Thomism and the meaning of punishment

[fred_conty]

**I just want to briefly state my philosophical and theological reasons for rejecting Aquinas’s view of predestination, and then to explain why I believe he held that view.

My personal belief is that if God is Love, He must love everybody personally, as persons, and not like a master giving treats or scraps to a dog. It’s not hard to see the heartlessness of God saying to some people at the end of their lives “my overarching purpose for your existence has always be that you serve as an example of punishment”. Thomas says many times that God sees time “as in a single glance”. Could not this be a justification for the argument of Molinism? I’ve pondered over Romans 9, and I think that St. Paul wasn’t speaking about anyone’s eternal destination in verses 10-23, 27-28; Paul is merely speaking of the extra grace given to some rather than to others in that specific drama of salvation history playing out in that earliest of Christianity’s days. Some are called to “serve” others, who are in turn called to greater glory, resulting in a garden variety of frangrant saints. Verses 19-21 doesn’t mean God won’t give all the grace He can to those sinners at their death. I think this can be proved by Romans 11:32. To argue that Paul meant that God allows sins so he can be merciful, then allows the sins again so there can be eternal punishment doesn’t seem to fit. The whole thesis as it ends on 11:28-36 doesn’t seem to be complete that way. I also don’t feel that justice as an end in itself recognizes what justice is really all about. **Finally, as Augustine admits, if God doesn’t desire everyone’s salvation more than he desires some to serve as an example as justice, then our desires would conflict with God, since we are supposed to desire the salvation of our whole species. How could be say the Our Father if we believe in the Thomistic position?

I believe that Thomas held that view because he, like most Protestants, felt that to them God was hopefully such that if He wanted them to be saved, they certainly will be saved. That psychological makeup is understandable, although it resulted in a hideous theological viewpoint…

I believe from the passages you quoted of St. Thomas, you have a legitimate point to make.

From those passages he seems to see God in a sort of Michael Angelo painting, with the good and bad showing God’s love and justice in one scene. That this painting would not be complete unless the justice of God was shown.

He does say that just as all creation reflects the glory of God, that it is only shown in each creature a little bit, which seems to imply those who are damned. And that there must be some predestined to hell to show God’s justice.

What he wrote at this time was before the “parameters” of the doctrine of predestination was established, and before the doctrine of hell as well. I seem to have read somewhere once that St. Thomas did express his belief that those in hell would eventually be let loose thru the mercy of God. And if so, then what he says here about predestination and hell is quite softer than what our understanding is today, and the scene he is painting is not quite that bad. Maybe if he had the definitions that we have today, he may have written a different scene.

May divine mercy, peace, and love be yours in ever greater measure.

 

[ready]

I believe from the passages you quoted of St. Thomas, you have a legitimate point to make.

From those passages he seems to see God in a sort of Michael Angelo painting, with the good and bad showing God’s love and justice in one scene. That this painting would not be complete unless the justice of God was shown.

He does say that just as all creation reflects the glory of God, that it is only shown in each creature a little bit, which seems to imply those who are damned. And that there must be some predestined to hell to show God’s justice.

What he wrote at this time was before the “parameters” of the doctrine of predestination was established, and before the doctrine of hell as well. I seem to have read somewhere once that St. Thomas did express his belief that those in hell would eventually be let loose thru the mercy of God. And if so, then what he says here about predestination and hell is quite softer than what our understanding is today, and the scene he is painting is not quite that bad. Maybe if he had the definitions that we have today, he may have written a different scene.

May divine mercy, peace, and love be yours in ever greater measure.

Limbo of Infants is a part of hell. The infants in Limbo, I believe, are the ones St. Thomas is referring to when he says that those in hell would eventually be let loose through the mercy of God … he is no heretic. Ven. Mary Agreda in her *Mystical City of God *(the life story of the Blessed Virgin Mary) says that the infants in Limbo (in hell) will, in the end, be loosed from their abode and will inhabit the new earth after the Final Judgment. (I think that I got this part about the infants inhabiting the new earth right when I had read the book). God bless you.

 

[thinkandmull]

Romans 11:28-36 proves Aquinas wrong on predestination

 

[lmelahn]

**I just want to briefly state my philosophical and theological reasons for rejecting Aquinas’s view of predestination, and then to explain why I believe he held that view.

…]

I believe that Thomas held that view because he, like most Protestants, felt that to them God was hopefully such that if He wanted them to be saved, they certainly will be saved. That psychological makeup is understandable, although it resulted in a hideous theological viewpoint…**

I agree that God is love. I think there was an important writer who said that .

