De Deo uno

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:

1. Predestination considered completely is gratuitous.

2. Predestination to glory considered precisely is gratuitous (without regard to merits).

3. 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.

4. 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:

1. Predestination considered completely is gratuitous.

2. Predestination to glory considered precisely is gratuitous, that is, before foreseen merits.

3. Antecedent negative reprobation.

4. 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:

1. Scotus (nr. 406 ss.).

2. 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.

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

The third class defends these propositions:

1. Predestination taken completely is gratuitous.

2. Predestination to glory considered precisely is after foreseen supernatural merits (by the knowledge of vision).

3. No antecedent reprobation, positive or negative; rather, the reprobation of adults follows foreseen personal demerits.

4. 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:

1. 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.

2. Predestination to glory considered precisely is after foreseen merits.

3. There is no antecedent reprobation, but reprobation follows foreknowledge of sin.

4. 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).