin, but before foreseen guilt they are excluded from effective election to glory.

Outside the Bañezian school: Bellarmine, Suárez, Ruiz (nr. 425).

The third class defends these propositions:

Predestination taken completely is gratuitous.
Predestination to glory considered precisely is after foreseen supernatural merits (by the knowledge of vision).
No antecedent reprobation, positive or negative; rather, the reprobation of adults follows foreseen personal demerits.
A universal conditional salvific will, conditioned by something that includes the use of free will under the motion of supernatural grace.

This class includes the Molinists (nr. 426 ss.).

The fourth class defends these propositions:

Predestination taken completely is not gratuitous; that is, there is no predestination to faith, only foreknowledge; predestination to grace, however, is on account of natural merits.
Predestination to glory considered precisely is after foreseen merits.
There is no antecedent reprobation, but reprobation follows foreknowledge of sin.
A universal salvific will of God, which embraces all people in an entirely equal way; grace is offered to all without distinction in the same way, and its effect depends solely on free will.

This class includes the Semipelagians (nr. 384; 389).

Thesis I: In the present order of salvation restored by Christ, God sincerely wills the salvation of all adults by an antecedent will: there is therefore no positive antecedent reprobation

S. THOMAS, In 1 d. 46 q. 1; d. 47 q. 1 a. 1; S. Theol. 1 q. 19 a. 6 ad 1; De veritate, q. 23 a. 2; SUÁREZ, De Deo, tract. 1 l. 3 c. 8; tract. 2 l. 3 c. 1-4; RUIZ, De voluntate Dei, disp. 19-21; PETAVIUS, De Deo Deique attributis, l. 10 c. 3-6; De Incarnatione Verbi, l. 13 c. 1-14; K. PASSAGLIA, De partitione divinae voluntatis in primam et secundam deque universali reparati ordinis amplitudine, Romae 1851; SCHEEBEN, Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik, III, 356 ss.; STENTRUP, Praelectiones dogmaticae de Verbo Incarnato. Pars altera: Soteriologia. Vol. 1. Oeniponte 1884, 343-440; FRANZELIN, thes. 47-54; DE SAN, II nr. 1-30; BILLOT, thes. 27; PESCH, prop. 49; 60; MUNCUNILL, nr. 690-719; VAN DER MEERSCH, nr. 454-467; 528-536.

432. “In the present order of salvation restored by Christ,” therefore after original sin has been foreseen; Christ came to redeem all human beings.

“God sincerely wills,” that is, God truly has this antecedent will. It is therefore not a will of sign in Calvin’s sense: God acts externally in such a way that people think he wills everyone’s salvation, when in fact he does not¹; nor is this will to be understood in Luther’s sense of the will of God preached and revealed, to which the will that God hidden in his majesty has may be opposed (above, nr. 415). But if God sincerely wills the salvation of all, it follows that he has also prepared the means by which it is made possible for human beings to attain salvation. From this saving will alone, however, it cannot be known what those means are. Once the saving will is posited, God remains free in choosing these means. To resolve this question, we must further consider what God has revealed about the matter. In the treatise on grace (De gratia Redemptoris, pag. 368 ss.) it is shown that God provides all adults with truly sufficient helps; and if people freely make proper use of them, they will attain salvation. Thus the salvation of adults also depends on their free will. The salvation of infants, however, cannot depend on their free will, since they do not have the use of free choice. But for them too the attainment of eternal salvation is possible through the sacrament of baptism: if they are baptized, they die in the state of grace and are saved; if they are not baptized, they die in original sin and are not saved. The conferral or non-conferral of baptism, and consequently salvation or non-salvation, does not depend on the will of infants; hence their not being baptized and not being saved is not the infants’ fault. From the saving will, however, it cannot be inferred that God ought to have made the attainment of salvation depend even for infants on their will, or that he ought to have prepared such means for them that all infants would be saved independently of their will. The way in which infants can be saved can be known only from what God has revealed about this matter, and this certainly corresponds to the saving will as it truly is.

“Salvation”: supernatural beatitude in the vision of God.

“Of adults”: the thesis deals only with those who have the use of reason—not because the arguments apply only to adults (the arguments are universal), but because the question of the necessity of baptism as the means by which alone infants can be saved is to be explained in the treatise on Baptism (cf. De Sacramento Baptismi, 1955, thes. 8).

“By an antecedent will”: in this thesis it is not yet necessary to determine the terminus that this will precedes; it is enough to show that God had a saving will even toward the reprobate, before this or that terminus. In the arguments, however, attention must already be paid to which terminus is indicated in the sources, especially whether it includes the use of free choice or precedes such use. What that terminus is will be shown at nr. 445 ss.

“There is therefore no positive antecedent reprobation”: see above, nr. 376, for what positive antecedent reprobation is. If God’s sincere saving will is truly universal, positive antecedent reprobation in the supralapsarian and infralapsarian sense (nr. 419) is excluded; for this is the direct denial of the universal saving will.

Class I, nr. 431, denies the thesis.

TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

433. COUNCIL OF ARLES, Book of Submission of the Presbyter Lucidus (above, nr. 388; Denz 160 a et b).

SECOND COUNCIL OF ORANGE: “We not only do not believe that any are predestined to evil by divine power, but also, if there are those who wish to believe so great an evil, we anathematize them with all detestation” (Denz 200).

COUNCIL OF QUIERZY, ch. 1: “The good and just God chose from the same mass of perdition, according to his foreknowledge, those whom by grace he predestined² to life, and predestined eternal life for them; but the rest, whom by the judgment of justice he left in the mass of perdition, he foreknew would perish, but did not predestine them to perish; yet, because he is just, he predestined eternal punishment for them. Accordingly, we speak of only one predestination of God, which pertains either to the gift of grace or to the recompense of justice” (Denz 316). Ch. 3: “Almighty God wills all human beings without exception to be saved³, although not all are saved. That some are saved is the gift of the one who saves; that some perish is the desert of those who perish” (Denz 318). Ch. 4: “Just as there is no human being, has been, or will be, whose nature was not assumed in him, so there is no human being, has been, or will be, for whom Christ Jesus our Lord did not suffer, although not all are redeemed by the mystery of his Passion” (Denz 319).

COUNCIL OF VALENCE, can. 2: “We faithfully hold, and it pleases us to hold, that God foreknew that the good would become good entirely by his grace and would receive eternal rewards through that same grace; that he foreknew the wicked would become wicked through their own wickedness and would be condemned to eternal punishment by his justice ... We believe that no one is condemned by his prejudice, but by the desert of his own iniquity. Nor do we believe that the wicked perish because they could not be good, but because they did not wish to be good, and by their own fault remained in the mass of condemnation, whether by the desert of original sin or also of actual sin.” Can. 3: “We confidently confess the predestination of the elect to life and the predestination of the impious to death; yet in the election of those to be saved, God’s mercy precedes good merit, while in the condemnation of those who perish, evil merit precedes God’s just judgment. By predestination God determined only those things that he himself would do by a just judgment, according to Scripture’s saying: He who made the things that are to come⁴; but in the case of the wicked he foreknew their wickedness, because it comes from them, and did not predestine it, because it does not come from him. Certainly, God, who foresees all things, both foreknew and predestined the punishment that follows their evil merit ... But we not only do not believe that some are predestined to evil by divine power, as if they could not be otherwise, but also, if there are those who wish to believe so great an evil, we anathematize them with all detestation, as did the Synod of Orange” (Denz. 321; 322). On the sense in which canon 4 objects to saying that Christ’s blood was shed even for those impious people who had already been condemned before Christ’s Passion, see above, nr. 395.

434. COUNCIL OF TRENT, sess. 6, ch. 3: “Although he died for all,⁵ not all nevertheless receive the benefit of his death” (Denz 795); can. 17: “If anyone says that the grace of justification is granted only to those predestined to life, while all the rest who are called are indeed called but do not receive grace, as though predestined to evil by divine power: let him be anathema” (Denz 827).

INNOCENT X, error 5 of Jansenius: “It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed his blood for absolutely all human beings”; this proposition, “understood in the sense that Christ died only for the salvation of the predestined ..., is heretical” (Denz 1096).

ALEXANDER VIII, error 4 of the Jansenists: “Christ gave himself for us as an offering to God, not for the elect alone, but for all the faithful and for them alone” (Denz 1294); cf. error 5.

CLEMENT XI, errors of Pasquier Quesnel, 12: “Whenever God wills to save a soul, at whatever time and in whatever place, an indubitable effect follows the will of God” (Denz 1362; cf. error 13); 30: “All whom God wills to save through Christ are infallibly saved” (Denz 1380); therefore God’s saving will is not directed only toward those who are saved.

435. Therefore positive antecedent reprobation, as Calvinists and others taught it, is heretical; it is of faith that there is no positive antecedent reprobation. That Christ did not die only for the predestined, and therefore that God’s saving will extends beyond the predestined after original sin has been foreseen, is of faith, as follows from the condemned proposition of Jansenius. From the propositions condemned by Alexander VIII it follows that Christ did not die only for the faithful; therefore, after original sin has been foreseen, God’s saving will does not embrace only the faithful. That God’s saving will extends to all adults in the present order of salvation restored by Christ is theologically certain, and according to many theologians proximate to faith.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

436. 1 Tim. 2, 1 sqq.⁶. God’s saving will extends to all whose God he is; to all for whom Christ is mediator, who died for all: hence God’s universal saving will is clearly established. This will is manifested through the mediation of Christ, who died for all; original sin in the human race is therefore presupposed.

But they say: Not all are saved; therefore the text must be understood as referring to the will of sign (in Calvin’s sense; see nr. 432).

I answer: Such an interpretation is contrary to God’s truthfulness; the text expresses a will that truly exists in God—not an absolute will, but a conditional and antecedent one.

Other explanations of the text:

“To come to the knowledge of the truth” cannot be understood of all human beings, but only of adults; therefore some restriction is necessary, notwithstanding the universal terms.

I answer: Infants who are to be saved also come “to the knowledge of the truth” in heaven. But even if the text is understood of actual faith, which infants do not have, it follows that a restriction required by the nature of the case must be made: I grant; that a further arbitrary restriction must be made: I deny (cf. Franzelin pag. 544 s.).

“All” can be understood to mean “many.”

I answer: This must be denied if this universality is proved precisely from the text itself.

All who are saved are saved by God’s will, just as according to 1 Cor 15, 22 all will be made alive in Christ.

I answer a) This explanation has no basis in the text and makes no sense in the context;

b) But 1 Cor 15, 22 does not say: those who will be made alive will be made alive by Christ’s will; rather, just as all who are joined to Adam by generation died in Adam, so all who are joined to Christ by regeneration will be made alive in Christ. Thus a universality is expressed, but a conditional one, as in 1 Tim 2, 1 ss.

The sense is: some from every people, status, and so on—every kind of human being; likewise in Luke 11, 42 they tithed every herb, that is, every kind of herb.

I answer: This explanation is impossible in our text, because St. Paul proves a true universality.

God wills, that is, he wills us to will; thus in Gal 4, 6 he sent the Spirit “crying out”: the Father, that is, causing us to cry out.

I answer: Given this interpretation, which is in no way granted, either God wills us to will something that he himself also wills—and the point is established—or he wills us to will something that he himself does not will, which is inadmissible.

437. 2 Petr 3, 9⁷. God does not will “some to perish, but all to return to repentance.” The Apostle states a condition to be supplied by human beings, through which they are saved from perdition: an antecedent will conditioned on a condition to be supplied by sinful man.

Calvin also understands this text as referring to the will of “sign”: “Here there is no mention of God’s secret counsel, by which the reprobate are destined to their destruction, but only of the will revealed to us in the Gospel.”

SALMERÓN says most aptly on this passage: “Therefore [God] desires the salvation of all, whether they are predestined or not. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and Paul agree with one another on this point and teach one and the same saving doctrine. For what Peter says here, ‘not willing any to perish, but all to return to repentance,’ because man is a precious thing whom Christ redeemed at so great a price, Paul said thus: ‘Who wills all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’”

Ezekiel 18, 23; 33, 11.

438. Christ came to redeem the whole fallen human race: Matth 18, 11; Io 1, 29; 3, 17; Rom 5, 12 sqq.; 8, 32; 2 Cor 5, 18 sq.; 1 Cor 15, 22; 1 Io 2, 2; 4, 14.

Therefore, after original sin, God has a universal saving will.

439. 1) Christ does not pray for the world (Io 17, 9); therefore he does not seem to intend the work of redemption for the world.

I answer: Pesch, Prael. dogm. II, 340: “This is easily explained from the context, because there Christ asks for his disciples’ perseverance in faith and love, and presents to the Father as the motive for his petition the faith and love that they already have. He cannot pray for the world in this way. He therefore prays for the disciples, that they may remain what they are; but for the world he prays that it may cease to be what it is (loc. cit., v. 21).”

Christ is said to have given his life for many; therefore perhaps “all” is to be understood as “many.” Matth 20, 28; 26, 28; Rom 5, 19; Hebr 9, 28.

I answer: Positively asserting that there are many neither denies nor restricts that they are all.

According to 1 Petr 2, 7 s., some are appointed to unbelief; therefore positive antecedent reprobation is established.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent: they were appointed to unbelief—I deny; they were appointed so that, because of their unbelief, Christ, the supreme, cornerstone, chosen, precious stone, would be for them a stone of offense and a rock of scandal, an occasion of offense and ruin—I grant. “The only matter at issue is the punishment previously announced by God through Isaiah and to be inflicted later: if they do not believe and so take offense, and if the stone thus becomes for them an occasion of offense, then it will also be a scandal, or occasion of a fall.”⁸

God hardens whom he wills (Rom 9, 18); therefore he antecedently reprobates positively.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent: by an antecedent will—I deny; by a consequent will, I subdivide: positively—I deny; permissively—I grant (or I subdivide: by withdrawing every sufficient grace—I deny; without withdrawing at least remotely sufficient grace—I grant). More on Rom 9 later.⁹

THE FATHERS

The holy Fathers explicitly teach both the universal saving will of God and the universality of Christ’s redemption.

