Predestination

[MarcoPG]

What you say is true and in accordance both with the Early Fathers and the Molinist Jesuits, however Augustine and Aquinas thought differently. This is the root of my concern, because this school has naturally been prominent historically in the West due to the pre-eminence of Augustine and the Thomist Revival of the 19th century.

I don’t see in the passages that you report any other doctrine of predestination that we already had in Paul’s letters. The elect in Heaven, The unfaithful in Hell.

And if election and predestination is conditional, why is Grace an unconditional gift?
I mean, conditional choice of God for the elect, knowing his merits, is justice since the man’s will was the same as GOd’s will (he did the right choice). The merits are foreseen, but he still needs the grace of Jesus to obtain them, and he has to say yes to God in Time.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

I agree that it is a very difficult subject.

To add:

§ 13. The Mystery of Reprobation

1. Concept and Reality of Reprobation

By Reprobation is understood the eternal Resolve of God’s Will to exclude certain rational creatures from eternal bliss. While God, by His grace, positively co-operates in the supernatural merits, which lead to beatification, He merely permits sin, which leads to eternal damnation.

Regarding the content of the resolve of Reprobation, a distinction is made between positive and negative Reprobation, according as the Divine resolve of Reprobation has for its object condemnation to the eternal punishment of hell, or exclusion from the Beatific Vision. Having regard to the reason for Reprobation, a distinction is made between conditioned and unconditioned (absolute) Reprobation, in so far as the Divine resolve of Reprobation is dependent on, or independent of the prevision of future demerits.

God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)

The reality of Reprobation is not formally defined, but it is the general teaching of the Church. The Synod of Valence (855) teaches: fatemur praedestinationem impiorum ad mortem (D 322). It is declared in Mt. 25:41: “Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels,” and by Rom. 9:22: “Vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction.”

Ott, L. (1957). Fundamentals of Catholic dogma (pp. 244–245)

322 [DS 628] Can. 3. But also it has seemed right concerning predestination and truly it is right according to the apostolic authority which says: “Or has not the potter power over the clay, from the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, but another unto dishonor?” [Rom. 9:21] where also he immediately adds: “What if God willing to show His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath fitted or prepared for destruction, so that He might show the riches of His grace on the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared unto glory” [Rom. 9:22 f.]: faithfully we confess the predestination of the elect to life, and the predestination of the impious to death; in the election, moreover, of those who are to be saved, the mercy of God precedes the merited good. In the condemnation, however, of those who are to be lost, the evil which they have deserved precedes the just judgment of God. In predestination, however, (we believe) that God has determined only those things which He Himself either in His gratuitous mercy or in His just judgment would do according to Scripture which says: “Who has done the things which are to be done” [Isa. 45:11, LXX]; in regard to evil men, however, we believe that God foreknew their malice, because it is from them, but that He did not predestine it, because it is not from Him. [DS 629] (We believe) that God, who sees all things, foreknew and predestined that their evil deserved the punishment which followed, because He is just, in whom, as Saint Augustine says, there is concerning all things everywhere so fixed a decree as a certain predestination. To this indeed be applies the saying of Wisdom: “Judgments are prepared for scorners, and striking hammers for the bodies of fools” [Prov. 19:29]. Concerning this unchangeableness of the foreknowledge of the predestination of God, through which in Him future things have already taken place, even in Ecclesiastes the saying is well understood: “I know that all the works which God has made continue forever. We cannot add anything, nor take away those things which God has made that He may be feared” [Eccles. 3:14]. “But we do not only not believe the saying that some have been predestined to evil by divine power,” namely as if they could not be different, “but even if there are those who wish to believe such malice, with all detestation,” as the Synod of Orange, “we say anathema to them” [see n. 200].
(St. Leo IV 847-855AD - Council of Valence III 855)
Denzinger, H., Deferrari, R. J., & Rahner, K. (1954). The sources of Catholic dogma (pp. 129–130)

I think the principle is that no amount of grace will change the reprobate, unless his freedom of choice is completely violated and basically forced to cooperate. This would be what Calvinism calls [Irresistible Grace].

