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WesleyF
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Has the church ever spoken about whether only God’s elect go to heaven? Do only the elect go to heaven in the Catholic church’s understanding?
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MichaelHowling
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ONLY saints are in heaven .
the elect are not some special class that were chosen specifically to go to heaven in that they were the only ones given grace to enter into the divine life.
Grace is a free gift from God calling ALL to come to Him and take in His own blessed life.
The church is in opposition to this calvanist way of thinking that there are select people predestined for eternal life while everyone else is doomed. We as catholics believe all are called and that God has grace sufficient for everyone and that it is His will that “all men be saved” . We, for our part have to accept and participate with His grace through a life of faith and works and adherence to His law of love.
God bless
the elect are not some special class that were chosen specifically to go to heaven in that they were the only ones given grace to enter into the divine life.
Grace is a free gift from God calling ALL to come to Him and take in His own blessed life.
The church is in opposition to this calvanist way of thinking that there are select people predestined for eternal life while everyone else is doomed. We as catholics believe all are called and that God has grace sufficient for everyone and that it is His will that “all men be saved” . We, for our part have to accept and participate with His grace through a life of faith and works and adherence to His law of love.
God bless
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NeedImprovement
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The “elect” is also understood as those chosen - chosen particularly for a mission. In this sense , all Christians have a role to fulfill in responding to God’s grace :
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R_C
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Please, understand that God does not predestine anyone to Hell. Everyone is called to be a saint.
However, not all follow God till heaven. It is a consequence of God’s omniscience that He knows beforehand who will persevere. These we call “predestined” or “elect”. But God didn’t pick some and exclude others…He just knows who will persevere and who won’t. And to all of us He revealed that there is no temptation we cannot overcome, and that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Unfortunately some choose to willfully disobey God even unto death.
However, not all follow God till heaven. It is a consequence of God’s omniscience that He knows beforehand who will persevere. These we call “predestined” or “elect”. But God didn’t pick some and exclude others…He just knows who will persevere and who won’t. And to all of us He revealed that there is no temptation we cannot overcome, and that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Unfortunately some choose to willfully disobey God even unto death.
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PaulVF
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Not so at all. In the context that Calvinists and some others view ‘predestination’, it leaves out the factor of free will. For example if you or I were already predestined for heaven or hell, why even try then to live a life pleasing to God?
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ericc
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I struggled between predestination vs foreknowledge. My thinking goes like this: In foreknowledge, God does not actively cause something to happen. He just know what is going to happen. In this case, who will persevere and who will not. He will not cause you to sin although he knows how you are going to act. Whereas predestination carries an implication that God decided (ie he acted ) who will be saved and who won’t be saved regardless of what you do. A just God should not predestined anyone to hell but can predestine someone to heaven since he is the divine potter. That is my current state of mind after reading various books and posts on CAF and trying to balance between fairness, freewill and omnipotence. I am still learning so I am open to new knowledge.
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R_C
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Excellent. Indeed, we could not, for instance, deny that Christ knew Judas would betray Him. However, He did not “destine” him to do so…in fact, He gave him every chance there was, and ultimately He would not have rejected him after the betrayal if he had sincerely repented.
The name “pre-destination” should not be confused with “destiny”…I assume it is an imperfect term, like “transmutation” used to be…for instance, if God were to cause some to go to Hell, we speak of the heresy of “double predestination”…however, some do argue that for those whom God knows will persevere, He will grant special graces, given that they are open and receptive to them…I assume it’s like the Sacraments: they act ex opere operato, however the disposition of our heart varies the degree of grace we receive.
I think St. Paul makes it very obvious that to think too much about predestination is not good, when he writes:
Now, if there is anyone who could have been more certain of being an “elect”, it would be one to whom Christ spoke, whom evangelized half of the known world, who had extraordinary revelations and mystical experiences, and who wrote a great deal of what we now read as the New Testament. Yet he speaks of the concrete possibility of he himself losing salvation, in several letters. So there’s no point in being scared at the thought that maybe I am not “predestined” (or, au contraire, to act on a spirit of passiveness and cross my arms in my delusion that I am). We should know that all are called to be saints and given the means to become such, and work day by day with faith through charity.
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guanophore
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Or more properly, all that are in heaven are God’s elect.