Universal saving will.

440. ST. HIPPOLYTUS, De Antichristo 3: “willing all and desiring to save all” (MG 10, 692; R 389).

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, Adv. Apollin. Antirrh. 29: “If, then, the Father’s will is in the Son, and the Father, as the Apostle says, wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, then surely he who possesses all that belongs to the Father and has the whole Father in himself also has wholly within himself, along with the Father’s other goods, the saving will” (MG 45, 1188; R 1053).

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In ep. ad Eph., hom. 1 nr. 2: “‘According to the purpose of his will,’ he says, that is, because he wills it greatly. This is, so to speak, his desire. For everywhere good pleasure is a preceding will. There is another will as well: the first will is that those who have sinned should not perish; the second, that those who have done evil should perish” (MG 62, 13; R 1202). Homil. de ferendis reprehensionibus 6: “God has never compelled anyone by necessity or force; rather, he does indeed will all to be saved, but imposes necessity on no one, just as Paul also says: ‘Who wills all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ How, then, are not all saved, if he wills all to be saved? Because not everyone’s will follows his will, and he uses force on no one” (MG 51, 44; R 1211).

441. ST. AMBROSE, De Cain et Abel, l. 2 c. 3 nr. 11: “For he saw that those who suffered could not be saved without a remedy, and therefore he gave medicine to the sick; therefore he brought the aid of healing to all, so that whoever perishes may attribute the cause of his death to himself, because he refused treatment when he had a remedy by which he could escape. Christ’s mercy toward all is plainly proclaimed, since those who perish perish through their own negligence, while those who are saved are delivered according to Christ’s saying, who wills all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”¹⁰ (ML 14, 346; R 1279).

AMBROSIASTER, In 1 Tim 2, 4: “God wills all human beings to be saved, provided they come to him; for he does not will them to be saved in such a way that the unwilling are saved, but wills them to be saved if they too are willing. Indeed, he who gave the law to all excluded no one from salvation. Does a physician not make himself available publicly in order to show that he wishes to save everyone, provided the sick seek him out? For salvation is not true if it is given to one who is unwilling” (ML 17, 466; R 1343).

ST. JEROME, In ep. ad Eph., l. 1 c. 1 v. 11: “He wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. But since no one is saved without his own will (for we have free choice), he wills us to will the good, so that when we have willed it, he himself may also will to fulfill his plan in us” (ML 26, 454; R 1366).

ST. PROSPER OF AQUITAINE, Resp. ad capit. obiect. Gallorum, Sent. sup. cap. 8 (ML 51, 172; R 2030); see above, nr. 387.

ST. JOHN DAMASCENE, De fide orthod., l. 1 c. 29: “We must also know that God wills all to be saved and become possessors of his kingdom by his primary and antecedent will. For he did not create us in order to punish us, but because he is good, so that we might share in his goodness. He wills sinners to be punished, however, because he is just. Accordingly, the first will is called antecedent and good pleasure, whose cause is in himself; the second is consequent, a permission that arises from our cause” (MG 94, 968; R 2358).

On the various interpretations of the text 1 Tim 2 in ST. AUGUSTINE, see nr. 385.

Universal satisfaction of Christ.

442. ST. CLEMENT OF ROME, Ep. ad Cor 7, 4, 5: “Let us gaze with fixed eyes upon the blood of Christ and recognize how precious it is to God and his Father, since, shed for our salvation, it offered the grace of repentance to the whole world. Let us pass through all the ages of the world and learn that in every generation the Lord has granted a place for repentance to those willing to turn to him” (R 12).

ST. IRENAEUS, Adv. haeres., l. 3 c. 22 nr. 4: “Mary ... became a cause of salvation both for herself and for the whole human race” (MG 7, 959; R 224).

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA, Demonstr. evangelica, l. 1 c. 10: “Since, then, according to the testimonies of the prophets, a great and highly esteemed price was found for redeeming Jews and Greeks alike—that is, a propitiation for the whole world, a propitiation for the souls of all human beings, that most pure victim for every stain and sin—namely, that Lamb of God ...” (MG 22, 85; R 664); ibid. l. 4 c. 12 (MG 22, 284; R 669).

443. ST. ATHANASIUS, Orat. de incarn. Verbi 9 (MG 25, 112; R 751); Adv. Arianos, orat. 2, nr. 68: “... God sent his own Son, who, having assumed created flesh, became the Son of Man, so that, since all were liable to death, he who is other than all might offer his own body to death on behalf of all; and thus, as all had died through him, the sentence passed against us might be fulfilled for all (for all died in Christ), and all thereafter might through him be freed from sin and the curse that followed from it, and remain so truly and forever, clothed in immortality and incorruption after rising again” (MG 26, 292; R 767).

ST. BASIL, Epist. 260, 9 (MG 32, 965; R 927).

ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, Orat. 33, 9: “I indeed ... hold ... that the sufferings of Christ, through which we were restored, belong to all of us who share the same Adam—not to this one and not to that one alone—all of us deceived by the serpent and struck by death through sin, and saved again by the heavenly Adam and recalled to the tree of life, from which we had fallen, by the tree of shame” (MG 36, 225; R 998).

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In ep. ad Rom., hom. 10, 1 (MG 60, 474; R 1184); In ep. ad Hebr., hom. 17, 2: “He says (the Apostle), ‘once offered to take away the sins of many.’ Why ‘many’ and not ‘all’? Because not all believed. He certainly died for all, so as to save all as far as he was concerned; for that death corresponded equally to the destruction of all. But he did not take away and remove the sins of all, because they themselves were unwilling” (MG 69, 129; R 1221).

444. ST. AMBROSE, Epist. 41, 7: “The Lord Jesus came, offered his death for the death of all, and shed his blood for the blood of everyone” (ML 16, 1115; R 1252); De excessu fratris sui Satyri, l. 2 c. 46: “His (Christ’s) death is the life of all” (ML 16, 1327; R 1275); Expositio in Psalm. 18, sermo 8, 57 (ML 15, 1318; R 1313).

ST. AUGUSTINE, Epist. 334, 4: “The blood of your Lord, if you are willing, was given for you; if you are unwilling to be his, it was not given for you. Perhaps you say: My God had blood with which to redeem me; but when he suffered, he gave it all—what did he have left to give also for me? This is the great thing: he gave it once, and he gave it for all. The blood of Christ is salvation for the willing, punishment for the unwilling” (ML 39, 1515; R 1527; cf. nr. 385).

ST. PROSPER OF AQUITAINE, Resp. ad cap. obi. Vincentianarum, ad obi. 1 (ML 51, 177; R 2031).

THEODORET, De incarnat. Domini 18 (MG 75, 1448; R 2149).

ST. LEO, Epist. 122, 3, 4 (ML 54, 1064; R 2188).

On the term of the antecedent will

445. Therefore, the universal saving will of God is clearly taught in Sacred Scripture and by the Fathers. This will, however, is not absolute, for in fact not everyone is saved; rather, it depends on some condition. When this condition is fulfilled, the conditional will passes into an absolute one; when the condition is not fulfilled, the conditional saving will does not pass into an absolute one but ceases. The question, then, is what this condition is—or, which in fact amounts to the same thing, before what point the saving will of God is universal, and after what point it ceases to be universal.

According to the Bañezianos, this condition or point is neither the foreseen exercise of freedom nor anything that includes such an exercise, but some other circumstance: the beauty of the universe, the manifestation of divine justice.

ALVAREZ: The will is called antecedent, “not because it precedes a good or evil exercise of our free choice, but because it precedes the will by which God is borne toward the object considered together with some circumstance, which is its consequent consideration.” God wills the salvation of the reprobate if this salvation is considered absolutely and in itself; “but if it is considered as having attached to it the privation or absence of a greater good, namely, the universal good of divine providence, the beauty of the universe, the manifestation of justice in the reprobate, and the greater splendor of his mercy in the elect, then it is not willed by God” (De auxiliis, l. 5. disp. 34; cf. supra nr. 387).

BILLUART: “The antecedent will of God is conditional, not in the sense that God wills to save everyone if they will it by a volition that he awaits from their free will, as Tournelius holds with the Molinists—that is, the antecedent will to save all is not efficacious on God's part, so that it would be left to man alone, by consenting to grace, to make it wholly efficacious for actually attaining salvation. Rather, it is called conditional in this sense: he wills everyone to be saved if higher ends do not stand in the way, for example, the general good of the universe, the order of providence, the mutability of free choice, the splendor of mercy, and the beauty of justice” (De Deo, diss. 7 a. 6 § 2).

446. But neither Sacred Scripture nor the holy Fathers indicate anything about this circumstance.

In 1 Tim the point is not indicated; but in 2 Peter God's will—that he does not wish any to perish but all to return to repentance, that is, God's universal saving will—does not cease before final impenitence. Ez 18, 23; 33, 11 do not seem capable of being understood in such a way that God, in the sign in which he exhorts sinners to repentance, no longer has the will to save them. Therefore, there too the universal saving will does not cease before the foreseen abuse of created free choice.

As for the Fathers, whenever they speak of that condition, they always identify it as the exercise of free choice, sin: for example, s. IOANNES CHRYSOSTOMUS, nr. 440; s. AMBROSIUS, nr. 441; AMBROSIASTER, nr. 441; s. HIERONYMUS, nr. 441; s. PROSPER, nr. 387; s. IOANNES DAMASCENUS, nr. 441; cf. s. IOANNES CHRYSOSTOMUS, nr. 443; s. AUGUSTINUS, nr. 444.

The earlier theologians speak about this matter in the same way.

447. S. BONAVENTURA: “Damascene distinguishes in God an antecedent will and a consequent will. The antecedent will is the will concerning that for whose sake God made man, and it is invariably directed toward good things. The consequent will, however, is a will that does not follow merits, but wills certain things in accordance with knowledge of merits. The first, namely the antecedent will, is called by the Masters a conditional will, or the will by which God wills as far as he is concerned. The second, namely the consequent will, is called absolute. The difference between this will and that one is not a difference in affection or in a mode of willing that exists in God, but in the way of connoting and understanding. For insofar as God is said to will the salvation of all, as far as he is concerned and antecedently, an ordering toward salvation is connoted in everyone, both on the part of the nature given and on the part of the grace offered. For God gave them a nature by which they could know him, seek him once known, find him once sought, cleave to him once found, and thereby obtain salvation. He likewise offered grace when he sent and offered the Son, whose price is sufficient for the salvation of all. He also gave and disclosed laws and commandments of salvation. He himself, too, is at hand for all who seek him, and near to all who call upon him. To will antecedently to save a man, then, is to order him toward salvation and not fail one who is willing to attain it. Hence, to will to save antecedently does not connote salvation, but the possibility of being ordered toward salvation; whereas to will to save consequently or absolutely is to will to give salvation to one whom he foreknows will attain salvation through his help and grace, and it connotes the outcome of salvation” (In 1 d. 46 a. 1 q. 1). “There is an antecedent and a consequent will. The antecedent is that by which God wills as far as he is concerned; the consequent is that by which he wills with foreknowledge of our salvation. The first, indeed, is for all; the second is not. In this way there is a twofold love: one regards the antecedent will, and by it he loves all; the other regards the consequent will, and by it he loves all who are to be saved; this is election” (In 1 d. 40 a. 3 q. 1 ad 2). “The antecedent will is from him alone, whereas the consequent will depends on a cause of ours” (In 3 d. 31 dub. 3).

448. S. THOMAS, In 1 d. 46 q. unica a. 1 quaerit: Whether God wills all men to be saved. “I answer that, according to Damascene, the will is twofold, namely antecedent and consequent. This occurs not because of any diversity in the divine will, but because of the different conditions of the thing willed. For in each man one can consider his nature and his other circumstances, such as whether he is willing and preparing himself for his salvation, or whether he resists and acts in opposition. If, then, only man's nature is considered, it is equally good that every man be saved, since all share human nature. And since every good is willed by God, God wills this too; and this is called the antecedent will, by which, according to Damascene, he wills all men to be saved. The effect of this will is the very ordering of nature toward the end of salvation, and the means that lead to that end, commonly proposed to all, both natural and gratuitous, such as natural powers, the precepts of the law, and the like. But when all the circumstances of a person are considered, it is not found to be good that all be saved. For it is good that one who prepares himself and consents be saved through the generosity of divine grace; but it is not good that one who is unwilling and resists be saved, because that would be unjust. And since something stands in relation to being willed by God as it stands in relation to being good, God therefore does not will this man, considered under these conditions, to be saved, but only that man who is willing and consenting. This is called the consequent will, because it presupposes foreknowledge of works, not as the cause of the will, but as the reason for what is willed, as was said above.” “To the fifth it must be said that these conditions, by which man is rendered disordered with respect to attaining the end, under which conditions God does not will him to exist in a state of salvation, come from man himself; and therefore all that follows is imputed to him as guilt.” Cf. In 3 d. 31 q. 2 a. 3 Sol. 1; In Psalm. 13, 2; In 1 Tim. c. 2 lect. 1.

449. De veritate q. 23 a. 2: Whether the divine will is divided into antecedent and consequent. “I answer that the divine will is appropriately distinguished into antecedent and consequent. The meaning of this distinction is to be taken from the words of Damascene, who introduced it: for he says in book III ... that the antecedent will is God's acceptance arising from himself, but the consequent will is a concession arising from our cause ...

