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 PREDESTINATION

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PREDESTINATION

foreordaining of their damnation). Cf. Scheeben, "Mysterien des Christentums" (2nd ed., Freiburg, 189S), 98-103.

II. The Catholic Dogm.^. — Reserving the theo- logical controversies for the next section, we deal here only with those articles of faith relating to predestina- tion and reprobation, the denial of which would involve heresy.

A. The Predestination of the Elect. — He who would place the reason of predestination either in man alone or in God alone would inevitably be led into heretical conclusions about eternal election. In the one case the error concerns the last end, in the other the means to that end. Let it be noted that we do not speak of the "cause" of predestination, which would be either the efficient cause (God), or the instrumental cause (grace), or the final cause (God's honour), or the pri- mary meritorious cause, but of the reason or motive which mduced God from all eternity to elect certain definite indi\'iduals to grace and glorj'. The principal question then is: Does the natural merit of man exert perhaps some influence on the Divine election to grace and glory? If we recall the dogma of the absolute gratuitj' of Christian grace, our answer must be out- right negative (see Gr.\ce). To tlie further question whether Divine predestination does not at least take into account the supernatural good works, the Church answers with the doctrine that heaven is not given to the elect b\' a purely arbitrary act of God's will, but that it is also the reward of the personal merits of the justified (see Merit). Those who, like the Pelagians, seek the reason for predestination only in man's naturall)' good works, evidently misjudge the nature of the Christian heaven, which is an absolutely super- natural destiny. As Pclagianism puts the whole econ- omy of salvation on a purely natural basis, so it re- gards predestination in particular not as a special grace, much less as the supreme grace, but only as a reward for natural merit.

The Semipelagians, too, depreciated the gratuity and the strictly supernatural character of eternal hap- piness by ascribing at least the beginning of faith {initium fidei) and final perseverance (donum per- severantice) to the exertion of man's natural powers, and not to the initiative of preventing grace. This is one class of heresies which, slighting God and His grace, makes all salvation depend on man alone. But no less grave are the errors into which a second group falls by making God alone responsible for everything, and abolishing the free co-operation of the will in obtaining eternal happiness. This is done by the advocates of heretical Predestinarianism (q. v.), em- bodied in its purest form in Calvinism and Jansenism. Those who seek the reason of predestination solely in the absolute Will of God are logicallj- forced to admit an irresistibly efficacious grace (gratia irresistibilis), to deny the freedom of the will when influenced by grace and wholly to reject supernatural merits (as a secondary reason for eternal happiness). And since in this system eternal damnation, too, finds its only explanation in the Di\'ine will, it further follows (hat concupiscence acts on the sinful will with an irresist- ible force, that there the will is not really free to sin, and that demerits cannot be the cause of eternal damnation.

Between the.se two extremes the Catholic dogma of predestination keeps the golden mean, because it re- gards eternal happiness primarily as the work of God and His grace, but sccondarilj' as the fruit and reward of the meritorious actions of the predestined. The process of predestination consists of the following five steps: (a) the first grace of vocation, especially faith as the beginning, foundation, and root of justification; (b) a number of additional, actual graces for the suc- cessful accomplishment of justification; (c) justifica- tion itself as the beginning of the state of grace and love; (d) final perseverance or at least the grace of a

happy death; (e) lastly, the admission to eternal bliss. If it is a truth of Revelation that there are many who, following this path, seek and find their eternal sal- vation with infalfible certainty, then the existence of Divine predestination is proved {.d. Matt., xxv, 34; Apoc, XX, 15). St. Paul says quite explicitly (Rom., viii, 28 sq.): "we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, accord- ing to his purpose, are called to be saints. For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made con- formable to the image of his Son; that he might be the first born amongst man}' brethren. And whom he predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified." (Cf. Eph., i, 4—11.) Besides the eternal "foreknowledge" and foreordaining, the Apostle here mentions the various steps of predestina- tion: "vocation", "justification", and "glorifica- tion". This belief has been faithfully preserved by Tradition through all the centuries, especially since the time of Augustine.

There are three other qualities of predestination which must be noticed, becau.se they are important and interesting from the theological standpoint: its immutability, the definiteness of the number of the predestined, and its subjective uncertainty.

(1) The first quality, the immutability of the Di\'ine decree, is based both on the infallible fore- knowledge of God that certain, quite determined in- dividuals will leave this life in the state of grace, and on the immutable ^-ill of God to give precisely to these men and to no others eternal happiness as a reward for their supernatural merits. Consequently, the whole future membership of heaven, down to its minutest details, with all the different measures of grace and the various degrees of happiness, has been irrevocably fixed from all eternity. Xor could it be otherwise. For if it were possible that a predestined individual should after all be cast into hell or that one not predestined should in the end reach heaven, then God would have been mistaken in his foreknowledge of future events; He would no longer be omniscient. Hence the Good Shepherd says of his sheep (John, x, 28): "And I give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand. " But we must beware of conceiving the immutability of predestination either as fatalistic in the sense of the Mahommedan kismet or as a con- venient pretext for idle resignation to inexorable fate. God's infallible foreknowledge cannot force upon man unavoidable coercion, for the simple reason that it is at bottom notliing else than the eternal vision of the future historical actuality. God foresees the free acti\'ity of a man precisely as that individual is will- ing to shape it. Whatever may promote the work of our salvation, whether our own prayers and good works, or the prayers of others in our behalf, is eo ipso included in the infallible foreknowledge of God and consequently in the scope of predestination (cf. St. Thomas, I, Q. xxiii, a. 8). It is in such practical considerations that the ascetical maxim (falsely ascribed to St. Augustine) originated: "Si non es pnedestinatus, fac ut priedcstineris " (if you are not predestined, so act that you may be predestined). Strict theology, it is (rue, cannot approve this bold saying, except in so far as the original decree of pre- des(ina(ion is conceived as at first a hypothetical decree, which is afterwards changed to an absolute and irrevocable decree by (he prayers, good works, and perseverance of him who is predesdncd, according to the words of the .\postle (II Pet., i, 10): "Where- fore, brethren, labour the more, that by good works you may make sure your calling and election."

God's unerring foreknowledge and foreordaining is designated in the Bible by the beautiful figure of (he "Book of Life" (liber 'vitir, rb ffipxiov ttJ! fw^s). This book of life is a list which contains the names of