Why does St. Thomas Aquinas sound so much like a Calvinist?

[Link0126]

Skimming through the Summa and reading some of the topics it strikes me that St. Thomas Aquinas often sounds very close to a Calvinist in some ways for instance, in regards to predestination and the cause of evil. He states God is the cause of evil which doesn’t sound like the Catholic view point… Am I misunderstanding Catholic theology on these point or Aquinas or what?

 

[MarcusAndreas]

St. Thomas wasn’t a Thomist, rather he was an Augustinian. Augustinian soteriology has similarities to Calvinism but I think the difference is that unconditional predestination to Hell is not taught whereas conditional predestination is.

 

[Link0126]

“conditional predestination” meaning, like Thomas says a person may not be given grace so that they it’s very hard, basically impossible almost for them not to sin but it would still ultimately be their choice to sin and hence their fault for going to hell?

It’s just a small step from hypercalvinism isn’t it? and some calvinists do not believe in double predestination anyway… So, it’s basically calvinism isn’t it?

 

[I_Thirst]

Calvinism may have been influenced by Aquinas, but Aquinas was in no way is influenced by Calvinism. How could he be?

Calvinism is heretical. Thomism isn’t, right?

 

[CaptainPicard]

This will be a helpful article for you to read. It’s a comparison of Calvinism and Thomism.

catholic.com/thisrock/1993/9309fea1.asp

 

[DianaCC]

If you read carefully, you’ll see that Thomas explains how God is and is not the “cause” of evil.

 

[danserr]

I’ll give a bit of a guess.

Thomas is very predestinarian, but he never quite goes all the way. He insists man can never do anything to earn grace or deserve it, and that God offers this grace to everyone regardless of their merits. But Thomas says that man is free to accept or reject this grace. Calvin would not say that man was free in this respect.

There are different senses in which God can be said to be the cause of evil. In response to “Did God make evil?” Dorothy Sayers said: “As light create darkness.” Possibly Thomas had something like this in mind.

 

[Stalwart]

Thomas is predestinarian, I would think largely from the Epistle to the Romans, which IS predestinarian. I don’t think predestination itself should be a problem to non-Calvinists, as it’s a very scriptural position. That’s not what makes one a Calvinist, as Thomas, Augustine, and others espoused it before Calvin did. What does make Calvinism Calvinist are the concepts of unconditional predestination, and the irresistible grace. In traditional Christianity, yes God in a way ‘predestines’ man, because he knows everything that man will do. But he predestines him on the basis of foreknowledge, which is to say: in accordance with his faith and piety (the key element that the Calvinists don’t accept), and a predestination of *that *kind is really indistinguishable from the non-predestinarian view.

 

[thistle]

Thomas is predestinarian, I would think largely from the Epistle to the Romans, which IS predestinarian. I don’t think predestination itself should be a problem to non-Calvinists, as it’s a very scriptural position. That’s not what makes one a Calvinist, as Thomas, Augustine, and others espoused it before Calvin did. What does make Calvinism Calvinist are the concepts of unconditional predestination, and the irresistible grace. In traditional Christianity, yes God in a way ‘predestines’ man, because he knows everything that man will do. But he predestines him on the basis of foreknowledge, which is to say: in accordance with his faith and piety (the key element that the Calvinists don’t accept), and a predestination of *that *kind is really indistinguishable from the non-predestinarian view.

Foreknowledge and Predestination are not the same. Knowing what a person will do is not the same as making them do it.

 

[garysibio]

Calvinism may have been influenced by Aquinas, but Aquinas was in no way is influenced by Calvinism. How could he be?

Calvinism is heretical. Thomism isn’t, right?

If you want to argue that Thomas couldn’t have been influenced by Calvin because Thomas predated him by a few centuries then I would agree. However, the way you present it is circular reasoning.

At any rate, the question is whether or not they held similar beliefs, not who influenced whom. The proper way to answer this question is to compare their writings, not to just assume.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Skimming through the Summa and reading some of the topics it strikes me that St. Thomas Aquinas often sounds very close to a Calvinist in some ways for instance, in regards to predestination and the cause of evil. He states God is the cause of evil which doesn’t sound like the Catholic view point… Am I misunderstanding Catholic theology on these point or Aquinas or what?

He only sounds like a Calvinist when read with heavily tinted Calvinist glasses. Otherwise, any similarities are less uniquely “calvinistic” than simply mainstream orthodox Christianity. Often similar terms as St Thomas are used, but there are important distinctions made that are not accepted or understood by Calvinists.

St Thomas’ views on the Sacraments, Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and even Christology are very different and irreconcilable with Calvinism, so to look at a passage or two that talks about Predestination, and only look at that, is to miss the full picture - they could not and were not saying the same thing at the end of the day.