“What God has ordered the creature toward, insofar as it depends on him, is said to be willed by him as it were by his first intention or antecedent will. But when the creature is prevented from this end by its own defect, God nonetheless brings about in it that measure of goodness of which it is capable; this is as it were his second intention, and is called the consequent will. Since, then, God made all men for beatitude, he is said to will the salvation of all by his antecedent will. But because some oppose their own salvation, whom the order of his wisdom does not allow to attain salvation on account of their defect, he brings about in them in another way what pertains to his goodness, namely, condemning them by justice, so that, as they fall short of the first order of his will, they fall into the second; and while they do not do God's will, God's will is fulfilled in them. The defect of sin itself, by which someone is made deserving of punishment in the present or in the future, is not willed by God either by antecedent or by consequent will; it is only permitted by him. Yet from what has been said one must not understand that God's intention can be frustrated: for from eternity he foreknew that this man, who is not saved, would not be saved; nor does he order him to salvation according to the order of predestination, which is the order of the absolute will. Nevertheless, insofar as it depends on him, he gave him a nature ordered toward beatitude.” “To the second it must be said that the order of the divine will is not considered according to different things willed, but with respect to one and the same thing willed on account of different features found in it: thus God wills a man to be saved by antecedent will, by reason of the human nature that he made for salvation; but he wills him to be damned by consequent will, on account of the sins found in him.”

450. S. Theol., 1 q. 19 a. 6 ad 1, says that the Apostle's words in 1 Tim 2 can be understood in three ways. “Third, according to Damascene, they are understood of the antecedent will, not the consequent will. This distinction is not taken from the side of the divine will itself, in which there is nothing prior or posterior, but from the side of the things willed. To understand this, one must consider that each thing is willed by God insofar as it is good. Something may, in its first consideration, insofar as it is considered absolutely, be good or evil, but when considered together with some circumstance, which is its consequent consideration, the opposite may be the case. Thus, for a man to live is good, and for a man to be killed is evil, under an absolute consideration; but if it is added concerning some man that he is a murderer or that he lives at the peril of the multitude, then it is good that he be killed and evil that he live. Hence it may be said that a just judge antecedently wills every man to live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. Similarly, God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned in accordance with the demands of his justice”¹.

But that circumstance discussed by the Bañezianos, namely, the greater beauty of the universe arising from the existence of the damned, is not indicated by those theologians, nor does it have any basis in the sources of revelation.

451. Therefore, one may rightly say with FRANZELIN²: “If the antecedent saving will is understood universally, prior to its term of comparison, it is considered as standing antecedently to the foreknowledge of sin itself, original sin, and still more to all our free acts. But if the saving will, as is almost always the case in Scripture and mostly among the Holy Fathers, is regarded on the supposition of original sin, as pertaining to the fallen and redeemed human race, the term before which the will of eternal salvation is called antecedent or consequent is the foreknowledge of the final state, whether it will be in grace or in sin.”

Thesis II: The doctrine that maintains negative antecedent reprobation must not be admitted

For this and the following thesis: ST. THOMAS, In 1 d. 40; 41; De veritate q. 6; S. Theol. 1, q. 23; 24; BELLARMINE, De gratia et libero arbitrio, l. 2 c. 9; 10. LESSIUS, De praedestinatione et reprobatione Angelorum et hominum; De perfectionibus moribusque divinis, l. 14 c. 2; SUÁREZ, De Deo, tract. 2; RUIZ, De divina praedestinatione ac reprobatione hominum et angelorum; GONET, Clypeus theologiae thomisticae, tract. 5; FRASSEN, Scotus academicus, tr. 2, disp. 3 a. 2; 3; BILLUART, De Deo, diss. 9 art. 2-10; PETAVIUS, De Deo Deique attributis, l. 9 et 10; De incarnatione Verbi, lib. 13; TRICASSINUS, De praedestinatione hominum ad gloriam; FRANZELIN, thes. 55–56; DE SAN, nr. 31–292; BILLOT, thes. 31; 32; PESCH, prop. 53–58; 61–62; MUNCUNILL, nr. 834–841; 730–775; VAN DER MEERSCH, nr. 548–562; 566–605.

452. Negative reprobation is conceived either as a mere omission of election (e.g., SCOTUS), or as an act of the will either positively to exclude from glory as an undue good (e.g., ALVAREZ, JOHN OF ST. THOMAS), or to exclude from an efficacious election to glory (e.g., BILLUART); it is antecedent, that is, before the foreseen use of created free will, before foreseen demerit. Consequently, in view of this absolute exclusion, God must permit an unremitted sin, a final sin, so that man is justly damned eternally; therefore, consequent upon his own will, God must direct the life of the reprobate man in such a way that the man does not die in the state of grace, that he infallibly sins, and deny him the graces by which he would be converted, while offering him graces with which he will not cooperate, graces that are not efficacious for conversion. And this antecedently and independently of any foreseen demerit of the man.

Those who defend antecedent negative reprobation are SCOTUS, the BAÑEZIANI, SUÁREZ, BELLARMINE.

453. Argument 1. The universal saving will of God, as God revealed it (and this is the only way of knowing it), cannot be reconciled with antecedent negative reprobation:

a) In the sources, no terminus before which the universal saving will of God is antecedent is indicated other than man's foreseen final state; yet according to the doctrine of antecedent negative reprobation, the universal saving will has already ceased antecedently to that terminus. For, at a sign posterior to the absolute will not to save this man, there can no longer be a serious conditional will to save that same man. Therefore, the doctrine of negative reprobation cannot be reconciled with that saving will which the sources present. “A conditional will to save is incompatible with an absolute antecedent will not to save” (Franzelin, p. 582).

b) It is difficult to understand a sincere will to confer some good on someone if this will is conditional upon a condition that depends solely on the one willing and that he absolutely does not will to bring about. But such would be God's antecedent saving will toward those to be reprobated, according to this opinion; therefore.

c) God exhorts sinners to penance and conversion for as long as they are in the state of pilgrimage, and promises them the remission of sins; therefore, one must either say that he still wills their salvation, at least conditionally, namely, if they do penance—and antecedent negative reprobation is denied—or say that these warnings, exhortations, and promises addressed to sinners who are not predestined are not serious, and that God does not make his true will known to them, namely, that sinners be converted; this cannot be admitted.

d) God grants sinful men, as a true benefit¹ at least remotely sufficient grace for conversion, and does so with the intention that they use it for conversion. But toward those whom he has antecedently and negatively reprobated absolutely, he can no longer have such a will; therefore, it does not seem that he gives them sufficient grace with the intention that they use it, nor is it intelligible how sufficient grace can thus still retain the character of a benefit. For sufficient and non-efficacious grace is given consequent upon the absolute will to exclude a man from glory or from an efficacious election to glory.

e) God truly has a love of benevolence toward a just man, his adopted son and friend²; but such love seems impossible toward those whom he has negatively reprobated antecedently to foreseen guilt. For in the very same sign in which that love ought to be present, there is no longer a will, not even a conditional one, to save this adopted son of his, and this antecedently to any fault of his. Therefore, this doctrine seems to entail either that the negatively reprobated person in fact never attains justification³; or, if those not predestined do also attain justification, one must say that God still has a conditional saving will toward them.

f) Negative reprobation seems to equal positive reprobation; for to will to exclude someone from glory, or to will not to choose someone efficaciously for glory, in fact amounts to willing that he be damned. For a man who is not saved is damned; there is no third option. Likewise, one who does not will that a man be saved cannot, by that very fact, fail to will that he be damned. “In the common estimation of men, it seems to amount to the same thing whether God wills that you perish, or is unwilling to place you among his elect and (consequently) to give you congruous grace and perseverance; for damnation will follow just as infallibly from decrees of this kind. And if one of these two decrees had to be undergone, anyone would consider it a matter of indifference to him which one was chosen, since both are before the foreseeing of works”⁴.

454. Argument 2. The holy Fathers knew of no reprobation other than that following foreseen sin, that is, consequent reprobation.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, Adversus Apollinarium, Antirrhet. 29: “For the Lord's will is not the cause why some are saved and others perish; otherwise the cause of their perdition would have to be referred to it. Rather, it comes about through the choice of those who receive the word that some are saved or perish” (MG 45, 1188; R 1053).

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In ep. ad Eph., hom. 1, nr. 2 (above, nr. 440).

ST. AMBROSE, De Cain et Abel, l. 2 c. 3 nr. 11 (above, nr. 441).

455. ST. PROSPER, Responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum calumniantium⁵, chap. 2: “Objection: That the grace of baptism received by those who are not predestined to life does not take away original sin. Response: Every person who, believing in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is reborn in baptism is absolved both from the sins of his own, which he contracted by an evil will and action, and from original sin, which he derived from his parents. But one who denies that a person who has fallen back after baptism into unbelief and impious conduct was cleansed from original sin holds an opinion as false as one who asserts that this same person is not to be condemned to eternal death. For one who departs from Christ and, alienated from grace, ends this life—what does he fall into but perdition? Yet he does not fall back into what has been remitted, nor will he be condemned for original sin; nevertheless, because of his final crimes he will suffer the death that was due to him on account of those sins which were remitted. Since this did not escape God's foreknowledge, nor did it deceive him, without doubt he never chose such a person, never predestined him, and never separated him from eternal perdition, though he was to perish” (ML. 51, 157 s.).

456. Chapter 3: “Objection: That those not predestined to life, even if they have been reborn in Christ through baptism and have lived piously and justly, gain nothing from this; but are kept in reserve until they fall and perish, and are not taken from this life before this happens to them. Response: There is no doubt that many pass from holiness to impurity, from justice to iniquity, and from faith to impiety; and it is most certain that the predestination of God's sons and Christ's coheirs does not apply to such people. Therefore, those of this sort who fell into these evils and died without the correction of penance did not have the necessity of perishing because they were not predestined; rather, they were not predestined because they were foreknown as going to become such through voluntary transgression. As for God's not taking them from this life at the time when they were in the true faith and good conduct, this must be referred to his hidden judgments, which are nevertheless never unjust. For who does not know that, within the one condition of human mortality, the ends of the dying vary with unequal spans of life, from infancy in a single hour to the most advanced old age, and that no soul departs from the body it quickens either sooner or later than God wills? If, then, someone forsook God during the length of his life, he made bad use of a good that was from God. For longevity is from God alone. And what is from God is nothing but good; and what is good is not the cause of evil. Therefore, he does not judge rightly who thinks that the prolonger of life is the author of sin for those about to fall, when, of course, it is not a sin to live long but to live badly; and this can happen even in an age of only a few years. Thus, just as good works are to be referred to God, their inspirer, so evil works are to be referred to those who sin. For they were not forsaken by God so that they might forsake God; rather, they forsook him and were forsaken, and by their own will were changed from good to evil. Although they had been reborn and justified by him, nevertheless they were not predestined by the one who foreknew them as such” (col. 158 s.).

457. Chapter 7: “Objection: That God does not give perseverance to some of his sons, whom he regenerated in Christ and to whom he gave faith, hope, and charity, because they were not separated from the mass of perdition by God's foreknowledge and predestination. Response: Many examples show, to our sorrow, that some of those regenerated in Christ Jesus abandon the faith and pious conduct, apostatize from God, and end their lives impiously in their estrangement. But to attribute their fall to God is a most excessive perversity, as though he were the instigator and author of their ruin because he foreknew that they would fall by their own will, and for this reason did not separate them from the children of perdition by any predestination. For how could the election foreordained in Christ include those whom just damnation would take as they departed from Christ? Since it is beyond doubt that perseverance in good to the end is a gift of God, and it is clear from the very fact that these people did not persevere that they did not have it, God must not be accused of failing to give these people what he gave to others. Rather, it must be acknowledged that he mercifully gave what he gave and justly did not give what he did not give, lest, just as the cause of falling arises from free will, the cause of standing also seem to arise from it, when the former is brought about by human action, but the latter is accomplished by divine gift” (col. 161 s.).

458. Chapter 12. “Objection: That obedience is withdrawn from some who have been called and are living piously and justly, so that they cease to obey. Response: If God casts a man who obeys him down from piety and makes one who runs well fall, then he repays good with evil, and unjustly punishes what he himself impels to happen. What could be said or thought more perverse, more senseless? But those are led to such a view who think that God's foreknowledge in all things is the same as his will, whereas his will never wills anything but good, while his foreknowledge knows both good and evil. He bestows good, either by doing it himself or by enabling us to do it; as for evil, he neither did it at all himself, nor advised it or impelled it to be done. Therefore, he did not withdraw the powers of obedience from anyone because he did not predestine him; rather, he did not predestine him because he foresaw that he would depart from that very obedience” (col. 167).

Responses to the chapter of the objections of the Vincentians, response to chap. 12 (above, nr. 387).

459. Thus ST. PROSPER, in defending the doctrine of St. Augustine, denies that negative reprobation—not predestination—is antecedent to foreseen sin. SUÁREZ (De praedest., l. 5 c. 5 nr. 7) wishes to explain St. Prosper's words as referring to positive reprobation; but both St. Prosper and his objectors speak clearly of those not predestined, not separated, etc. The detractors of St. Augustine “never thought that positive reprobation to eternal punishment, but rather the denial of predestination to eternal life, was attributed in Augustine's doctrine to God's antecedent will. For they said that Augustine taught that some are not predestined to eternal life by God's antecedent will; from this, they further concluded that these people are abandoned by God and permitted to sin, and that thus, consequent upon their sins, a sentence of reprobation to eternal punishment is passed. Prosper, however, consistently denies that such an antecedent denial of predestination is given or asserted by St. Augustine; and he affirms that, just as positive damnation follows on account of foreseen sins, so too the denial of predestination follows from the foreseeing of sins”⁶.