I don’t think the predestination teaching based on Augustine/Aquinas is Calvin-Lite. But that Calvinism took it out of context and added to much to the concept.

 

[Vouthon]

I don’t see in the passages that you report any other doctrine of predestination that we already had in Paul’s letters. The elect in Heaven, The unfaithful in Hell.

And if election and predestination is conditional, why is Grace an unconditional gift?
I mean, conditional choice of God for the elect, knowing his merits, is justice since the man’s will was the same as GOd’s will (he did the right choice). The merits are foreseen, but he still needs the grace of Jesus to obtain them, and he has to say yes to God in Time.

I think what should be made clear is that no orthodox Catholic (or Christian) would or does dispute predestination (which is de fide). All I am saying is that, in my humble estimation, Augustine and Aquinas’ version of it is far to repressive of human freedom, as well portraying God as potentially unjust to the human mind, and is not substantiated by the pre-Augustine Latin Fathers, any of the Greek or Eastern Fathers and the later Molinists.

If I may use a more specific quote from St. Justin Martyr:

“For if it is predetermined that this man will be good, and this other man will be evil, neither is the first one meritorious nor the latter man to be blamed…”

This hits at part of my distaste for the Thomist model (even though it doesn’t believe in a predestination to evil, although denial of efficacious grace has the exact same result as the Calvinist double predestination, namely hell!).

 

[MarcoPG]

I think what should be made clear is that no orthodox Catholic (or Christian) would or does dispute predestination (which is de fide). All I am saying is that, in my humble estimation, Augustine and Aquinas’ version of it is far to repressive of human freedom, as well portraying God as potentially unjust to the human mind, and is not substantiated by the pre-Augustine Latin Fathers, any of the Greek or Eastern Fathers and the later Molinists.

If I may use a more specific quote from St. Justin Martyr:

This hits at part of my distaste for the Thomist model (even though it doesn’t believe in a predestination to evil, although denial of efficacious grace has the exact same result as the Calvinist double predestination, namely hell!).

I don’t understand the way you do, and i read the same passages. Nor i am saying you are doubting the faith. But what i read is that predetermination of the good man is made by God based on his future choices, which are present to God. it is not unjust to me. Surely it is confusing, but not impossible to understand. The good man is not good per se. nor the bad bad per se. He did things in his life and God sees that outside of time and rewards or punishes. Then these man have to live their life and don’t know what God already knows.

If you read Saint Justin in context, it is saying " if it is not so (that people is rewarded because they merit, but because an ineluctable fate is involved) then no one should be blamed." But that was an example of the contrary he meant to be the Truth

By efficacious grace, do you mean grace sufficient for our salvation, or irresistible grace?
Becaue grace and works are needed. We are saved by grace, and by faith we do the works wo grant us heaven. but we need to collaborate.

 

[Vouthon]

I don’t understand the way you do, and i read the same passages. Nor i am saying you are doubting the faith. But what i read is that predetermination of the good man is made by God based on his future choices, which are present to God. it is not unjust to me. Surely it is confusing, but not impossible to understand. The good man is not good per se. nor the bad bad per se. He did things in his life and God sees that outside of time and rewards or punishes. Then these man have to live their life and don’t know what God already knows.

What you have said is what I believe, I think you are misinterpreting me. I am using St. Justin Martyr positively to highlight where I think St. Thomas and St. Augustine went wrong.

Unlike St. Justin, St. Irenaeus and the other early Fathers, they did not believe that in your own words: “predetermination of the good man is made by God based on his future choices, which are present to God”. Rather they thought that God predetermined the elect to salvation without reference to their foreseen (future) merits.

For the Thomist, God predestines us prior to foreseen merits, since whether we even do a good act in the first place is based entirely on His sovereign will. Therefore according to the Thomists, God decides whether to predestine us or not, and then he decides to make us do the acts, or rather give us the graces to do the acts, which would lead us to our being saved. All the rest are not given the efficacious grace to attain salvation, because according to the Thomist doctrine of “predilection”, God loves one person more than another.