Rev 2:7
To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.
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ericc
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No one knows who is predestined to hell/heaven. One can declare that they have been saved because their religion/pastor said so based upon their personal interpretation what they think the Holy Scriptures meant. But declaring it so doesn’t make it so. God has given us sufficient intelligence and opportunity to investigate fully his teachings (Bible, Church, ECF, Saints experiences) on what has transpired during the last 2000 yrs. On deep personal reflection, one would know if we have cherry picked what we want to believe and what we have chosen to turn a blind eye/closed ears to others that are not “convenient” or “difficult to blend in” to arrive at a holistic conclusion as to what Christ intended. The day will come when we stand in front of our Lord and justify our actions and I hope we don’t plead “ignorance”. One may get by some earthly judges but not the Divine Judge. Our soul is at stake here. I am not going to gamble with it by relying on an excuse “already predestined, so no further action necessary”.
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God_Seeker_1
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Actually, lets just read Paul in Romans 9. He uses the example of Jacob and Esau, and specifically, how BEFORE they did any good or evil, God chose Jacob and not Esau. Similarly, God is pictured as a potter, and therefore somehow he makes from one lump of clay a vessel for dishonor and a vessel for honor. Just read Romans 9 without any presuppositions (as much as there can be). The whole question concerns how God elected only certain Israelites out of Israel to actually receive the promises of God, which explains the present day apostacy.
St. Augustine believed in double predestination, why do you not?
There is a term out there that is called compatiblism. This says that two truths must’ve upheld,1) God has predestined all for heaven or hell 2) men are free to choose life or death. They seem to contradict each other, but they do not. Think of the crucifixion of Jesus, this was both a free act of the executioners and it was ordainsd by God before the world, before any of the players and actors were in existence to know what was going on.
St. Augustine believed in double predestination, why do you not?
There is a term out there that is called compatiblism. This says that two truths must’ve upheld,1) God has predestined all for heaven or hell 2) men are free to choose life or death. They seem to contradict each other, but they do not. Think of the crucifixion of Jesus, this was both a free act of the executioners and it was ordainsd by God before the world, before any of the players and actors were in existence to know what was going on.
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NeedImprovement
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Definitions from: Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon, S.J. LINK
God Seeker:
. . . not to be confused with -
Although the previous post seems to agree with the realization of the principal stages of predestination - as it applies to us, in time , the wording -
God Seeker:
- does not appear to admit to the truth that the Son of God coexists with the Father from all eternity (so , definitely ‘in existence’) . Although in time exclusively, He may have had yet to take on his humanity, God the Son knew perfectly what would go on, what had gone on, and what was going on. Actually the whole reason He took on His humanity , was to redeem us. It can be said that while we are born into this world - to live and to live for God, the Son of God came, taking on His humanity, ultimately, to* die for us* - that was His mission; and He knew it.
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ericc
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On the Jacob election, this is positive predestination. Not an issue. But it is not clear on Esau that symmetrically he is positively reprobated. I read elsewhere that Biblical linguistics did not have the ability to differentiate various degrees of love. So the word “hate” could be that God loved Esau less than Jacob and not hate as in hate. I have not found supporting data to indicate that Esau was positively reprobated ie in hell. Is Romans 9 in itself sufficient to support double predestination even though there are other equally compelling verses worth considering such as 1 Tim 2:4?
I believe St Augustine’s version of double predestination was not widely supported/accepted by predecessors/successors and there are alternative schools of thought such as Thomas Aquinas and Luis de Molina. As far as I can discern the Church has permitted various views as long as they include predestination of the Elect and freewill and non-self contradiction among the scriptures.
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CopticChristian
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Wesley,
No, there has not been formal declaration about who goes to heaven that I am aware of. The notion of the elect is not declared but speculated and said to be existent however it remains mystery.
When I was interested in this topic I found Father William Most…and I have his work in a binder somewhere. It is available in book form…it is a mystery…
amazon.com/Grace-Predestination-Salvific-Will-God/dp/0931888662
Grace, Predestination, and the Salvific Will of God: New Answers to Old Questions [Paperback]
William G. Most
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Deconi
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It’s probably more accurate to say - only those who elect God before the end of life are in Heaven.