Thesis III: Predestination taken as a whole is gratuitous; but the predestination of adults to glory taken precisely as such is after foreseen merits

460. Predestination, the plan of the transmission of a rational creature to the end of eternal life, can be considered completely and incompletely, as was said above, nr. 376. This is a distinction on the part of the object. For not only does the plan of the whole order exist in the divine mind, but so too does the plan of the individual members of this order and of their mutual relations—for example, that a person attain faith and justification; that an increase of grace be due to a good work performed in the state of grace; an increase of glory, to merit; and so forth. In the first part of the thesis the subject is complete predestination, that is, insofar as it concerns the whole series of effects, from the first calling to the attainment of eternal life; in the other part, incomplete predestination—not predestination specifically to grace, faith, justification, or an increase of grace, but only to glory.

461. Since the thesis in a certain way inquires into the reason for predestination, it does not mean the reason for the divine act itself, but the reason with respect to those predestined. “No one, then, was so irrational as to say that merits are the cause of divine predestination on the part of the act of the one predestining. Rather, the question is whether predestination has some cause on the part of its effect. And this is to ask whether God preordained that he would give the effect of predestination to someone on account of some merits” (S. TH., 1 q. 23 a. 5).

462. We answer with St. THOMAS: “We can consider the effect of predestination in two ways. In one way, in particular; and thus nothing prevents one effect of predestination from being the cause and reason of another: the later effect being the cause of the earlier according to the character of a final cause, while the earlier is the cause of the later according to the character of a meritorious cause, which is reduced to the disposition of matter. For example, if we say that God preordained that he would give someone glory on account of merits, and preordained that he would give someone grace so that he might merit glory. In another way, the effect of predestination can be considered in general; and thus it is impossible that the whole effect of predestination in general have any cause on our part, because whatever in a human being orders that person toward salvation is wholly included under the effect of predestination, even preparation for grace itself; for this happens only through divine assistance, according to the words of Lam. ult.: ‘Convert us, O Lord, to yourself, and we shall be converted.’”

463. The first part of the thesis is against the SEMIPELAGIANS (cf. above, nr. 431, class 4), and is of faith.

The other part is against the opinion of SCOTUS, the BAÑEZIANISTS, BELLARMINE, and SUÁREZ (class 2 above, nr. 431). In this part the subject is only adults; moreover, it concerns predestination to glory taken precisely as such. This is affirmed to be after foreseen merits, meaning after supernatural merits (that is, acquired through the aid of supernatural grace in the state of justice), foreseen by the knowledge of vision. The question is not: Why does God in fact confer eternal life on this or that person? Rather: Why did God absolutely decree that he would give eternal life to this or that person? Is this absolute will of God prior or subsequent to the foreseen merit of the human being?

464. The opposing opinion conceives the matter as follows: God conditionally wills the salvation of all human beings, unless a greater good would thereby be impeded. But if all were saved, a greater good—namely, the beauty of the universe arising from the existence of damned human beings, and the manifestation of divine justice in those damned—would be impeded. Hence, by an absolute will, God wills the salvation of only some human beings. (At this point the universal salvific will already ceases.) From all human beings he effectively chooses certain particular persons, each to a determinate degree of glory, and therefore prior to their foreseen merits. All and only those so effectively chosen are saved; the conditional salvific will with respect to these particular persons becomes absolute. He passes over all the rest and does not effectively choose them for glory, likewise prior to their foreseen demerits. The serious conditional salvific will with respect to all those negatively reprobated ceases (cf. the preceding thesis). Thus he gratuitously chooses those to be saved (before their foreseen merits); but he does not choose adults gratuitously to be saved. Rather, he wills that they merit for themselves the degree of glory determined for them by God. Therefore he confers on them the gift of final perseverance, chooses such graces for them, and orders and directs their lives so that they infallibly merit for themselves that degree of glory (the formal predetermination of salutary acts), and die in such a state of merits. Thus glory is predestined before foreseen merits: in the order of intention, the end comes first; but glory is conferred after and on account of merits: in the order of execution, the end comes last. As for the reprobate: consequent upon antecedent absolute negative reprobation, God denies them the gift of final perseverance and permits a final sin that will not be remitted; they receive merely sufficient grace and die in mortal sin; positive reprobation follows.

465. In our opinion, the matter is conceived as follows: God sincerely wills the salvation of all, as a grace mercifully promised to the children of God through Jesus Christ, and as a reward faithfully to be rendered, by God’s own promise, for their good works and merits (cf. Conc. Trid., s. 6 cap. 16; Denz 809). This will is not absolute but, with respect to adults, conditional—namely, if they faithfully cooperate with grace and die in grace. Consequent upon this gratuitous, conditional will to save all, he wills to make the attainment of eternal life possible for everyone; therefore he wills to give everyone the graces necessary for adults to be able to merit salvation for themselves, if they so will. The preparation and bestowal of grace, then, flow from a sincere, conditional salvific will, which ceases only consequent upon foreseen final impenitence.

God knows by his knowledge of conditionally future things what would happen in various possible orders. For example, God knows with certainty that, in a particular order in which Peter exists, he would gratuitously give him this or that grace (without any foreseen merit of Peter), because he has a conditional will to save him, and that he would give this grace so that Peter might use it. God knows that, if he gave this grace, Peter would cooperate in this or that way; God would gratuitously bring him to justification; after justification Peter would cooperate with the divine graces and merit for himself a determinate increase of grace; God would increase his grace on account of that merit. Further, God would give him graces so that Peter might use them, but Peter would not cooperate and would sin. God, however, would gratuitously give graces; Peter would cooperate again, convert, and be gratuitously justified in the sacrament of Penance. From then on he would pray much to receive the gift of perseverance, and God would grant him that gift. Peter would die in the state of grace, with a determinate degree of grace and determinate merits acquired through free cooperation with grace. On account of those merits God would will to give him a determinate degree of glory as a just reward. There could be another possible order in which God would give Peter other graces, and Peter would cooperate more perfectly than in the first example, and would die with a greater degree of grace and greater merits; hence God would will to give him a greater degree of glory as a reward. A third possible order could be one in which perhaps everything proceeded in a similar way to the first, up to Peter’s sin. After the sin, God would again grant him helps of grace by which he could come to penance and again to justification; God would will to give these because his salvific will toward Peter still remained, and for the purpose that Peter freely use them. Yet Peter would not will to do so, would not pray, and would freely remain in sins. Since God’s salvific will toward him would always remain, the helps of grace by which he could come to conversion would not be denied him. Yet Peter would not will to use them; on the contrary, he would sin more and at last die in final impenitence, in mortal sin, with a determinate degree of demerits. Then God’s conditional salvific will toward him would cease, and God would will to damn him with the just punishment of hell. Many other possible orders could likewise be imagined. If God chose the first or second order, Peter would be predestined; but not if he chose the third.

466. In fact, God chose the present order, in which matters concerning Peter are as described above in the first order. Why God chose the present order rather than another, we do not know, since God has revealed nothing about this; yet we know that he chose it with supreme freedom and wisdom. From the theses proved thus far and from the present thesis, it also follows that God did not choose the present order consequent upon an absolute decree to save particular human beings, and only them (including Peter), and to exclude the rest from eternal salvation. We therefore admit that we have no knowledge at all of why God chose the present order rather than another in which the essential conditions would have been the same (the supernatural order, original sin, redemption through the Incarnate Word, the same angels and human beings). It should be noted, however, that according to Molina’s teaching God did not choose this order because of a foreseen use of free will, which, according to Molina, is not even a necessary condition of this choice.

467. Just as it was true now, prior to the absolute decree of the present order, that God would will to give Peter these graces, Peter would cooperate, and so on, as described above in the first order, so consequent upon that decree it holds that God absolutely wills freely to give Peter that grace, because he has a conditional will to save him, and will give him this grace so that Peter may use it; Peter will cooperate freely. God absolutely wills to bring him to first justification; after justification Peter, with the help of grace, will merit such an increase of grace; God wills to increase his grace on account of the merit. Then Peter will not cooperate with grace and will sin; God wills freely to give graces, Peter will cooperate, will again be gratuitously justified in the sacrament, and will pray for the gift of perseverance. God wills to grant this gift after that prayer has been foreseen; Peter will die in the state of grace with a determinate merit; on account of those merits God absolutely wills to give Peter glory in a determinate degree. The conditional will to save Peter becomes absolute after the merits acquired with the help of grace have been foreseen by the knowledge of vision. This is the plan of Peter’s transmission to eternal life existing in the divine mind: Peter’s predestination. In this order the institution of the supernatural order itself and the universal salvific will are wholly gratuitous; predestination specifically considered to grace, faith, and justification is gratuitous; predestination to perseverance is after the prayer foreseen by the knowledge of vision; predestination to glory taken precisely as such is after Peter’s supernatural merits foreseen by the knowledge of vision. Thus predestination taken completely is gratuitous. In the order of execution God will in fact give all these things (grace, faith, justification, perseverance, glory) for the same reason for which they were predestined.

468. But if the present order chosen by God were such that matters concerning Peter were as described above in the third order, then consequent upon the absolute will by which God chose this order, the following would hold: everything would be as in the first order up to Peter’s sin. Then, after the sin, God absolutely wills to give him helps of grace by which he can come to penance and justification; God wills to give these helps because his serious conditional salvific will toward Peter remains, and he wills to give them for the purpose that Peter use them. Peter, however, does not will to do so, does not pray, and freely remains in sins; God’s salvific will toward him remains, and therefore God does not will to deny him the helps of grace by which he can attain conversion. Peter, however, does not will to use them, remains in sins, and dies in final impenitence, in mortal sin, with a determinate degree of demerits. God’s salvific will toward Peter ceases; God absolutely wills to damn him with the just punishment of hell. Peter belongs to the non-predestined; he is reprobate. In such an order God’s conditional salvific will toward this reprobate is serious and endures throughout his whole life; it remains at every point prior to final impenitence. There is no antecedent reprobation, either positive or negative; positive reprobation, however, follows Peter’s final impenitence foreseen by the knowledge of vision.

Predestination taken completely is gratuitous

469. Predestination taken completely would not be gratuitous (or would arise from the merit of the predestined) if all the effects of predestination arose from the merit of the predestined. But many effects of predestination do not arise from the merit of the predestined; therefore predestination taken completely is gratuitous.

a) The institution of the supernatural order is wholly gratuitous; restoration after Adam’s sin through Christ the Redeemer is gratuitous; the salvific will, which is the foundation of all predestination, is gratuitous.

b) The beginning of faith does not arise from merits but from grace: CONC. ARAUSIC., can. 25 (DENZ 200); CONC. TRID., s. 6 c. 5 (DENZ 797).

c) Justification does not arise from merit but is gratuitous. An increase of grace is in part due to merit, but in part is not due to merit—namely, what is obtained in the sacraments ex opere operato; likewise, what is granted as the fruit of prayer is not strictly due to merit. So too, the gift of perseverance cannot strictly be merited, but can be obtained by humble prayer.

From all these things, which we assume to have been proved in other treatises, it is clear that predestination to faith, to first grace, and to justification is gratuitous. By that very fact it is already established that predestination taken completely does not arise from the merits of the predestined, but is gratuitous (cf. the reasoning indicated above by St. THOMAS, nr. 462). Nor is this matter disputed among Catholics.

d) Finally, the very choice of the present order, by which the predestined are distinguished from the non-predestined, does not arise from the merits of the predestined.

Predestination of adults to glory taken precisely as such is after foreseen merits.

470. Argument 1. God’s salvific will is sincerely universal at every point prior to final impenitence; in other words, there is no antecedent negative reprobation, as was proved in the preceding thesis. But if adults were not predestined to glory taken precisely as such after foreseen merits, but before foreseen merits, antecedent negative reprobation would have to be admitted. Therefore the predestination of adults to glory taken precisely as such is after foreseen merits.

Proof of the minor. At the same point at which all who are to be saved are absolutely predestined to glory, the salvific will toward all the rest ceases. For by absolutely choosing those particular people, and only them (exclusively), for salvation, God absolutely excludes from salvation all who are not so chosen. Therefore, if the predestination of adults to glory taken precisely as such were before foreseen merits, the salvific will toward the rest would cease before their foreseen demerits, and there would be antecedent negative reprobation.

The absolute, exclusive choice of some portion of humanity for glory is itself already an absolute exclusion of the rest from glory, whether by a positive act or by the mere omission of an efficacious choice.

471. The argument rests on this: predestination to glory taken precisely as such, before foreseen merits, necessarily entails antecedent negative reprobation of those who are not predestined. Father BILLOT thought predestination before foreseen merits without antecedent reprobation was possible. He distinguishes three rational moments. The first moment is of divine knowledge, “in which all and each of the actualizable orders of providence are present to the divine intellect, according to the whole content of agents and helps, and the corresponding outcome or event of each.” The second moment is of love and election, “in which the divine will determines itself concerning one end which it knows will in fact be attained in one particular order, and absolutely wills that end. This is, of course, the end known concretely as arising from this particular order: the end toward which all the circumstances contained in it are known to converge, directly or indirectly. This end, I say, is the glory of God shining forth in the glory and eternal salvation of these particular people, each of whom would have come to perdition in infinitely many other hypotheses.” “By its own most free good pleasure alone, the divine will is determined absolutely to will the end of salvation for these designated people rather than for others who would be saved in another possible order” ¹. “Finally, the third rational moment is considered, in which, consequent upon willing the end, God decrees to put into execution the whole order corresponding to the event by which the willed end is to be attained. This is the moment of predestination and reprobation. For since the intelligible plan of that order contains both the foreknown transmission of these people to eternal life and the foreknown falling away of others from salvation, God decrees to bring about the former and, for this very purpose, to permit the latter. By the addition of this decree, God already has, with respect to some, foreknowledge and preparation of calling, justification, and the consequent glorification (and this is predestination); with respect to others, however, foreknowledge and permission of falling away (and this is reprobation)” ².