It is deterministic and appalling to me.

 

[MarcoPG]

What you have said is what I believe, I think you are misinterpreting me. I am using St. Justin Martyr positively to highlight where I think St. Thomas and St. Augustine went wrong.

Unlike St. Justin, St. Irenaeus and the other early Fathers, they did not believe that in your own words: “predetermination of the good man is made by God based on his future choices, which are present to God”. Rather they thought that God predetermined the elect to salvation without reference to their foreseen (future) merits.

I see, but you use Saint Justin opposed to the others, and I think they all say the same thing, maybe the emphasis is on different aspects.

 

[Vouthon]

I see, but you use Saint Justin opposed to the others, and I think they all say the same thing, maybe the emphasis is on different aspects.

But this cannot be true, or else there would never have been a Thomist-Molinist debate.

The Thomists, following Aquinas and Augustine, reject the idea that God predestines the elect based on their foreseen merits.

 

[thinkandmull]

Not so. Someone of greater insight into this admittedly opaque and mind-numbing area of theology is entitled to correct me, but as far as I am aware according to St. Thomas and St. Augustine one actually will not be saved without so-called “efficacious grace”. In other words, those who receive merely sufficient grace, will never attain to salvation but always fail without that “extra push”.

In other words then, according to Domingo Banez’s interpretation of Aquinas, God does not predestine anyone positively to hell but denies the efficacious grace necessary for salvation to all but an “elect” group arbitrarily chosen not according to foreseen merits, thereby knowing that the others will never be able reach heaven. How is this not “Calvinism-Lite”? I know that I am not allowed to label Thomism as semi-Calvinism, just as Thomists are not allowed to label Molinism as semipelagianism, however I fail in all honesty to see how it isn’t and I apologize for saying so.

The result is therefore the same as Calvin’s reprehensible doctrine of double predestination, even if the Thomist model stays within the bounds of orthodoxy, since without efficacious grace no one will attain to salvation.

The Thomist model therefore creates what is to me a purposeless universe: a group of elect are eternally predestined to heaven and will receive the efficacious grace to make this a reality, while the rest are doomed without it.

If I am wrong please correct me but as far as I see it, the Thomist universe is one run by a tyrannical Deity who arbitrarily chooses to grant the grace needed for absolutely attaining salvation only to a select group, while knowing that without this special grace all the rest are doomed.

For me, this destroys the very gift of freewill that makes life, cooperating with saving grace and the entire meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice meaningful.

The frustrating thing is that scholars are agreed that prior to Augustine, NO CHURCH FATHER SUBSCRIBED TO THIS MODEL OF PREDESTINATION. And in the East where Augustine’s sanctity was accepted but not his works or theology, it never took ground either.

Ludwig Ott admits this openly:

This is reinforced by Calvin himself, who had read the Greek Fathers and knew that they did not teach the same as Augustine. He wrote:

Calvin’s low opinion of the Greek fathers comes across loud and clear in the following sentence:

In other words, Calvin is stating that while he was fully aware that the early fathers (“all the ancients”) did not affirm his understanding of predestination, Augustine is the sole exception and so nothing the others said mattered a jot.

How can I not feel bitterness towards St. Augustine, despite his greatness and indisputable sanctity, for this miserable conception of salvation?

He started out as what modern scholars would call, in hindsight, a ‘Molinist’ and then moved to an extreme predestinarian position so as to crush the opposing extreme heresy of Pelagianism.

It is obvious to anyone who genuinely studies the earliest fathers that Augustine’s conception of predestination did not as yet exist. Indeed St. Vincent of Lerins thought Augustine’s model of predestination a “dangerous novelty”…yet St. Thomas embraced it???

This leads me to the conclusion that the Christian East, both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic in Communion with Rome, has preserved the purest and most original approach to predestination whereas the West has followed the thoughts of one man - and one whom we know was highly fallible in other areas of his thought too.

I just cannot accept the Thomist/Augustinian conception of predestination.