I think I am fundamentally in agreement with what you are saying, as regards exegesis and the theological position. Rigid predestinationism is untenable (and if it reaches the extreme of double predestinaitonism, as with some Calvinists, it is frankly heretical).

The one who had a “strong” view of predestination was actually St. Augustine, and some of his views are so “strong” that the Church has not accepted them. For example, Augustine taught that unbaptized infants were not saved, because Baptism is necessary for salvation. (He did not even soften that position with the hypothesis of the so-called limbus puerorum.)

It is possible that St. Thomas, a great disciple of St. Augustine in many respects, followed his master too closely. However, regarding this particular issue, I am not sure he quite so rigid. (Having said that, I would agree that some of the most important followers of St. Thomas were much too rigid, most notably Domingo Bañez, the founder of the “Thomst” school in the De auxiliis controversy. Calling it a “Thomist” school is a most unfortunate assimilation, because Bañez’ theory departs markedly from his master’s.)

Regarding St. Thomas himself, we must keep in mind that Thomas regards predestination as chiefly as a kind of knowledge, not as a kind of “destiny” or “fate” (as the name suggests in English). God knows what is going to happen to the souls He creates. It does not follow that he gives some souls favorable treatment, just that those souls fail to make good use of God’s graces.

To see this, we will have to leave aside the English translation of the Summa theologiae and go to the original Latin, because the translation is rather misleading. St. Thomas asks himself whether predestination can be properly attributed to (be “placed in”) creatures: that is, whether they can be properly said to be “predestinating” (I, q. 23, a. 2). The answer is in the negative, because “predestining” is an immanent action of God. What kind of action? He describes predestination as follows in the corpus:

praedestinatio est quaedam ratio

 

[lmelahn]

The sum total of the Predestined and Reprobate does not equal 100%. They are there so that Grace may be available to the vast majority of people to cooperate with contingently and freely.

When Thomas discusses predestination, he is discussing a fact, that God predestines some people, for the guarantee that his Grace continues on the earth.
Some other people he leaves reprobate, so that his action with Grace will happen as he intends.

These are not the majority of people. You are neither one of the reprobate nor one of the predestined, nor must you consider yourself to be. You are one who has Grace present in the world in front of you because some, like Mary, were predestined, and some, like Pharaoh, were denied the presence of Grace when confronted by God.

Do not think it was easy for Mary to be predestined, to tell Joseph, “I’m pregnant” or to watch nails go into her son’s hands as he screamed, then take him dead into her arms. Predestination involves an intense pain that none of us care to bear. But God puts them through it, is with them by his Grace so they have hope, and then weeps as he sees them bear what he must have them bear for his will to be done so that we, also, can be written in the book of life, we who are neither predestined to glory nor reprobation.

I don’t think it is necessary to interpret “predestination” and “reprobation” as applying to less than 100% of persons, as long as we keep in mind that for St. Thomas, both are rationes, or notions. (See my post, #24.) They are rationes with an effect, certainly (namely, grace or glory, or else abandonment), but an effect that is conditioned on human free will. God does not play “favorites,” at least not with respect to the possibility of eternal salvation.

(It is true that Mary was highly favored—the “one full of grace,” kecharitomene, as the angel calls her—but that does not mean that her freedom was impeded. She could have rejected being the mother of God; she could even have sinned if she had wanted to. We thank God that she did not, naturally. The fact that she freely took on so great a role is what makes her great.)

 

[thinkandmull]

I agree that God is love. I think there was an important writer who said that .

I think I am fundamentally in agreement with what you are saying, as regards exegesis and the theological position. Rigid predestinationism is untenable (and if it reaches the extreme of double predestinaitonism, as with some Calvinists, it is frankly heretical).

The one who had a “strong” view of predestination was actually St. Augustine, and some of his views are so “strong” that the Church has not accepted them. For example, Augustine taught that unbaptized infants were not saved, because Baptism is necessary for salvation. (He did not even soften that position with the hypothesis of the so-called limbus puerorum.)

It is possible that St. Thomas, a great disciple of St. Augustine in many respects, followed his master too closely. However, regarding this particular issue, I am not sure he quite so rigid. (Having said that, I would agree that some of the most important followers of St. Thomas were much too rigid, most notably Domingo Bañez, the founder of the “Thomst” school in the De auxiliis controversy. Calling it a “Thomist” school is a most unfortunate assimilation, because Bañez’ theory departs markedly from his master’s.)

Regarding St. Thomas himself, we must keep in mind that Thomas regards predestination as chiefly as a kind of knowledge, not as a kind of “destiny” or “fate” (as the name suggests in English). God knows what is going to happen to the souls He creates. It does not follow that he gives some souls favorable treatment, just that those souls fail to make good use of God’s graces.