472. It is thus clear that predestination to glory taken precisely as such occurs before foreseen merits. How, however, this does not involve antecedent negative reprobation is explained as follows: “In the second rational moment, which is the moment of election, the divine will by its absolute decree is directed solely to the good of the end, namely, the victory and salvation of the elect. In the third moment, which is the moment of predestination and reprobation, God does not decree for some a foreseen, inefficacious series of means because he is bound by a prior decree not to save them, but only because it happens that such a series (otherwise entirely sufficient) is contained in that order of providence in which, by his wisdom, he foreknows that everything converges toward the best end intended beforehand—that is, the salvation, glory, virtue, and perfection of the predestined—and thereby toward the manifestation of his goodness and mercy. Hence God does not deliberately and by a predetermined plan will for some an inefficacious grace precisely insofar as it is inefficacious; and since the inefficacy of grace has no other cause than the failure of free will, it follows that each and every person truly has the power to attain salvation, and that God by a true antecedent will confers everything required on his part” ³.

473. Yet it seems that one must say that in this system there is in fact antecedent negative reprobation, and that it is contained in the second moment, namely, that of love and election. For in this moment particular people are chosen absolutely and exclusively for eternal glory; and consequent upon this absolute and exclusive choice, the order in which these people alone attain salvation is chosen in the third moment. By that very fact, in the second moment all the rest are absolutely excluded from attaining glory, and God must choose the order in which only those chosen people will be saved; he can no longer choose an order in which others too would attain eternal glory. Therefore, consequent upon the absolute choice in the second moment, he must choose an order in which the other human beings belonging to that order do not receive the gift of perseverance, but receive graces that are not ultimately efficacious; that is, he must choose an order in which all except those chosen in the second moment die in mortal sin. The exclusive, gratuitous, absolute choice of some is necessarily the absolute non-choice of the rest; and just as the absolute choice for glory is before foreseen merits, so too the absolute non-choice of the rest is in the same moment, that is, prior to their foreseen demerits: antecedent negative reprobation.

474. Argument 2. A conditional will to confer something does not become an absolute will unless the condition is fulfilled, or foreseen as fulfilled. But God’s conditional will to confer eternal glory on adults has this condition: if they merit glory for themselves. Therefore this will becomes absolute only after merits have been foreseen.

For the major: If that will were already absolute in an antecedent moment, then, independently of that condition, the will would in fact not be truly conditional.

For the minor: God promises glory to adults as a reward for merit, a crown and prize for struggle and victory. But what God promises in this way he does not absolutely will to give independently of those merits. Therefore God’s will to confer glory on adults is conditional: if they merit it for themselves.

The final major is proved at length in the treatise on merit: CONC. ARAUS., can. 18 (Denz 191); CONC. TRID., s. 6 cap. 16 (Denz 809); can. 26 (Denz 836); can. 32 (Denz 842); Matth 16, 27; Rom 2, 6; 1 Cor 3, 8; 9, 24 ss.; 2 Tim 4, 7; Iac 1, 12; 1 Petr 5, 4; Apoc 2, 7; 3, 5. See the texts of the FATHERS in R ser. 367.

475. The following objection is customarily raised against this argument:

Eternal life is promised not only as a reward but also as an inheritance. Therefore, under this title it can be willed absolutely without regard to merits, and thus predestined before foreseen merits.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent: that it is to be given to adults as an inheritance if the conditions have been fulfilled, I grant; that it is to be given without regard to their merits, I deny. And accordingly I distinguish the consequence: it can be predestined for adults before foreseen merits conditionally, I grant; absolutely, I deny. Rom 8, 17: “But if children, then heirs also: heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ; yet so, if we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.”

Nor does anything against the argument follow from the fact that our merits are from grace. For even if in that sense merits are gifts of God, it does not follow that predestination is before foreseen merits; it follows only that glory cannot be merited by natural merits, which the thesis does not affirm either.

476. 3) The whole doctrine of merit from which the argument proceeds concerns the order of execution, in which the means come first and the end last. But the question of predestination concerns the order of intention, in which the end comes first. Therefore the argument is invalid.

I answer a) No trace of this inverted order of intention is found in the sources of revelation. But even setting that aside, the following holds: if God does not in fact confer glory on adults (in the order of execution) unless the conditions have been fulfilled, it seems impossible that he absolutely willed to confer it (in the order of intention) without regard to those conditions.

b) This inverted order does not seem to agree with the teaching of the Fathers and theologians who wrote before this opinion arose, and whose teaching is that God’s gifts are predestined in the same order in which they are conferred in time. Thus St. AUGUSTINE, De praedest. Sanctorum, c. 10 nr. 19: “The only difference between grace and predestination is that predestination is the preparation of grace, while grace is the gift itself” (ML 44, 974; R 1986). De dono perseverantiae, c. 16 nr. 39: “Indeed, since it is clear that God prepared some things to be given even to those who do not pray, such as the beginning of faith, and others to be given only to those who pray, such as perseverance to the end, surely one who thinks he has this from himself does not pray that he may have it” (ML 45, 1017; R 2001); nr. 60: “If there are some who have not yet been called, let us pray that they be called; for perhaps they have been predestined to be granted through our prayers, and to receive the same grace by which they may will and become elect” (ML 45, 1029). ST. THOMAS, In ep. ad Rom., c. 8, l. 6: “Concerning the order of foreknowledge and predestination, some say that foreknowledge of good and evil merits is the reason for predestination and reprobation, so that God is understood to predestine some because he foreknew that they would act well and believe in Christ; and on this account the text is read thus: ‘Those whom he foreknew would be made conformable to the image of his Son, these he predestined.’ This would indeed be said reasonably if predestination regarded only eternal life, which is given for merits. But every salutary benefit divinely prepared for a human being from eternity falls under predestination; hence, by the same reasoning, he prepared from eternity all the benefits he confers on us in time. Therefore, to posit that some merit on our part is presupposed, foreknowledge of which is the reason for predestination, is nothing other than to posit that grace is given on account of our merits, that the beginning of good works is from us, and their completion from God.” Therefore, according to St. Thomas, they are prepared in the same way as they are conferred: whoever says they are prepared on account of merits must say they are conferred because of merits; and what is conferred because of merits is prepared because of merits, while what is not conferred because of merits is not predestined because of merits. He states the same principle in 1 q. 23 a. 5, where he asks whether foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination. “But against this is what the Apostle says to Tit 3: ‘Not by works of justice which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us.’ Now, just as he saved us, so he predestined us to be saved” ⁴.

c) The whole doctrine of an order of intention inverted with respect to the order of execution in our question rests on the principle that in predestination God must first absolutely intend the end, and then choose the means to that end. It will be shown later (nr. 506) that this principle is not correctly applied in this matter.

477. Argument 3. The holy Fathers teach that glory, eternal life, was prepared after foreseen merits ⁵.

ST. EPIPHANIUS, Adv. haeres. panarium, haer. 69 nr. 58, explaining Matth 20, 43, says: “It is not mine to give you; but if you have labored, it will be prepared for you by my Father” (MG 42, 293 s.).

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In Matth., hom. 80 nr. 2: “Inherit what was long ago owed to you; for before you existed, he says, these things were prepared for you, because I knew that you would become such people” (MG 58, 719); cf. In Eph., hom. 1 nr. 2; In Rom., hom. 15 and 16.

ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, In epist. ad Rom 8, 30: “Those whom he foresaw long beforehand as the ones who would be, he predestined to share in future goods; he also called those same people so that through faith they might attain justification in him, and sin no more” (MG 74, 828 s.).

ST. HILARY, In psalm. 64 nr. 5: “Many are called, but few are chosen.… Thus election is not a matter of indiscriminate judgment, but a distinction made by selection according to merit. Blessed, then, is the one whom God has chosen; blessed because worthy of being chosen. We should know, moreover, for what he was chosen as blessed here, namely, for what follows: ‘He shall dwell in your tabernacles’” (ML 9, 415).

ST. JEROME, In Matth 25, commenting on the words of vv. 34–39, says: “This is to be understood according to God’s foreknowledge, for whom future things are already accomplished” (ML 26, 189). Therefore, because he foresaw that they would act in this way, he prepared the kingdom for them. Cf. Epist. 120 (ML 22, 1000).

ST. AMBROSE, De fide, l. 5 c. 6 nr. 83: “Finally, referring to the Father, he added, ‘for whom it was prepared’ ⁶, to show that the Father too is accustomed to grant things not in response to requests but according to merits, because ‘God is no respecter of persons’ ⁷. Hence the Apostle also says, ‘whom he foreknew, he also predestined’ ⁸: for he did not predestine them before he foreknew them; rather, he predestined rewards for those whose merits he foreknew” (ML 16, 665; R 1272). ST. FULGENTIUS, Ad Monimum, l. 1 c. 24: “Therefore, to show what he foreknew was to be repaid and what was to be given as a gift, God predestined to punishment those whom he foreknew would depart from him through the fault of an evil will, and predestined to the kingdom those whom he foreknew would return to him with the help of prevenient mercy and remain in him with the help of subsequent mercy” (ML 65, 171). De veritate praedestinationis, l. 3 c. 5: “To this predestination belong both the gratuitous justification of the Redeemer and the just recompense of the Judge; to this predestination belongs the mercy Paul obtained so that he might be faithful, and the crown of justice which the Lord, the just Judge, will render him on that day—not to Paul alone, but also to all who love his coming.… For just as by mercy he prepared for them the gratuitous gift of justification, so by justice he prepared the reward of eternal justification. The work of grace in all the predestined is begun by gratuitous mercy and brought to completion by just recompense” (ML 65, 655).

See also what was cited above (nr. 455 ss.) on how St. PROSPER defends St. AUGUSTINE’s teaching that he did not teach antecedent reprobation; this entails that predestination to glory taken precisely as such is not before foreseen merits.

478. But perhaps the Fathers are to be understood as speaking of the order of execution, not the order of intention?

I answer. The Fathers clearly speak of predestination, the preparation of eternal life and heavenly glory, not of their bestowal. Moreover, one may rightly also cite texts of the holy Fathers that concern the order of execution, since the Fathers did not know that benefits were predestined in one way and conferred in another.

479. Argument 4. If a person’s eternal lot is absolutely decreed independently of and without any regard for human cooperation:

a) The admonition, “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments” ⁹, is no longer intelligible. For such an admonition makes no sense if whether one enters into life or does not enter into life has already been absolutely decreed independently of keeping the commandments.

b) The incentive to act and labor well is absent. For a person easily says to himself: Without regard to my works, I am either absolutely predestined to a determinate degree of glory or not predestined. If the former, consequent upon this decree God will order my life in such a way that I attain that degree of glory; if the latter, my labor is of no help, for consequent upon his prior absolute exclusion from glory God must and will arrange that I eventually sin and die in a state of sin. The force of this consideration increases in the system of physical predeterminations.

c) Trust in God is impossible ¹⁰. For hope of attaining eternal life presupposes at least a conditional salvific will in God, and the existence of this will must be known to the one who hopes. But if, prior to the foreseen final state, some people are absolutely predestined to glory and the rest are absolutely excluded from an efficacious choice for glory, then in that same moment the salvific will toward all the latter ceases. Since no one knows whether he is predestined or not, no one knows either whether God has a true salvific will toward him. Therefore the foundation of hope ceases, and hope is impossible.

480. Someone might say: These considerations hold under every opinion, for it is altogether certain about each person whether he will be saved, and nothing in this matter can be changed. But the answer is that, in the opposing opinion, this is certain without regard to human cooperation or lack of cooperation, and the serious salvific will toward¹¹ the reprobate already ceases at the same rational moment in which the predestined are chosen absolutely and exclusively for glory. In our opinion, however, precisely the opposite holds. The reasons given above do not proceed merely from the fact that it is already certain and God knows with certainty who will be saved and who will not; rather, they proceed from the fact that God, prior to foreseen merits, absolutely decreed that these people would be saved and those people absolutely excluded, and that consequent upon this absolute volition he orders the lives of those people in such a way that they attain glory or fail to attain it. But if, as in our opinion, the universal salvific will remains until final impenitence, and predestination to glory taken precisely as such is after foreseen merits, then the foundation of hope truly remains for all who are on the way; the incentive to act well remains; and the admonition, “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments,” retains its true and full sense.

481. But those who defend predestination to glory before foreseen merits expect salvation from God alone, whereas others expect it also from their own cooperation. Yet our salvation is more secure in God’s hands than in our own; therefore the former doctrine is more encouraging to trust. PESCH rightly replies ¹²: “Is this true? Your lot is undoubtedly most secure in God’s hands; but if this lot is your antecedent exclusion from blessedness, what then is secure in God’s hands? Your eternal damnation, independently of your demerits. One who is negatively reprobated not only cannot place all hope in God, but has no true hope at all, because true hope does not deceive, whereas the hope of one negatively reprobated deceives him, if he has any hope of attaining eternal life through his cooperation with grace. The Molinists, then, rightly judge far more consolatory the doctrine according to which no one is antecedently either reprobated or predestined, but each receives grace by using which well he will have eternal life.” Let a sermon be preached to the people about antecedent negative reprobation—which, as was shown in the first argument, necessarily accompanies predestination to glory before foreseen merits—and it will immediately be clear how consolatory this doctrine is and how greatly it encourages trust in God and urges people to act well.