I feel as if I’ve already answered this

 

[thinkandmull]

ALL these Catholic positions can be reconciled. God foreknows who will be evil because it is grace which prevents evil. God gives the grace each person is meant to receive in their little story of life. God is fair. Romans 9 says that God elected Jacob BEFORE he had done any wrong, AND because he would do right, since he will receive efficacious grace. But Romans says that men are like clay. The damned were not forced to do evil. Augustine said NOTHING that was wrong or unfair or unmerciful. Perhaps merely hard to understand

 

[thinkandmull]

Someday there will be a Lutheran-Catholic Agreement like reconciliation between Thomists and Molinists. Merely difference in emphasis

 

[thinkandmull]

Augustine once debated a heretic about this. The heretic asked him “If it is because of grace, then why does he reject us”. He said, “Because you chose that”

 

[fhansen]

Augustine once debated a heretic about this. The heretic asked him “If it is because of grace, then why does he reject us”. He said, “Because you chose that”

Yes, grace is always resistible. Adam was the first to do so.

 

[MarcoPG]

But this cannot be true, or else there would never have been a Thomist-Molinist debate.

The Thomists, following Aquinas and Augustine, reject the idea that God predestines the elect based on their foreseen merits.

But you know that a debate can be based on misunderstandings (cf. the Filioque). When I mean a thing can be the same here and there, it means it could be implied by those who seem to reject it. So I don’t think they reject what they would know to be true, they reject parts of a doctrine which do not consider the whole picture. For example, you are talking about merits of a person, and say it can’t be that God judged because of the merits they would not already have had. But if Eternity comes in, it gets clear. So always be careful.
As said, we can reconcile the two positions.
Another thing is, as hard as it sounds, a Church father could be wrong since they are not the Magisterium. That is not to say well, one inexact opinion discredits the whole thought, nor that the fathers teach errors, but there are some things which were not as clear as they are today.

 

[MarcoPG]

ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/AUGUSTIN.htm

THis should cast some light also

 

[MarcoPG]

Thanks for this!
So, to sum it up in a couple words: God knows who is to go to Heaven or Hell, but He does not force us to. Correct-ish?

Yes exactly. Nevertheless I can’t find a way to explain that God still creates someone, knowing that he would go to hell. Could someone help? I repeat that I know it is not God causing it, but people thing it is cruel to create someone who will go to hell, even by his own will. The idea of antecedent will and consequent will should help, don’t you think?

Thanks.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I’ve had a quick skim and it appears that Fr. Most is sympathetic to Thomism and believes in negative reprobation, no, albeit in a more attractive form?

I support with St. Ambrose when he taught: “He did not predestine before He foreknew, but for those whose merits He foresaw, He predestined the reward” (De fide, V, vi, 83).

The belief in predestination without foreseeing merits is something that Ambrose clearly did not believe, nor any father pre-Augustine.

St. Ambrose was a pre-Augustinian Latin father, indeed Augustine imbibed much from hearing the sermons of Ambrose but much like a previous poster mentioned with Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, he seems to have overlooked his teaching on predestination, to my mighty regret.

I don’t wish to be too hard on St. Augustine or Aquinas, I mean they have given us so much (who could not be moved by the Confessions), however I honestly struggle with this part of their theology.

Interestingly, Fr. Most was quite critical of some of Augustine’s views on predestination.

 

[MarcoPolo]

What does the Catholic Church teach on Predestination.

 

[Vouthon]

Interestingly, Fr. Most was quite critical of some of Augustine’s views on predestination.

Having read more deeply into Fr. Most’s theology, I have come to admire him very much. He discerned exactly the same problems with the Augustinian/Thomist ideas that had troubled me. I have ordered a book written by him on predestination, in which he explains that the aforementioned really is too close to Calvinism, yet he equally (and intriguingly) rejects Molinism.