To see this, we will have to leave aside the English translation of the Summa theologiae and go to the original Latin, because the translation is rather misleading. St. Thomas asks himself whether predestination can be properly attributed to (be “placed in”) creatures: that is, whether they can be properly said to be “predestinating” (I, q. 23, a. 2). The answer is in the negative, because “predestining” is an immanent action of God. What kind of action? He describes predestination as follows in the corpus:

What is predestination for Thomas? It is a kind of ratio (a notion or idea): a kind of knowledge. Specifically, it is God’s foreknowledge of which persons will be saved. The contrary ratio, which applies to those who are not saved, Thomas calls “reprobation.”

Thomas, however, goes to great pains to show that the decision to be saved or damned is up to the individual. For example, read the answer to Objection 3 of the next question (23):

In other words, someone who sins gravely is, in a sense, abandoned by God (in the sense that he loses the state of grace, not in the sense that God stops trying to save him). If the man persists in his sinfulness, he cannot be saved, and hence he is “reprobated”: God already knows where the man will end up. It is, however, the man’s decision, not God’s, because “guilt comes from freedom of choice.”

I think what is happening here is that most of the Protestant reformers, and not a few Catholics (including followers of Bañez and de Molina, the two opposing sides of the De auxiliis controversy), imagined that grace (whether actual or sanctifying) somehow overpowers our wills and makes us less free. However, that cannot be the case, because grace perfects the creatures that receive it, without diminishing any of their capacities. Grace does not take away our ability to choose freely, but gives us the ability to choose new and better things (especially, to know and love God Himself).

So does God give His grace infallibly? Of course He does. Does that mean that those who receive grace will take advantage of it? Not necessarily. They might squander it and be reprobated. Does God know where each of us will end up? Yes, absolutely. Does He force us there? No, of course not; it is our decision.

Domingo Bañez’s position was exactly that of Aquinas, who says that God’s will is always fulfilled perfectly, not imperfectly.

 

[thinkandmull]

Thomas’s position that punishment is greater ontologically than everyone being saved is absurd

 

[ChainBreaker]

The sum total of the Predestined and Reprobate does not equal 100%. They are there so that Grace may be available to the vast majority of people to cooperate with contingently and freely.

When Thomas discusses predestination, he is discussing a fact, that God predestines some people, for the guarantee that his Grace continues on the earth.
Some other people he leaves reprobate, so that his action with Grace will happen as he intends.

These are not the majority of people. You are neither one of the reprobate nor one of the predestined, nor must you consider yourself to be. You are one who has Grace present in the world in front of you because some, like Mary, were predestined, and some, like Pharaoh, were denied the presence of Grace when confronted by God.

Do not think it was easy for Mary to be predestined, to tell Joseph, “I’m pregnant” or to watch nails go into her son’s hands as he screamed, then take him dead into her arms. Predestination involves an intense pain that none of us care to bear. But God puts them through it, is with them by his Grace so they have hope, and then weeps as he sees them bear what he must have them bear for his will to be done so that we, also, can be written in the book of life, we who are neither predestined to glory nor reprobation.

So Mary was forced by God to go to heaven?

 

[ChainBreaker]

Why do people think that just because Thomas is a doctor that therefore summa theologica in whole or in part is infallible? His interpretation of predestination is not infallible and that is precisely why other interpretations are possible such as Molinism.

 

[lmelahn]

Domingo Bañez’s position was exactly that of Aquinas, who says that God’s will is always fulfilled perfectly, not imperfectly.

There could be a whole doctoral thesis written about the differences and similarities between Aquinas and Domingo Bañez.

It is true that both asserted that God’s actions always produce their effects.

They had, however, very different ideas about what that effect was. I don’t, unfortunately, have easy access to Bañez’s opera omnia, but suffice it to say that Bañez was a disciple of Thomas de Vio (also known as Cajetan), and both Bañez and Cajetan differed sharply from Aquinas regarding how human action works.

Aquinas regards action as springing forth or proceeding from a creature’s act of being. (For Thomas, “being” is not simply the “fact” that something exists, but rather is its deepest and most fundamental perfection. For Aquinas, “being” exists on several levels, even in the same creature, and the most fundamental one is a thing’s “act of being.”) A good example of how Aquinas applies this principle can be found in Question 77 of the first part of the Summa, especially Article 6.

Cajetan (and his disciple Bañez) has the opposite view: action cannot spring forth from the act of being (or “existence,” in Cajetan’s terminology), because, according to Cajetan, existence is not really a “perfection,” at least not in the same way that Aquinas regarded it. The existence has just enough power to make the creature come into being, and no other perfections can spring forth from it.