Arguments of the opposing opinion.

482. In these arguments one must carefully attend to whether what is actually proved is the precise point at issue. It is not enough to show that predestination is gratuitous; one must prove that predestination to glory taken precisely as such is prior to foreseen merits, and that consequent upon the glory predestined, God chooses grace and merits.

483. Rom 8, 28-30 ¹³. Christ conquered sin and its dominion; sin has been destroyed, death overcome. The flesh still rises against the spirit, but with the grace of Christ victory is certain for us. We have received not a spirit of slavery in fear, but of adoption as children; we are children of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, “if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him” (8, 17). “We have been saved in hope” (8, 24); “through patience we wait” (8, 25); “the Spirit helps our weakness” (8, 26). Hence we must not fear, but hope firmly in God. And in vv. 28–30 the Apostle introduces a firm reason for this confidence: “for those who love God all things work together for good.”

“For those called according to his purpose (the saints)”: this does not restrict “those who love [God],” for then Paul’s argument would not hold, and there is no basis for such a restriction in the text; therefore those called are the same as those who love. Called: those effectively called by God to faith and grace, generally the same as Christians. According to his purpose: many Greeks (ORIGEN, CHRYSOSTOM, THEODORET, OECUMENIUS, THEOPHYLACTUS; cf. FRANZELIN, pag. 742, LAGRANGE) understand “purpose” as the purpose or will of a human being, from which it also appears what sort of order between foreknowledge and predestination they must have understood. But purpose (Rom 9, 11; Eph 1, 5. 11; 2 Tim 1, 9) always signifies the eternal divine will to confer supernatural good in time. The text goes on to say what God did for those who love him, for those called: he foreknew. This refers to the intellect: “foreknowledge signifies only knowledge of future things, but predestination signifies a certain causality with respect to them” (ST. THOMAS in h. l.). The claim that foreknow means love, choose, or predetermine is gratuitously asserted. He predestined: this word also occurs in Act 4, 28, where Pilate and Herod did to Christ what God’s plan had decreed; in 1 Cor 2, 7, of God’s wisdom in the mystery of the Incarnation, which God predestined for our glory; in Eph 1, 5, “he predestined us to adoption as children”; and v. 11, “we have been called by lot, having been predestined according to his purpose” ¹⁴. The sense, then, is that he defined beforehand, decreed; and in Act 4 and 1 Cor 2 this refers to an absolute, efficacious decree, and therefore to a consequent will. Eph 1 seems to be understood in the same sense; perhaps Rom 8 may also be understood of an absolute decree, and therefore a consequent will, though not everyone understands it this way. The object in general is something pertaining to salvation; here it is “to be made conformable to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Some (the Greek Fathers, PRAT) take this as conformity through grace and adoptive sonship; others (CORNELY, LAGRANGE), as conformity to the glorious body of Christ; others, as justice in this life and glory in the future (TOLETUS). “Thus the conformity to which the predestined are said to be conformed is, from the context itself, twofold—or rather threefold—so that they may be conformed to the likeness of his death by suffering with him, and to his glorification by sharing his glory, begun here and to be completed there” (FRANZELIN). ST. THOMAS: “For just as God willed to communicate his natural goodness to others by sharing with them a likeness of his goodness, so that he might not only be good but also the author of good things, so the Son of God willed to share the likeness of his sonship with others, so that he might not only be the Son himself but also the firstborn among many brethren. Thus he who by eternal generation is the only-begotten, according to Ioan 1, 18, ‘the Only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father,’ by the bestowal of grace ‘might be the firstborn among many brethren.’ Apoc 1, 5: ‘Who is the firstborn of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth.’ Christ has us as his brethren, both because he shared with us the likeness of his sonship, as is said here, and because he assumed the likeness of our nature, according to Hebr 2, 17: ‘He had to be made like his brethren in all things’” (In ep. ad Rom. cap. 8 lect. 6). “Those whom he predestined, he also called … justified … glorified”: that is, he called them to faith and to the grace of justification. “Glorified”: does this mean glory on earth through adoption (CHRYSOSTOM), final glory, or both? ST. THOMAS: “He also magnified them, and this in two ways: first, by progress in virtue and grace, and second, by exaltation in glory.”

484. It is difficult to understand how these words teach that adults are predestined to glory taken precisely as such before foreseen merits. If it is said that those called according to his purpose (v. 28) are only those predestined to glory, the question immediately arises: Is the object of the purpose glory taken precisely as such, or faith, justification, or the whole series of supernatural gifts? Is the purpose before foreseen merits? And finally, how is it proved that those called according to his purpose are all and only those who in fact attain eternal salvation? But if it is said that “he foreknew” (v. 29) means “he loved beforehand,” that by loving beforehand he absolutely chose them for glory and predestined them, the reply is: It is gratuitously asserted that “foreknow” has that meaning. And if that meaning were admitted (which is not granted), where does the text say that this prior love is without regard to merits? And if it were further admitted that it is before foreseen merits, where does the text say that predestination is to glory taken precisely as such, rather than to faith and justification, or that it is complete predestination? To have an argument, it is not enough that the words of the text might perhaps be understood in this way; one must show that they must be understood in this way. Indeed, perhaps the text could more easily be understood as St. AMBROSE and CHRYSOSTOM understand it: he foreknew their merits, and predestined their rewards; or, those whom he foreknew to love him, having been gratuitously called by him, to be patient in tribulations and to await with firm hope, he predestined to conformity with Christ. In this way the text would provide an argument for predestination to glory after foreseen merits.

485. In light of these considerations, one should say: a) the words of the text considered by themselves can be explained in either way; by themselves they say nothing directly about our question; b) if one considers the immediate context, the Apostle’s intention to exhort and to propose reasons for firm trust in God, it no longer seems possible to admit an explanation in terms of predestination to glory precisely before foreseen merits. For it would be a strange exhortation to firm hope, to endurance of toil and suffering, and to remaining in the love of God, if he told them: without regard to such works God has absolutely decreed to save some and to exclude others from eternal salvation ¹⁵; c) finally, when the doctrine of God’s universal salvific will is also considered, that explanation is altogether excluded.

486. Rom 9–11 ¹⁶. The Apostle treats a great difficulty: God promised the Messiah and salvation to the Israelites, but now the greater part of the chosen people rejects salvation, while many Gentiles embrace the Gospel. Yet this is not contrary to God’s promise, for not all who descend bodily from Abraham are children of the promise. Rather, from among them God freely chose—and indeed from Abraham’s children the children of Isaac (vv. 7–9), and from Isaac’s children the children of Jacob (vv. 10–13). Thus not all who are of Israel are Israelites (v. 6). God chose freely, as appears especially clearly in the example of Isaac’s sons, where God’s elective purpose came about not from works but from the one who calls. “That neither of the two cited texts (namely, Gen 25, 23; Mal 1, 2, 3) speaks of interior grace pertaining to sanctification, much less of eternal salvation considered precisely and in itself, is so clearly evident from the words and context of Genesis and Malachi that one cannot understand how some have thought that these texts directly teach that God predestined some (such as Jacob) to eternal blessedness before any foreknowledge of merits, and hated others (such as Esau) before their sins were foreseen, and therefore excluded and reprobated them from eternal glory. Proximately and directly, just as in v. 7, the subject is only the temporal inheritance and admission to the covenant of promises made by God with Abraham, granted by the grace of election to the younger brother. The Apostle certainly adduces this example, as well as the preceding one (vv. 7–9), to teach a truth of a higher order, which both examples typologically prefigure.… For by that election just mentioned, God wished to signify that admission to the new covenant and its goods, too, depends not on a right of blood or foreseen works, but on his gratuitous election” (CORNELY, in h. l.). Thus vv. 6–13 show from the history of the patriarchs that admission to the promise depends on God’s gratuitous calling, and hence that the partial rejection of the Jews and the calling of many Gentiles are not against God’s promises: the word of God has not failed (v. 6).

487. Yet there is no iniquity or injustice in God in this matter. For, as appears in Sacred Scripture, God is free both in showing mercy (v. 15) and in withholding his benefits (v. 17); and he concludes the former (v. 16): therefore attaining mercy depends not on the one who wills or runs, but on God who shows mercy. “By his conclusion, then, he teaches only that election and calling to the goods of the new economy are pure grace, which no one, neither Jew nor Gentile, can acquire or merit for himself by the power of free will or by natural works” (CORNELY).

After the second testimony from Sacred Scripture (v. 17), he draws a general conclusion (v. 18): therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. God did not positively harden Pharaoh, but “God is said to harden him insofar as he caused the plagues to cease, although he foresaw that Pharaoh would again become obstinate when they ceased; in fact, the king himself must be said to have hardened himself by abusing the divine benefits. Besides, the Apostle chose this example of Pharaoh for good reason. For just as at that time, among witnesses to the same miracles, some (such as the Israelites) were led to faith in God or confirmed in it, while others (such as Pharaoh and the Egyptians) were hardened in their obstinate rebellion against God, so in Paul’s time, among the Israelites themselves, some who saw the miracles of Christ and the Apostles received the Gospel and became sharers in the messianic blessings, while others, although they had seen the same miracles, rejected the Gospel confirmed by those miracles through their own fault and hardened themselves in rebellion against their Messiah” (CORNELY). This hardening, however, is not outside divine providence; rather, the fact of hardening is ordered by God to the wisest ends: in Pharaoh’s case, so that he might display his power in him (v. 17); and, on the occasion of the rebellion of some of the Jews, others obtained God’s mercy (11, 30 s.).

488. The words “whom he wills he hardens” give rise to a difficulty (v. 19): no one can resist God’s will; by what right, then, can God complain about people, since they do what God wills? Before answering directly (vv. 22 ss.), the Apostle recalls to the human being the creature’s condition, which has no right to dispute with the Creator about the order of providence (v. 20): “On the contrary, O human being—answer this—who are you to talk back to God?” He illustrates this by the familiar comparison of the potter and the pot (v. 21). “Everyone agrees that Paul took the comparison of the potter shaping vessels as he wishes from the books of the Old Testament. The prophets use it to assert God’s supreme dominion and perfect freedom in disposing of and ruling human affairs, or rather to urge humble and pious obedience and silence, by which people are bound to revere the order of things freely established by God according to his good pleasure, and to refrain from judging and criticizing it. This meaning and purpose of the comparison was therefore well known to the new Christians in Rome, and so it immediately and almost spontaneously presented itself to them when they read it used here. We therefore rightly conclude that the Apostle too intended this meaning and purpose, and that the whole force of the comparison lies solely in showing how absurd and shameful it is for a mere man to dare to call the divine order of providence into judgment and accuse it of injustice” (CORNELY).

489. Then (vv. 22 ss.) he answers directly by showing the divine manner of acting: “But if God, willing to show his wrath and make known what he can do, endured with great patience vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, and (if God acts in this way) in order to show the riches of his glory in vessels of mercy which he prepared for glory, whom he also called—not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.” The apodosis is missing; CORNELY readily supplies it as follows: “What then will you say? Will you then dare to accuse God of injustice when he rebukes hardened sinners?” The word “fitted” (κατηρτισμένα) is not passive, as Calvin has it—fitted by God for destruction—but middle: those who fitted themselves for destruction. If, then, God rebukes or punishes such sinners—vessels of wrath who fitted themselves for destruction and who abuse the time granted for repentance to become more impenitent and hardened (cf. Pharaoh and the unbelieving Jews)—he does not act unjustly. Nor is there injustice if God called to faith, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles, vessels of mercy, which he prepared for glory, namely by calling them to faith and conferring grace. Thus the prophets announced that the promises did not pertain to all and only the Jews, but that the Gentiles too would be called to the messianic kingdom (vv. 25, 26), and that the greater part of the Jews would not attain salvation (vv. 27 ss.), but not without their fault (9, 30 ss., 10, 21). Nevertheless, God did not simply reject his people (11, 1 ss.), nor should the Gentiles boast against the Jews (11, 13 ss.); the Jews too will be converted (11, 25 ss.). Jews and Gentiles are thus brought to faith according to the divine plan so that they may be a help to one another: “For although God has now permitted Israel to be blinded for the benefit of the Gentiles and rejected it for a time, he will nevertheless faithfully preserve what he once promised to their fathers (11, 28. 29). For just as he wished the present unbelief of Israel to be an occasion for the unbelieving Gentiles to share in his mercy, so he wishes the faith of the Gentiles to be an occasion for unbelieving Israel eventually to obtain mercy (30. 31). In this way he wishes to rescue both from unbelief, showing the same mercy to both, v. 33” (CORNELY in 11, 24 ss.). “For God has shut up all (everyone, Jews and Gentiles) in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all. O depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him? For from him, and through him, and in him are all things: to him be glory forever. Amen.”

In this whole passage St. Paul nowhere speaks of predestination to glory taken precisely as such, much less says that it is before foreseen merits; rather, the subject is gratuitous calling to faith and grace.

490. One might perhaps argue from Rom 9 for predestination to glory taken precisely as such:

According to St. Paul’s teaching, some are chosen absolutely by God for glory, independently of foreseen works, while others are passed over. Therefore he teaches predestination to glory before foreseen merits.

Proof of the antecedent. In 9, 11 s., Jacob is chosen not on account of works but by the one who calls, so that God’s elective purpose may stand. Yet although the immediate subject in Jacob’s calling concerns temporal goods, St. Paul applies this to the calling to the goods of the supernatural order, and specifically to glory itself, namely the vessels of mercy which he prepared for glory (v. 23).

