While you are free to take offense at anything you choose to be offended by, to offend you was most certainly not my intent. Since to instruct the ignorant is in fact a Work of Mercy, that was my intent: to help you to learn. Ignorance is simply a condition of lack of knowledge, and you seem to lack particular knowledge. I am looking out for your best interest! I am encouraging you to educate yourself regarding the proper theological use of terms.
I won’t apologize for kindly encouraging you to learn. But perhaps I was too brief in my remark. I would have thought the link I provided was clear enough, but, it seems not. So you are offended — not my fault. But perhaps I should have taken the time to explain to you clearly, exactly why I held that you were in want of some instruction. While I do not perceive that I had that duty, I allow that I may have assumed too much. So in any case, I mean to repair, in this post, for any lack in my previous post.
Your statement of what you call “obvious” is in fact false. I am not unaware of Calvin’s abuse of the theological term. I thought I was talking to a Catholic. I was unprepared for a discussion of Protestant Error.
As someone else also pointed out to you, the term “predestined” is from Holy Scripture. Thus, it is Catholic Doctrine that God predestines His Elect. Now, it is also Catholic Doctrine, and likewise Scriptural, that God leaves man in the hand of his own counsel, i.e. gives him free will. Calvin denied this; Calvinism is heresy. Calvin’s false doctrine of predestinationism is that man, as a result of the Fall, is so entirely depraved (“Total Depravity”) that his free will is extinguished. Therefore, according to Calvin, God has foreordained His elect, and saves them without requiring anything at all on their part. (“Unconditional Election”) Further, not all are saved. (“Limited Atonement” — but that not all are saved is also Catholic Doctrine) Since there is no free will, grace works, according to Calvin, entirely without the co-operation of the human being. (“Irresistible Grace”) And finally, according to Calvin, once a person believes, he is forever saved, and no amount of sinning can ever earn him eternal damnation (“Perseverance of the Elect.”)
By contrast: God’s Church teaches that human free will is attenuated, not extinguished, by the Fall; that the elect are so not only by God’s choice but also by their own co-operation with grace; that God positively wills the salvation of all without exception; that grace can be resisted, and requires co-operation; and finally, that perseverance in grace essentially consists in the soul’s co-operation with grace. Mysteriously, even this co-operation, is itself a grace.
To sum up: the Catholic Church maintains that human free will is real, and that salvation is not an affair that is all on the side of God and none on the side of man, but a co-operative venture between God and man.
That said, the fact of a soul being led by God into total co-operation with grace (whether in this life or by Fire in Purgatory) has a name given to it in theology, taken from Scripture. It is called predestination.
I have very little interest in discussing the nuances of Calvin’s heresy. I am not a Calvinist heretic. I was a little bit surprised that first of all, you would state, “predestination is condemned by the Church,” when the reality is that predestination is taught by the Church; it is Calvinism that is condemned. And second, that you would assume, on a Catholic forum, that someone using a term from Catholic theology was using it in an inaccurate and heretical sense.
I assumed you were in good faith and were actually unaware of your error; that is why I asked you, kindly, to educate yourself.
It is a case of confusing natural evil with moral evil. The human race has polluted the world and even caused earthquakes but there is abundant evidence that accidents, diseases, disasters and deformities occurred long before our ancestors appeared on the scene…