As a result, the followers of Cajetan frankly have a hard time explaining how creatures act. They basically have to hypothesize that the creature disposes itself to act, but that God must produce the action Himself (a position that anticipates Malebranche’s occasionalism).

So, for example, suppose I decide to eat some Christmas chocolate (which I happen to have here at my desk). Aquinas would say that my action, at the end of the day, stems from my act of being. Cajetan (and Bañez) would say that God had to produce that action directly. (The chocolate was good, by the way.)

Now, back to the problem of predestination and grace: suppose that I am a sinner in need of repentance. What do I need to do in order to be back in God’s graces? I need to do an act of supernatural charity (specifically, an act of perfect contrition).

According to Aquinas, when God gives me an actual grace, what does He give me? The capacity to make an act of perfect contrition. However, whether I put that capacity to good use is up to me; my action comes from my act of being. So you see, God’s action is perfectly infallible. I receive that capacity whether I like it or not. My action is fallible. I can repent, or refuse to do so. This is Aquinas’s position, and it compromises neither God’s omnipotence, nor my freedom.

According to Bañez, when God gives me an actual grace, what does He give me? He produces in me an act of perfect contrition, not just a capacity. Why? Because actions are produced directly by God; they don’t flow from my act of being. And since God is omnipotent, that action is produced infallibly. I don’t get a choice in the matter. This is the theory of praemotio physica, in a nutshell. Not only that, but God sends his graces ante praevia merita, without regard for our future merits. As you can see (and as Bañez himself recognized) that places us in a bind, since it seems that God overpowers our freedom. Bañez goes to great pains to show that God respects our freedom and would never overpower our wills, but that problem is still there (and thinkandmull does well to reject this view).

In summary: both Aquinas and Bañez concur in saying that God produces His effects infallibly. In this, they are both correct, because God is omnipotent.

Aquinas and Bañez, however, differ sharply as regards what that effect consists in: for Aquinas, it is a capacity to act (that can be declined); for Bañez, a ready-made action (that is practically forced on the person).

 

[lmelahn]

Why do people think that just because Thomas is a doctor that therefore summa theologica in whole or in part is infallible? His interpretation of predestination is not infallible and that is precisely why other interpretations are possible such as Molinism.

No, of course Aquinas is not infallible. However, I think Aquinas is worth considering. See my post in which I discuss the differences between Aquinas and the so-called “Thomist” school (in reality, Bañez’s school).

Molinism is interesting, but I don’t think it hits the nail on the head.

Luis de Molina was still working under the same presuppositions as Bañez: that it is not we, but God who produces our actions (my means of a previous “motion” or praemotio).

De Molina in essence rightly takes Bañez to task for compromising human freedom. De Molina argues that God sends us actual graces that are sufficient for our salvation, but they do not become efficacious unless we consent to them.

So far so good, but de Molina does not resolve the problem of God’s omnipotence: whatever God does produces its effect infallibly. If the same grace can succeed or fail, then God’s action seems to have a defect.

(In order to resolve this, de Molina basically has to backpedal, saying that God, who is omniscient, knows what kinds of graces to give—sufficient or efficacious—before He gives them to us. He dispenses those graces, argues de Molina, in consideration of our future merits: post praevia merita. Since our future merits depend on our freedom, and hence are contingent, de Molina felt the need to posit a special kind of knowledge in God, that he called “middle knowledge” or scientia media. The problem is that now de Molina is hardly better off than Bañez: God infallibly gives some people “sufficient” grace and other people “efficacious” grace, and it is only God’s scientia media of our future merits prevents Him from overpowering our freedom.)

The debate cannot be resolved until we realize (as Thomas did, but his followers seem to have missed) that our actions stem from our act of being, and are always mediated by certain faculties or capacities. We don’t just move objects by telekinesis, but with our muscles and hands (and even if we move them directly with our minds, we would be acting by means of our wills). Likewise, we can’t repent from a grave sin unless we have a capacity to do so. It is this capacity that God provides when He gives an actual grace. The capacity is produced infallibly. We, however, are perfectly free to make use of it or not.

 

[thinkandmull]

Aquinas certainly did not just believe what you said he does, nor does he differ from Domingo Bañez. Both say that God gives sufficient grace to all, so that all can consent to God, but only the few are given extra efficacious grace, which is consented to with free will, but infallibly. Is our being the same as our free will? And Banez believed in free will no? Trying to make all these fine distinctions sounds like hot air to me. Only the Molinists argue that efficacious grace is efficacious solely from the free wills consent, instead of being infallibly certain to have a salvific effect. So I ask you again, why did Aquinas believe that punishment of people completes the perfect picture of creation? Is not salvation and giving glory to God better than people being eternally in their sin and hate?