I answer. I deny the antecedent. As for its proof, I concede the major; I distinguish the minor: St. Paul applies it to gratuitous calling in the supernatural order, specifically to faith and grace, I concede; to glory taken precisely as such, I deny. As for the added argument from v. 23, it must be proved 1) that glory there is to be understood exclusively as glory taken precisely as such; 2) that prepare is to be understood as predestination and not as that preparation for glory which consists in efficacious calling to faith and the conferral of grace.

It should also be noted that in the type (Jacob) both the elective decree and its execution are gratuitous, not based on works. If, then, as the argument proposes, this gratuity is applied to predestination to glory taken precisely as such, before foreseen merits, one must say that both the elective decree to glory taken precisely as such and its execution are gratuitous—that is, that the conferral of glory is not based on works—which is heretical.

491. If someone wished to argue from the comparison of the potter and the pot for predestination to glory before foreseen merits, one should say: 1) St. Paul uses the comparison to show that it is not for a human being to dispute with God about his providence, and so predestination or reprobation is not the subject; 2) if it were applied to predestination, a false conclusion would follow. For the potter positively fashions vessels for honor and vessels for dishonor; toward the vessels of dishonor he does not take a merely negative stance, leaving them in the lump. If this were applied to predestination and reprobation, it would follow that just as predestination to glory is before foreseen merits, so too positive reprobation is before demerits, which would be the Calvinist heresy.

492. An argument is also made from Eph 1, 3 ss.: he chose us in order that we might be holy, not because we are holy; he predestined us according to the purpose of his will; we were called by lot (v. 11), not on account of merits. All this indicates gratuitous election and predestination.

I answer. For the argument to be valid, it must be shown that the subject is predestination to glory taken precisely as such, and that it is before foreseen merits. But the text itself identifies the object of election: “that we might be holy and immaculate in his sight”; and the object of predestination: “to adoption as children,” that is, efficacious calling to faith in Christ and the grace of justification, which are altogether gratuitous. Nothing is said about predestination to glory taken precisely as such ¹⁷.

493. Sacred Scripture speaks of divine election and of the elect. But election is gratuitous, for election presupposes equals among whom a distinction is made by election itself. Therefore…

I answer. As for the major: the elect are usually Christians, who have been elected by God to the grace of faith (Col 3, 12; 2 Tim 2, 10; Tit 1, 1; 1 Petr 1, 1; 2, 9), without thereby saying that all of them are in fact saved. The term can also designate those who are in fact saved (Matth 24, 22. 24. 31 = Marc 13, 20. 22. 27); yet even in these passages the subject is not election to glory taken precisely as such.

As for the minor: that election can be gratuitous, I grant or pass over; that it must be gratuitous, I deny. ST. HILARY: “Thus election is not a matter of indiscriminate judgment, but a distinction made by selection according to merit. Blessed, then, is the one whom God has chosen, blessed because worthy of being chosen” (above, nr. 477). St. Hilary is speaking of election to glory. ST. BONAVENTURE calls God’s love, which regards the consequent will by which he loves all who will be saved, election. But according to St. Bonaventure, the consequent will “depends on our cause” (above, nr. 447). For the argument to be effective, it must be proved that, according to Sacred Scripture, election to glory taken precisely as such is gratuitous. To invent for oneself a concept of election that is gratuitous by its very nature, and then to explain Sacred Scripture according to that concept, is to beg the question. Thus of Matth 24, 22. 24 it is said: “Nothing is said about why these people are elect, whether on account of good works or gratuitously. In fact, they were elected gratuitously to grace, but on account of good works to glory” (PESCH, nr. 386). DE SAN, II, gives further “arguments” from Sacred Scripture with explanations.

494. The teaching of St. AUGUSTINE is invoked in favor of the opinion that predestination to glory taken precisely as such is at issue. Without doubt his authority would support this opinion, as FRANZELIN notes (pag. 681), if texts could be cited that clearly speak 1) of predestination to glory taken precisely as such, not of predestination to the grace of faith, justification, good works, or perseverance; 2) show that the order between predestination to grace and predestination to glory is such that the prior predestination to glory is the norm for predestination to merits and grace; 3) exclude from predestination to glory taken precisely as such not only natural human merit, but also supernatural merit acquired with the help of grace. But no such texts are cited, and St. Augustine never taught that different, inverted order of intention and execution. Rather, as shown above (nr. 476), gifts are predestined in the same order in which they are conferred. Nor was Augustine’s dispute on this matter with the Pelagians and Massilians; against them he defended the necessity of grace and the gratuity of grace and glory¹⁸ together—gratuity by which natural human merit is denied.

495. But perhaps an argument could be framed this way: according to St. AUGUSTINE’s teaching, after the sin of our first parents the whole human race is a mass of perdition, a condemned mass, in which God could justly leave everyone. By his mercy God separated some from that mass, and they are saved; the others perish because they were not distinguished from that mass of perdition.

496. De correptione et gratia, c. 7: “Since these things are so, we nevertheless rebuke, and rightly rebuke, those who, having lived well, did not persevere in that good life. By their own will they changed from a good life to an evil one, and therefore they are worthy of rebuke; and if rebuke does them no good, but they persevere in their lost life until death, they are also worthy of eternal condemnation by God. Nor will they excuse themselves by saying, as they say now, ‘Why are we rebuked?’—and then, ‘Why are we condemned, since, for us to return from good to evil, we did not receive the perseverance by which we might have remained in the good?’ They will in no way free themselves from just condemnation by this excuse. For if, as the Truth says, no one is freed from the condemnation incurred through Adam except through faith in Jesus Christ, and yet those who can say that they did not hear the Gospel of Christ will not free themselves from this condemnation, since faith comes by hearing ¹⁹, how much less will those who say, ‘We did not receive perseverance,’ free themselves? For the excuse of those who say, ‘We did not receive the hearing,’ seems more just than that of those who say, ‘We did not receive perseverance,’ since one can say: ‘Human being, you would have persevered in what you had heard and held, if you had wished’; but one cannot say: ‘You would have believed what you had not heard, if you had wished.’”

497. “Accordingly, those who did not hear the Gospel, and those who heard it, were changed for the better, but did not receive perseverance, and those who heard the Gospel and did not wish to come to Christ—that is, to believe in him, for he said, ‘No one comes to me unless it has been given him by my Father’ ²⁰—and those who, because of their tender age, could not believe but could be freed from original guilt only by the laver of regeneration, and who died and perished without receiving it: none of them were distinguished from that lump which is acknowledged to be condemned, since all proceed from one person to condemnation. They are distinguished not by their merits but by the grace of the Mediator, that is, freely justified in the blood of the second Adam. So when we hear, ‘For who distinguishes you? What do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?’ ²¹, we ought to understand that no one can be distinguished from that mass of perdition brought about through the first Adam, except one who has this gift—whoever has it has received it by the grace of the Savior.… ” ²²

498. “Whoever, then, has been distinguished from that original condemnation by this generosity of divine grace—there is no doubt that the Gospel is also arranged to be heard by them, and when they hear it, they believe; and they persevere to the end in the faith that works through love ²³. If at any time they stray, they are corrected and amend; some of them, even if they are not corrected by human beings, return to the way they had left; and some, having received grace at any age, are snatched away by a swift death from the dangers of this life. For he who made them vessels of mercy works all these things in them: he chose them in his Son before the foundation of the world by an election of grace. But if by grace, then not by works; otherwise grace is no longer grace” ²⁴ ²⁵. For they were not called in such a way that they were not elect; hence it was said, “For many are called, but few are elect” ²⁶. Rather, since they were called according to his purpose, they were certainly also chosen by the election of grace, as was said, and not by their preceding merits; for grace is all their merit.…

499. “These people are signified in the letter to Timothy, where, after it had been said that Hymenaeus and Philetus overthrow the faith of some, we immediately hear: ‘But the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his’ ²⁷. The faith of these people, which works through love, certainly either does not fail at all, or, if there are some whose faith fails, it is restored before this life ends; and when the intervening iniquity has been wiped away, perseverance to the end is credited to them. But those who will not persevere, and will thus fall away from Christian faith and conduct, so that the end of this life finds them in that state, are doubtless not to be counted among these people even at the time when they live well and piously. For by God’s foreknowledge and predestination they have not been distinguished from that mass of perdition, and therefore they were not called according to his purpose, and consequently are not elect; they are among those called of whom it was said, ‘Many are called,’ not among those of whom it was said, ‘but few are elect.’ And yet who would deny that they are elect when they believe, are baptized, and live according to God? They are plainly called elect by those who do not know what they will become, not by him who knows that they do not have the perseverance that brings the elect to blessed life, and who knows they stand in such a way that he foreknows they will fall” (ML 44, 923 ss.).

500. Some understand this teaching of St. Augustine as referring to antecedent (negative) reprobation, to which there must correspond predestination to glory before foreseen supernatural merits. They admit that he did not propose this teaching from the beginning, but either proposed it toward the end of his life or inclined strongly toward it. Others deny that the teaching is to be understood of negative reprobation ²⁸, but say that he sets forth an unquestioned Catholic doctrine accepted by all: namely, that no one is rescued from a state of sin and liability to eternal damnation except by the wholly undeserved mercy and grace of God. This, however, is an altogether different question from whether the reprobation of adults is without regard to their demerits, and whether the predestination of adults to glory taken precisely as such is without regard to, and prior to, their foreseen supernatural merits ²⁹.

501. Therefore it is not established that St. Augustine ever taught predestination to glory taken precisely as such before foreseen merits. But even if it were proved that he proposed this opinion at the end of his life, his authority as a doctor of grace approved by the Church could not be invoked in favor of this teaching, for in this matter the Church never approved St. Augustine’s teaching, much less made it her own. In the “Indiculus” of Celestine it is said: “As for the deeper and more difficult parts of the questions that arise, which those who resisted heretics treated at greater length, just as we do not dare to despise them, so we are not obliged to affirm them, because we believe it sufficient for confessing the grace of God, from whose work and favor nothing at all should be taken away, to hold whatever the writings of the Apostolic See have taught us according to the rules set out above” (Denz 142). And when the Jansenists exaggerated St. Augustine’s authority, the proposition was condemned: “Wherever one finds a teaching clearly grounded in Augustine, one may absolutely hold and teach it, without regard for any papal bull” (Denz 1320). Innocent XII applies Celestine’s words specifically to our question. For when the University of Louvain (7 May 1693) had asked the Supreme Pontiff for permission to continue the teaching of its predecessors on grace and predestination, and for the Holy See to declare that the doctrine of grace efficacious in itself and of predestination before foreseen merits had not been condemned or weakened by any Apostolic decrees issued thus far, Innocent XII (1694) said: “In this matter we greatly commend your devotion to the See of St. Peter. But since, as St. Celestine wrote to the bishops of Gaul, the deeper and more difficult parts of the questions that arise, which those who resisted heretics treated at greater length, just as we do not dare to despise them, so we are not obliged to affirm them, we do not think it opportune at present to undertake that more exact treatment of divine aids which our predecessors Clement VIII and Paul V instituted. For we believe it sufficient for confessing the grace of God, from whose work and favor nothing at all should be taken away, to hold whatever the writings of the Apostolic See have taught” ³⁰.

502. ST. THOMAS, whom defenders of predestination to glory before foreseen merits appeal to, did not teach this opinion ³¹.

For St. Thomas, predestination simply speaking is never predestination to glory taken precisely as such, but is always to grace and glory, that is, predestination considered completely. Therefore, when he says predestination is gratuitous and does not arise from merits, he is to be understood as speaking of predestination taken completely ³².
He does concede that if someone wishes to consider predestination only in relation to one of its effects, namely eternal life, it is reasonable to say that God predestines some because he foreknew that they would act well (In ep. ad Rom. cap. 8, lect. 6; see above, nr. 476; cf. 1 q. 23 a. 5; In ep. ad Eph. c. 1 lect. 1) ³³. But this is the doctrine that predestination to glory taken precisely as such is after foreseen merits.
St. Thomas does not hold the points fundamental to the teaching of the Bañezianists:

a) the final state of a human being is the terminus of the antecedent salvific will (above, nr. 448 ss.);

b) hence he does not defend antecedent negative reprobation (cf. PESCH nr. 432 ss.);

c) to prove the gratuity of predestination he does not apply the fundamental principle of Scotus and the Bañezianists: namely, that God must first absolutely will human glory as an end, and then merits and grace as means to this end (on this principle, see nr. 505). Rather, he proves the gratuity of predestination from the gratuity of grace ³⁴;

d) hence, too, he says nothing of an inverted order of intention and execution, of predestination and conferral ³⁵.

503. Mannens summarizes as follows his reasons for showing that St. Thomas’s teaching contains the doctrine that predestination to glory taken precisely as such is after foreseen merits: “He teaches and inculcates this doctrine not only once or in a single way, but repeatedly and in various ways. He teaches it implicitly both in his very clear doctrine of the absolute will for the salvation of human beings consequent upon foreknowledge of their dispositions and works, and in the closely related principle of equality between the order of predestination and execution in human salvation. He presupposes it when he teaches that eternal glory is not gratuitous except in grace, or the root of meriting; and when he derives the gratuity of predestination solely from the gratuity of grace, not from the gratuity of glory. Finally, he declares it most plainly when he teaches in several places that even glory as predestined has a meritorious reason in works of grace; that predestination includes a consequent will, which regards works as the meritorious cause of glory; and that predestination presupposes foreknowledge of future things which, on the part of the free creature, are required beforehand as a motive for the fulfillment of the predestined effect” (pag. 151).

504. But according to ST. THOMAS (1 q. 23 a. 4), this order must be established ³⁶: love, election, predestination. Hence the argument: By gratuitous love God effectively chooses some for glory, and consequently predestines for them the means—efficacious graces and merits—by which they may attain this glory. But this is precisely the doctrine of predestination to glory before foreseen merits. Therefore…

I answer. 1) In article 5 of this question, where St. Thomas explicitly treats the gratuity of predestination, he proves it from the gratuity of grace.

