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 PREDESTINATION

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PREDESTINATION

leaves man and the universe to their fate and refrains from all active interference. Though the purely nat- ural gifts of God, as descent from pious parents, good education, and the providential guidance of man's ex- ternal career, may also be called effects of predestina- tion, still, strictly speaking, the term implies only those blessings which lie in the supernatural sphere, as sanc- tifying grace, all actual graces, and among them in par- ticular those which carry with them final perseverance and a happy death. Since in reality only those reach heaven who die in the state of justification or sanctify- ing grace, all these and only these are numbered among the predestined, strictly so called. From this it fol- lows that we must reckon among them also all children who die in baptismal grace, as well as those adults who, after a life stained with sin, are converted on their death-beds. The same is true of the numerous pre- destined who, though outside the pale of the true Church of Christ, yet depart from this life in the state of grace, as catechumens, Protestants in good faith, schismatics, Jews, Mahommedans, and pagans. Those fortunate Catholics who at the close of a long life are still clothed in their baptismal innocence, or who after many relapses into mortal sin persevere till the end, are not indeed predestined more firmly, but are more signally favoured than the last-named categories of persons.

But even when man's supernatural end alone is taken into consideration, the term predestination is not always used by theologians in an unequivocal sense. This need not astonish us, seeing that predesti- nation may comprise wholly diverse things. If taken in its adequate meaning {prcedeslinatio adwguata or com plela), then predestination refers to both grace and glory as a whole, including not only the election to glory as the end, but also the election to grace as the means, the vocation to the faith, justification, and final perseverance, with which a happy death is insep- arably connected. This is the meaning of St. Augus- tine's words (De dono persever., xxxv) : " Prffidestinatio nihil est aliud quam prsescientia et prieparatio bene- ficionim, ([uilius certissime liberantur [i. e. salvantur], quicunque liberantur" (Predestination is nothing else than the foreknowledge and foreordaining of those gracious gifts which make certain the salvation of all who are saved). But the two concepts of grace and glory may be separated and each of them be made the object of a special predestination. The result is the so-called inadequate predestination (praedestinatio itiadocquata or incomplela), either to grace alone or to glory alone. Like St. Paul, Augustine, too, speaks of an election to grace apart from the celestial glory (loc. cit., xix): "Pra;destLnatio est gratiis pra;paratio, gratia vero jam ipsa donatio." It is evident, however, that this (inadequate) predestination does not exclude the possibility that one chosen to grace, faith, and justifi- cation goes nevertheless to hell. Hence we may dis- regard it, since it is at bottom simply another term for the universality of God's salvific will and of the distri- bution of grace among all men (see Grace). Similarly eternal election to glory alone, that is, without regard to the preceding merits through grace, must be desig- nated as (inadequate) predestination. Though the possibility of the latter is at once clear to the reflecting mind, yet its actuality is strongly contested by the majority of theologians, as we shall see further on (under sect. III). J'rom these explanations it is plain that the real dogma of eternal election is exclusively concerned with adequate predestination, which em- braces both grace and glory and the essence of which St. Thomas (I, Q. xxiii, a. 2) defines as: "Prseparatio grat ia' in pra-senti et gloriae in futuro " (the foreordina- tion of grace in the present and of glory in the future).

In order to emphasize how mysterious and unap- proachable is Divine election, the Council of Trent calls predestination a "hidden mystery". That pre- destination is indeed a sublime mystery appears not

only from the fact that the depths of the eternal coun- sel cannot be fathomed, it is even externally visible in the inequality of the Di\'ine choice. The unequal standard by which baptismal grace is distributed among infants and efficacious graces among adults is hidden from our view by an impenetrable veil. Could we gain a glimpse at the reasons of this inequal- ity, we should at once hold the key to the solution of the mystery itself. Why is it that this child is bap- tized, but not the child of the neighbour? Why is it that Peter the Apostle rose again after his fall and persevered till his death, while Judas Iscariot, his fellow-Apostle, hanged himself and thus frustrated his salvation? Though correct, the answer that Judas went to perdition of his own free will, while Peter faithfully co-operated with the grace of conversion offered him, does not clear up the enigma. For the question recurs: Why did not God give to Judas the same efficacious, infallibly successful grace of con- version as to St. Peter, whose blasphemous denial of the Lord was a sin no less grievous than that of the traitor Judas? To all these and similar questions the only reasonable reply is the word of St. Augustine (loc. cit., 21): " Inscrutabilia sunt judicia Dei" (the judgments of God are inscrutable).

B. 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. This plan of Divine reprobation may be conceived either as absolute and unconditional or as hypothetical and conditional, according as we con- sider it as dependent on, or independent of, the infallible foreknowledge of sin, the real reason of reprobation. 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 is answered in the affirmative or in the negative. The conceptual difference be- tween 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 repro- bation 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. The Catholic advocates of an unconditional reprobation evade the charge of heresy only by imposing a twofold restric- tion 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. Those re- strictions are evidently demanded by the formulation of the concept itself, since the attributes of Divine sanctity and justice must be kept inviolate (see God). Consequently, 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): "Est prajscientia iniquitatis quorun- dam et prsparatio damnationis eorundem" (it is the foreknowledge of the wickedness of some men and the