- see the prisoner on the cross as an example -
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R_C
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Because others have offered a much more solid reasoning and a reasonable refutation of double predestination.
<< In order to emphasize how mysterious and unapproachable is Divine election, the Council of Trent calls predestination “hidden mystery”. Though Judas went to perdition of his own free will, while Peter faithfully co-operated with the grace of conversion offered him, why did not God give to Judas the same efficacious, infallibly successful grace of conversion as to St. Peter? The reasonable reply is the word of St. Augustine: “Inscrutabilia sunt judicia Dei” (the judgments of God are inscrutable).
The counterpart of the predestination of the good is the *reprobation *of the wicked, or the eternal decree of God to cast all men into hell of whom He foresaw that they would die in the state of sin as his enemies. If we understand eternal condemnation to be an absolute unconditional decree of God, its theological possibility is affirmed or denied according as the question whether it involves a positive, or only a negative, reprobation.
The conceptual difference between the two kinds of reprobation lies in this, that negative reprobation merely implies the absolute will not to grant the bliss of heaven while positive reprobation means the absolute will to condemn to hell. In other words, those who are reprobated merely negatively are numbered among the non-predestined from all eternity; those who are reprobated positively are directly predestined to hell from all eternity and have been created for this very purpose.
It was Calvin who elaborated the repulsive doctrine that an absolute Divine decree from all eternity positively predestined part of mankind to hell and, in order to obtain this end effectually, also to sin.
If we consider that God’s sanctity will never allow Him to will sin positively even though He foresees it in His permissive decree with infallible certainty, and that His justice can foreordain, and in time actually inflict, hell as a punishment only by reason of the sin foreseen, we understand the definition of eternal reprobation given by Peter Lombard (I. Sent., dist. 40): “it is the foreknowledge of the wickedness of some men and the foreordaining of their damnation”.
The Catholic advocates of an unconditional reprobation impose a twofold restriction on their hypothesis:
(a) that the punishment of hell can, in time, be inflicted only on account of sin, and from all eternity can be decreed only on account of foreseen malice, while sin itself is not to be regarded as the sheer effect of the absolute Divine will, but only as the result of God’s permission;
(b) that the eternal plan of God can never intend a positive reprobation to hell, but only a negative reprobation, that is to say, an exclusion from heaven.
An unconditional and positive predestination of the reprobate not only to hell, but also to sin, was taught especially by Calvin. Infralapsarianism was also held by Jansenius, who taught that God had preordained from the massa damnata of mankind one part to eternal bliss, the other to eternal pain, decreeing at the same time to deny to those positively damned the necessary graces by which they might be converted.
Against such blasphemous teachings the Second Synod of Orange in 529 and again the Council of Trent had pronounced a condemnation of error. These condemnations are perfectly justified, because the heresy of Predestinarianism, in direct opposition to the clearest texts of Scripture, denied the universality of God’s salvific will as well as of redemption through Christ (cf. Wisdom 11:24 sq.; 1 Timothy 2:1 sq.), nullified God’s mercy towards the hardened sinner (Ezekiel 33:11; Romans 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9), did away with the freedom of the will to do good or evil, and hence with the merit of good actions and the guilt of the bad, and finally destroyed the Divine attributes of wisdom, justice, veracity, goodness, and sanctity.
According to the doctrinal decisions of general and particular synods, God infallibly foresees and immutably preordains from eternity all future events, all fatalistic necessity, however, being barred and human liberty remaining intact. Consequently man is free whether he accepts grace and does good or whether he rejects it and does evil. Just as it is God’s true and sincere will that all men, no one excepted, shall obtain eternal happiness, so, too, Christ has died for all, not only for the predestined, or for the faithful, though it is true that in reality not all avail themselves of the benefits of redemption.
Though God preordained both eternal happiness and the good works of the elect, yet, on the other hand, He predestined no one positively to hell, much less to sin. Consequently, just as no one is saved against his will, so the reprobate perish solely on account of their wickedness.
God foresaw the everlasting pains of the impious from all eternity, and preordained this punishment on account of their sins, though He does not fail therefore to hold out the grace of conversion to sinners, or pass over those who are not predestined. As long as the reprobate live on earth, they may be accounted true Christians and members of the Church, just as on the other hand the predestined may be outside the pale of Christianity and of the Church. >>
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