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 PREDESTINATION

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PREDESTINATION

all the elect and admits neither additions nor erasures. From the Old Testament (cf. Ex., xx.\ii, 32; Ps. Ixviii, 29) this sj'mbol was taken over into the New bv Christ and His Apostle Paul (cf. Luke, x, 20; Heb., xii, 23), and enlarged upon by the Evangelist John in his Apocalypse [cf. Apoc, xxi, 27: "There shall not enter into it anything defiled . . . but thej' that are wTitten in the book of life of the Lamb"(cf. Apoc.,xiii, 8;xx, 15)]. The correct explanation of this sjTnbolic book is given bj' St. Augustine (De civ. Dei, XX, xiii): "Pnescientia Dei, quaenon potest falli, liber vitae est" (the foreknowledge of God, which cannot err, is the book of life). However, as intimated by the Bible, there exists a second, more voluminous book, in which are entered not only the names of the elect, but aLso the names of all the faithful on earth. Such a meta])horical book is supposed wherever the po.ssibility is hinted at that a name, though entered, might again be stricken out [cf. Apoc, iii, 5: "and I will not blot out his name out of the book of Ufe" (cf. Ex., xxxii, 33)]. The name will be mercilessly cancelled when a Christian sinks into infidelity or godlessness and dies in his sin. Finally there is a third class of books, wherein the wicked deeds and the crimes of indi\-idual sinners are ^\Titten, and by which the reprobate will be judged on the last day to be rast into hell (cf. Apoc, xx, 12): "and the books were opened; . . . and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works". It was this grand sjTnbolism of Divine omniscience and justice that inspired the soul-stirring verse of the Dies irce, according to which we shall all be judged out of a book: "Liber scriptus proferetur: in quo totum continetur". Regarding the book of life, cf. St. Thomas, I, Q. xxiv, a. 1-3, and Heinrich- Gutberlet, "Dogmat. Theologie",VIII (Mainz, 1897), §453.

(2) The second quahty of predestination, the defi- niteness of the number of the elect, follows naturally from the first. For if the eternal counsel of God re- garding the predestined is unchangeable, then the number of the predestined must likewise be unchange- able and definite, subject neither to addit ions nor to can- cellations. Anything indefinite in the number would eo ipso imply a lack of certitude in God's knowledge and would destroy His omniscience. Furthermore, the very nature of omniscience demands that not only the abstract number of the elect, but also the indi- viduals with their names and their entire career on earth, should be present before the Divine mind from all eternity. Naturally, human curiosity is eager for definite information about the absolute as well as the relative number of the elect. How high should the absolute number be estimated? But it would be idle and useless to undertake calculations and to guess at so and so many millions or bilhons of predestined. St. Thomas (I, Q. xxiii, a. 7) mentions the opinion of Bome theologians that as many men will be saved as there are fallen angels, while others held that the number of predestined will equal the number of the faithful angels.

Lastly, there were optimists who, combining these two opinions into a third, made the total of men saved equal to the unnumbered myriads of created spirits. But even granted that the principle of our calculation is correct, no mathematician would be able to figure out the absolute number on a basis so vague, since the number of angels and demons is an unknown quantity to us. Hence, "the best answer", rightly remarks St. Thoma-s, "is to say: God alone knows the number of his elect". By relative number is meant the numeri- cal relation between the predestined and the reprobate. Will the m.ajority of the human race be saved or will they be damned? Will one-half be damned, the other half saved? In this question the opinion of the rigor- ists is opposed to the milder view of the optimists. Pointing to several texts of the Bible (Matt., vii, 14;

xxii, 14) and to sayings of great spiritual doctors, the rigorists defend as probable the thesis that not only most Christians but also most Catholics are doomed to eternal damnation. Almost repulsive in its tone is Massillon's sermon on the small number of the elect. Yet even St. Thomas (loc cit., a. 7) asserted: "Pauci- ores sunt qui salvantur" (only the smaller number of men are saved). And a few years ago, when the Jesuit P. Castelein ("Le rigorisme, le nombre des 61us et la doctrine du salut", 2nd ed., Brussels, lS99l impugned this theory with weighty arguments, he was sharply opposed by the Redemptorist P. Godts ("De pauci- tate salvandorum quid docuerunt sancti", 3rd ed., Brus-sels, 1899). That the number of the elect cannot be so very small ise\'ident from the Apocalypse (vii, 9). When one hears the rigorists, one is tempted to repeat Dieringer's bitter remark: "Can it be that the Church actually exists in order to people hell? " The truth is that neither the one nor the other can be proved from Scripture or Tradition (cf. Heinrich-Gutberlet, "Dog- mat. Theologie", Mainz, 1897, VIII, 363 sq.). But supplementing these two sources by arguments drawn from reason we may safely defend as probable the opinion that the majority of Christians, especially of Catholics, will be saved. If we add to this relative number the overwhelming majority of non-Christians (Jews, Mahommedans, heathens), then Gener ("Theol. dogmat. scholast.", Rome, 1767, II, 242 sq.) is probably right when he assumes the salvation of half of the human race, lest "it should be said to the shame and offence of the Divine majesty and clemency that the [future] Kingdom of Satan is larger than the King- dom of Christ" (cf. W. Schneider, "Das andere Leben", 9th ed., Paderborn, 1908, 476 sq.).

(3) The third quahty of predestination, its subjec- tive uncertainty, is intimately connected with its objective immutability. We know not whether we are reckoned among the predestined or not. All we can say is: God alone knows it. AMien the Reformers, confounding predestination with the absolute cer- tainty of salvation, demanded of the Christian an unshaken faith in his own predestination if he wished to be saved, the Council of Trent opposed to this pre- sumptuous belief the canon (Sess. VI, can. xv): "S. q. d., hominem renatum et justificatum teneri ex fide ad credendum, se certo esse in numero pra'destinatorum, anathema sit" (if any one shall say that the regener- ated and justified man is bound as a matter of faith to believe that he is surely of the number of the predes- tined, let him be anathema). In truth, such a pre- sumption is not onlv irrational, but also unscriptural (cf. I Cor., iv, 4; Lx", 27; x, 12; Phil., ii, 12). Only a private revelation, such as was vouchsafed to the peni- tent thief on the cross, could give us the certainty of faith: hence the Tridentine Council insists (loc. cit., cap. xii): "Nam nisi ex speciali revelatione sciri non potest, quos Deus sibi elegerit " (for apart from a special revelation, it cannot be known whom God has chosen). However, the Church condemns only that blasphemous presumption which boasts of a faithlike certainty in matters of predestination. To say that there exist probable signs of predestination which exclude all excessive anxiety is not against her teaching. The following are some of the criteria set down by the theologians: purity of heart, pleasure in prayer, pa- tience in suffering, frequent reception of the sacra- ments, love of Christ and His Church, devotion to the Mother of God, etc

B. The Reprobation of the Damned. — An uncondi- tional and positive predestination of the reprobate not only to hell, but also to sin, was taught especially by Cah-in (Instit., Ill, c xxi, xxiii, xxiv). His followers in Holland split into two sects, the Supralapsarians and the Infralapsarians (q. v.), the latter of whom regarded original sin as the motive of positive con- demnation, while the former(with Calvin) disregarded this factor and derived the Divine decree of reproba-