The argument from article 4 might perhaps be valid if election were considered incompletely by St. Thomas, namely, as election to glory; and if predestination were likewise considered incompletely, namely, as predestination to the means, efficacious graces and merits. But in fact St. Thomas explicitly says that the terminus of election is grace and glory (ad 1), so that election and predestination have the same termini: grace and glory. Like theologians generally in the thirteenth century, St. Thomas considers predestination completely ³⁷.

505. The opposing opinion is usually proved in this way by reasoning: “The first fundamental reason. Whoever acts prudently and in an orderly way intends the end before the means. But God acts prudently and in an orderly way, and merits are means while glory is the end. Therefore he intends glory before merits. (Here: a. 4 o. and q. 6 and verit., a. 1 o.)” ³⁸. Scotus seems to have been the first to apply this reasoning explicitly to this matter (above, nr. 405) ³⁹.

I answer. I distinguish the major: he intends absolutely before the necessary means an end to be attained by himself, I grant or pass over; an end—that is, what he proposes to another as an end to be desired by that other and communicated to him as a reward—before the means, I subdistinguish: he intends it conditionally first, I concede; he intends it absolutely first, I deny.

As for the minor: I concede the first part; I contradict the other part of the minor: that the glory of a human being (blessedness) is an end to be attained by or for God, I deny; that it is an end proposed by God to a human being, I concede.

Therefore God must first will glory conditionally, by an antecedent will, but not absolutely. God wills that all adults merit eternal life by supernatural merits, and wills to give them glory if they merit it. Therefore he grants them helps so they can merit it; after their merits have been foreseen, he wills absolutely to give it to them. In this matter insufficient attention is sometimes paid to the fact that human blessedness does not have the character of an end for God. The state of a human being at the goal is no more an end for God than the state of a human being on the way.

Objections

506. 1. The principal reason against antecedent negative reprobation and predestination to glory before foreseen merits is said to be that this doctrine seems incompatible with God’s universal salvific will as it appears in the sources (nr. 453; 470). But the same reason seems capable of being pressed against our opinion; therefore that reason does not seem effective.

Proof of the minor. If it is incompatible with God’s universal salvific will for God, prior to foreseen demerit, freely to exclude someone absolutely from glory or from an efficacious choice for glory, then it seems equally opposed to this universal salvific will for him, prior to foreseen demerit, to prepare merely sufficient grace, when he could give efficacious grace. But the preparation of efficacious grace rather than merely sufficient grace is not after foreseen merits, and the preparation of sufficient grace rather than efficacious grace is prior to demerits—something everyone must concede. Therefore the same difficulty arises for our opinion.

I answer. I grant or pass over the major; I deny the minor. As for its proof, I distinguish the major: that it seems equally opposed if efficacious grace is denied and purely sufficient grace is prepared consequent upon God’s absolute will not to save this person, I concede; for then the serious conditional salvific will toward the reprobate would cease at a point prior to final impenitence, and the salvific will as it appears in revelation would not be preserved. But that it seems equally opposed if sufficient grace is prepared consequent upon the antecedent will to save all human beings, including this person, and with the intention that the person use that help, I deny; for then the salvific will remains at every point prior to final impenitence. I concede the minor; and I distinguish the consequent accordingly: if in our opinion sufficient grace were prepared consequent upon an absolute will not to save this person, I concede; but if it is prepared consequent upon a conditional will to save this person too, I deny.

507. According to the opinion of negative reprobation and predestination to glory before foreseen merits, some people are chosen absolutely for glory, and the rest are absolutely excluded, prior to foreseen merits or demerits. By that very fact, the conditional salvific will toward the former becomes an absolute will, while it ceases toward the rest. Just as consequent upon this absolute will God must prepare for the predestined such an order of life that they infallibly attain the degree of glory determined for them, so too he must prepare the order of life of the negatively reprobated in such a way that their eternal damnation is assured. Therefore he must prepare for them graces with which they will ultimately not cooperate—that is, not graces ultimately efficacious, but merely sufficient. Since there is no longer a conditional salvific will toward the negatively reprobated, the preparation of sufficient grace can no longer proceed from such a salvific will, but from an absolute will not to save them. Therefore, in this opinion, both exclusion from glory and exclusion from efficacious grace cannot be reconciled with the universal salvific will found in the sources (see nr. 464).

508. In our opinion God’s conditional salvific will toward everyone remains at every point before final impenitence. Consequently, God prepares for everyone, in accord with this will, grace by which they can attain salvation if they will; therefore the preparation of every grace flows from the universal salvific will. In choosing the present order, however, and thus in choosing graces, God remains free. By this conditional universal salvific will God has not bound himself to prepare for everyone graces with which they will in fact cooperate, but graces with which they can cooperate if they will. Nor has he in any way bound himself, in place of a grace with which a person does not wish to cooperate, to prepare another grace with which that person does wish to cooperate. In other words, the conditional universal salvific will does not require that efficacious graces be given to all, but at least that sufficient graces be given. Since in this opinion the preparation of sufficient grace proceeds from the universal salvific will, this opinion is entirely consistent with the doctrine of the salvific will as it appears in the sources (above, nr. 465-467).

509. If one asks why God gave this person only sufficient grace and not efficacious grace, we do not answer, “Because by an absolute decree he had already excluded him from glory beforehand,” but, with St. Augustine (above, nr. 383), “We do not know.” “From his antecedent will for salvation, God assigns to all the graces they need, in different ways and degrees according to the plan of his wisdom, willing that all use the graces granted and be saved through them. Yet not in such a way that he has, as it were, bound himself to accommodate human perversity, choosing another grace for people to consent to whenever he sees that they will reject one grace. This is indeed what he does (God), in order to heal all; but he acts according to his judgment, and does not receive the order of healing from the sick person (St. Augustine, De natura et grat. c. 27, 31). For the antecedent salvific will is not absolute. Why it is not absolute, when it could be, is, as I said, a matter for God’s judgment: he preferred to bring good out of evils rather than allow no evils at all. O human being, who are you to answer back to God? Do not ask why God, infinitely wise, good, and just Lord of his gifts, did not choose the economy that people imagine for themselves; rather, ask why people whom God wills to save and make eternally blessed with divine blessedness do not themselves will it, and prefer earth to heaven, the briefest and most wretched pleasures to eternal joys that surpass all understanding, and laughable—or rather lamentable—honors to heavenly glory!” ⁴⁰.

510. 2. Predestination to final perseverance is not after foreseen merits. But predestination to final perseverance includes predestination to glory. Therefore predestination to glory is not after foreseen merits.

I answer. I concede the major; I distinguish the minor: if this means that predestination to glory taken precisely as such is prior to the foreseen merits that a person has at the end of life, I deny; if it means that it is after those foreseen merits, I concede. Or: if it means that predestination to glory precedes predestination to perseverance and is the reason for predestination to perseverance, I deny; if it means that predestination to glory—that is, the absolute will to confer glory—follows predestination to perseverance, I concede. An adult who has the gift of perseverance dies in the state of grace and merits; on account of the merits he has at the end of life, God wills absolutely to give him glory. Therefore this is after foreseen merits ⁴¹. In the opinion that predestination to glory taken precisely as such is before foreseen merits, the account is: because God chose this person absolutely for this degree of glory prior to foreseen merits, he prepared the gift of perseverance for him in such a way that he would die with so many merits that this glory would correspond to them as a reward; predestination to perseverance follows predestination to glory. In our opinion, God prepares the gift of perseverance for this person, who prays much; because the person dies in the state of grace, and because he dies with these merits, God wills to give him that degree of glory as a reward for his merits: predestination to glory follows predestination to perseverance.

But then the distinction between the predestined and the reprobate seems to depend on human free will and not on God.

I answer. The distinction arises from the fact that God freely chose this order and not another, which he could also have chosen. If God chose the present order because these people will cooperate with grace and those will not—or even because these people would cooperate with grace and those would not—it could in a certain sense be said that the human being himself is ultimately the one who distinguishes himself. We absolutely deny this, and say with St. Augustine (above, nr. 384) that God has not revealed to us why he chose precisely this order and not another; therefore we are altogether ignorant of it (cf. De gratia Redemptoris, pag. 363). That in the order God chose independently of human free will some are saved and others are not is due to this: in this order some cooperate with grace and others do not. If God had chosen another order, perhaps different people would have been saved and damned, according to whether each person in that order cooperated with grace or did not cooperate. God knows what would happen in the various orders he could choose, and he knows this also of the present order. Thus his free choice of this order is God’s special love toward those who are saved in this order, toward the predestined.

In all these and similar objections, keep in view what was said in nr. 465-467.

511. If, then, one asks: Why did God choose precisely the present order among the various possible orders? We answer: We do not know. But we add that he did not choose it because he had antecedently chosen some human beings absolutely and exclusively for eternal life, and willed to give eternal life absolutely to them alone.

If one asks: Why, in this present order which he freely chose absolutely, does God will to give eternal life absolutely to these particular people? We answer: because by the knowledge of vision he foresaw that they would merit eternal life for themselves by cooperating with grace and would die in the state of grace.

If one asks: Why does God positively reprobate the rest in the present order? We answer: because by the knowledge of vision he foresaw that they would sin and die in a state of mortal sin.

On the certainty of predestination and reprobation

514. God freely chose the present order as wholly determinate. Just as each and every thing in this order is determined concretely down to the smallest differences, and all these things are known to God (for example, the number of human beings from the beginning of the world to its end), so too it is wholly determinate and known to God which and how many human beings will be saved, and which and how many will be damned. After God has chosen the present order absolutely, no change is now possible: the predestined will not be damned, the reprobate will not be saved; predestination and reprobation are entirely certain. Hence it is certain that the predestined person, after committing a mortal sin, will receive efficacious grace for conversion, will turn back, and will die in the state of grace. Likewise, it is certain that the reprobate person, if in the state of grace, will not remain in that state, but will commit a mortal sin and die in the state of mortal sin. Since, however, according to the position set out above, these things are so not as a consequence of an absolute decree to save these alone and not to save the rest, the certainty of predestination and reprobation and their immutability give no occasion either for despair or for negligence in God’s service (cf. nr. 465-467).

515. Those who are saved, the predestined, are inscribed in the book of life², and, in the same sense in which predestination is certain, it is also impossible for anyone to be erased from the book of life. In what sense, however, someone can be erased from the book of life, S. THOMAS explains as follows³. The book of life is a record of those ordained to eternal life. This ordination can be by divine predestination, and this ordination never fails; therefore those who are ordained to eternal life by predestination are simply written in the book of life and can no longer be erased from it. Ordination to eternal life can also be had by grace, for whoever has grace is worthy of eternal life; but this ordination to eternal life can fail. Hence those who are ordained to eternal life by grace alone are written in the book of life in a qualified sense, and they can be erased from the book of life.

516. Predestination, then, is objectively entirely certain; the predestined person himself, however, does not by himself have strict certainty of his predestination. CALVIN taught: “No one is truly faithful except the one who, relying on the promises of divine benevolence toward him, confidently anticipates salvation without doubt”⁴. The COUNCIL OF TRENT, session 6, chapter 12: “No one, so long as he lives in this mortal life, ought to presume so far concerning the hidden mystery of divine predestination as to determine for certain that he is altogether among the predestined, as though it were true that one who has been justified either can no longer sin, or, if he has sinned, ought to promise himself certain repentance. For, unless by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God has chosen for himself” (DENZ 805). Canon 15: “If anyone says that a person reborn and justified is bound by faith to believe that he is certainly among the predestined, let him be anathema” (DENZ 825). Canon 16: “If anyone says that he will certainly possess that great gift of perseverance to the end, with absolute and infallible certainty, unless he has learned this by special revelation, let him be anathema” (DENZ 826). This “uncertainty fosters humility and fervor, so that one who stands may take care not to fall, and one who has fallen may rise quickly. Yet it can be well joined with this uncertainty to believe that God sincerely wills our salvation and wills to give perseverance to us when we ask, provided we ask in the proper way, which especially includes indefatigable constancy. There can also be joined the confidence by which we place all our hope in God, who does not abandon us unless he is first abandoned”⁵.

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Introduction

Pars I: On the knowability of God

Sectio I: On natural knowledge of God

The teaching of the Church on natural knowledge of God

Thesis I: God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created things by the natural light of human reason

Thesis II: The existence of God can be demonstrated

Thesis III: Natural knowledge of God in this life is only mediate

Thesis IV: By this natural knowledge we know God not through his proper form but through the form of creatures, which are his effects; yet we know not merely extrinsic denominations but truly, although imperfectly, the quiddity of God

Sectio II: On supernatural knowledge of God

Thesis I: The intuitive vision of God is possible for human beings

Thesis II: The intuitive vision of God is absolutely supernatural

Sectio III: On the universality of knowledge of God

Thesis I: Knowledge of God is so universal that there are no adult negative atheists

Pars II: On the divine perfections

Pars III: On the knowledge of God

Thesis I: God knows himself and all things that exist and can exist besides himself, including those that will occur through the free action of creatures and those that would occur if certain conditions were fulfilled

On the division of divine knowledge

On the knowledge of God which is the cause of things

Further explanations concerning the knowledge of God

From the history of theologians' opinions on divine knowledge of future contingents

Thesis II: God does not know absolutely future free acts in a cause proximately ready to act, nor in a decree of physical predetermination, but, given his knowledge of conditionally future free acts, in a decree to bring about the conditions

Thesis III: God does not know conditionally future free acts in a moment prior to their futurition

Pars IV: On providence and predestination

Sectio I: On divine providence