He argues, with in my opinion sound biblical and patristic foundations, that God wills all to be saved and in a sense wishes all to be among the “elect”, however he then looks for grave resistance to his will and regretfully reprobates those foreseen individuals in eternity. God, according to Fr. Most, never foresees the merits of the elect, because he always wished gratuitously to grant all people salvation and only relents from this because of foreseen persistent resistance to grace on the part of individuals. He looks only to persistent demerits or resistance on the part of individuals.

The “default” position is therefore that everyone was intended by God to be predestined to election, however in eternity God forsees the persistent resistance to his grace by some and thus reprobates them.

Fr. Most therefore corrects, to his mind, both Thomism and Molinism.

It is a fascinating and interesting hypothesis, that I think is as strong as the Molinist one.

Certainly, it confirms ALL my fears about the Augustinian/Thomist model

 

[MarcoPG]

I am not completely agreeing with you (because i think resistence to grace gives demerits, and is the biggest demerit), but my point now is this : even if it was so, what do you fear? Did they teach error? Are they the Pope? Opinions can be held in the Church, on what the Church didn’t define. What are your fears?

 

[Contarini]

Here is a brief summary.

– We do have free will to say yes to God or to say no to Him. (We could not truly love Him if we didn’t have a choice; forced love is no love at all, and God craves real love.)

– God, being omniscient, knows who is going to choose to say yes to Him, and who will say no to Him. (It’s actually inaccurate in a way to talk about God foreknowing something, since to Him, all things are present; but since we are presently locked in time, it may be easier to speak of God’s foreknowledge.)

– There is no causal relationship between God’s foreknowledge of our choices and our choices. Example: Jesus knew Judas Iscariot would betray Him. But this foreknowledge did not cause Judas to betray Jesus. Judas was in no way compelled to betray Jesus on account of Jesus’ foreknowledge, and was in fact free not to betray Jesus. Otherwise, we would have to take the position that God affirmatively wills and ordains evil, and is therefore the author of evil. Clearly, He cannot be.

Hope that helps a little.

The position you have just described is held by many Catholics (and many Protestants) but is not the Catholic position or even the dominant position in the Western Church historically. In fact, if one were to interpret the Western Catholic tradition in a rigorous, traditionalist way, one could conclude that your position is unorthodox. (I do not take that approach, of course. My point is simply that your position isn’t at the center of the Western Catholic tradition and that its place within the tradition has sometimes been questioned. So it’s misleading to present it as if it were the Catholic position.)

The problem with your view, in traditional Catholic theology, is that it seems to make human actions the cause of something in God (God’s knowledge). That is why St. Thomas Aquinas held that God’s knowledge causes that which God knows instead of the other way round. St. Thomas does not think that this makes God the cause of evil, because he believes (following Augustine and the Church Fathers generally, who in turn were following Plato) that evil isn’t a thing in itself. It’s a defect–moral evil is a defect in the will. God creates beings which may fall short, and they do fall short. But since God’s knowledge causes the good things they do, it seems to follow from St. Thomas’ position that God chooses not to cause the kind or level of good that would prevent them from falling short.

This is extremely tricky and is, in my opinion, one of the least satisfactory aspects of St. Thomas’ theology. But it’s hard to come up with a better solution within the parameters of mainstream, traditional theology. One person who tried, very influentially, was the Jesuit theologian Molina in the late 16th century. Another, much less known except on these forums but quite popular here, was the recently deceased Fr. William Most, who tried to avoid the problems with Molina’s account.

The basic parameters of the Catholic position are:

1. Everything that is good is caused by God, so whatever we do that is good must be traced back to God as a cause and not attributed ultimately to ourselves
2. God does not cause evil
3. Therefore, God does not directly and unconditionally choose to reject certain people from all eternity, causing them to sin and eventually go to hell. However, the “Thomist” position comes much closer to this than many people think, so it’s hardly a simple point.
4. Human beings have free will. How this is to be reconciled with principle 1 is a difficult question, and is one of the classic debates in Catholic theology (the aforesaid Molina is one of the most influential post-Thomist theologians who has tackled it, and his conclusions continue to be debated by both Catholic and Protestant philosophers).
5. God knows everything eternally.

Edwin