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 PREDESTINATION

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PREDESTINATION

tion from God's inscrutable will alone. Infralapsa- rianism was also held by Jansenius (De gratia Christi, 1. X, c. ii, xi sq.), w-ho taught that God had preor- dained from the massa damnala of mankind one part to eternal bliss, the other to eternal pain, decreeing at the same time to deny to those positively damned the necessary graces by which the}' might be converted and keep the commandments; for this reason, he said, Christ died only for the predestined (cf. Denzin- ger, "Enchiridion", n. 1092-6). Against such blasphe- mous teachings the Second Sjiiod of Orange in 529 and again the Council of Trent had pronounced the eccle- siastical anathema (cf. Denzinger, nn. 200, 827). This condemnation was perfectly justified, because the heresy of Predestinarianism, in direct opposition to the clearest texts of Scripture, denied the universality of God's sah^fic will as well as of redemption through Christ (cf. Wis., xi, 24 sq.; I Tim., ii, 1 sq.), nullified God's mercy towards the hardened sinner (Ezech., xxxiii, 11; Rom., ii, 4; II Pet., iii, 9), did away with the freedom of the will to do good or e\'il, and hence with the merit of good actions and the guilt of the bad, and finally destroyed the Divine attributes of wisdom, justice, veracity, goodness, and sanctity. The very spirit of the Bible should have sufficed to deter Calvin from a false explanation of Rom., ix, and his succe.ssor Beza from the exegetical maltreatment of I Pet., ii, 7-S. After weighing all the Biblical texts bearing on eternal reprobation, a modern Protestant ex- egete arrives at the conclusion : " There is no elect ion to hell parallel to the election to grace: on the contran,-, the judgment pronounced on the impenitent supposes human guUt. . . . It is only after Christ's salva- tion has been rejected that reprobation follows" ("Realencyk. fiir prot. Theol.", XV, .586, Leipzig, 1904). As regards the Fathers of the Church, there is only St. Augustine who might seem to cause diffi- culties in the proof from Tradition. As a matter of fact he has been claimed by both Calvin and Jansenius as favouring their view of the question. This is not the place to enter into an examination of his doctrine on reprobation; but that his works contain expres- sions which, to say the least, might be interpreted in the sense of a negative reprobation, cannot be doubted. Probably toning down the sharper words of the master, his "best pupil", St. Prosper, in his apology against Vincent of Lerin (Resp. ad 12 obj. Vincent.), thus explained the spirit of Augustine: "Voluntate exierunt, voluntate ceciderunt, et quia prasciti sunt casuri, non sunt pra>destinati; essent autem prsedestinati, si essent reversuri et in sanctitate remansuri, ac per hoc prsedestinatio Dei multis est causa standi, nemini est causa labendi" (of their own will the}' went out; of their own will they fell, and because their fall was fore- known, they were not predestined; they would how- ever be predestined if they were going to return and persevere in holiness; hence, God's predestination is for many the cause of perseverance, for none the cause of faUing away). Regarding Tradition cf. Petavius, "De Deo", X, 7sq.; Jacquin in "Revue de I'histoire eccl&iastique", 1904, 266 sq.; 1906, '269 sq.; 725 sq. We may now briefly summarize the whole Catholic doctrine, which is in harmony with our reason as well as our moral sentiments. According to the doctrinal decisions of general and particular synods, God infalli- bly foresees and immutably preordains from eternity ail future events (cf. Denzinger, n. 1784), all fatalistic necessity, however, being barred and human liberty remaining intact (Denz., n.607). Consequently man is free whether he accepts grace and does good or whether he rejects it and does e\'il (Denz., n. 797). Just as it is God's true and sincere will that all men, no one ex- cepted, shall obtain eternal happiness, so, too, Christ has died for all (Denz.,n. 794), not only for the predes- tined (Denz., n. 1096), or for the faithful (Denz., n. 1294), though it is true that in reality not all avail themselvesofthebenefitsofredemption (Denz., n. 795).

Though God preordained both eternal happiness and the good works of the elect (Denz., n. 322), yet, on the other hand. He predestined no one positively to hell, much less to sin (Denz., nn. 200, 816). Consequently, just as no one is saved against his will (Denz., n. 1363), so the reprobate perish solely on account of their wickedness (Denz., nn. 318, 321). God foresaw the everlasting pains of the impious from all eternity, and preordained this punishment on account of their sins (Denz., n. 322), though He does not fail therefore to hold out the grace of conversion to sinners (Denz., n. 807), or pass over those who are not predestined (Denz., n. 827). As long as the reprobate live on earth, they may be accounted true Christians and members of the Church, just as on the other hand the predestined mav be outside the pale of Christianity and of the Church (Denz., nn. 628,631). Without special revelation no one can know with certainty that he belongs to the number of the elect (Denz., nn. 805 sq., 825 sq.).

III. Theological Contro^'ERSies. — Owing to the infallible decisions laid down by the Church, every orthodox theory on predestination and reprobation must keep within the limits marked out by the follow- ing theses: (a) At lea.st in the order of execution in time (in online executionis) the meritorious works of the predestined are the partial cause of their eternal happiness; (b) hell cannot even in the order of inten- tion (in ordine intentionis) have been positively de- creed to the damned, even though it is inflicted on them in time as the just punishment of their misdeeds; (c) there is absolutely no predestination to sin as a means to eternal damnation. Guided bj' these prin- ciples, we shall briefly sketch and examine three theories put forward by Catholic theologians.

A. The Theory of Predestination ante prcBiisa merita. — This theon,', championed by all Thomists and a fewMolinists (as Bellarmine, >Suarez, Francis de Lugo), asserts that God, by an absolute decree and without regard to any future supernatural merits, predestined from all eternity certain men to the glory of heaven, and then, in consequence of this decree, decided to give them all the graces necessary for its accomplishment. In the order of time, however, the Divine decree is carried out in the reverse order, the predestined re- ceiving first the graces preappointed to them, and lastly the glory of heaven as the reward of their good works. Two qualities, therefore, characterize this theorj': first, the absoluteness of the eternal decree, and second, the reversing of the relation of grace and glory in the two different orders of eternal intention {ordo intentionis) and execution in time (ordo execu- tionis). For while grace (and merit), in the order of eternal intention, is nothing else than the result or effect of glory absolutely decreed, yet, in the order of execution, it becomes the reason and partial cause of eternal happiness, as is required by the dogma of the meritoriousness of good works (see Merit). Again, celestial glory is the thing willed first in the order of eternal intention and then is made the reason or motive for the graces offered, while in the order of execution it must be conceived as the result or effect of supernatural merits. This concession is important, since without it the theory would be intrinsically im- possible and theologically untenable.

But what about the positive proof? The theorj' can find decisive evidence in Scripture only on the supposi- tion that predestination to heavenly glory is unequivo- cally mentioned in the Bible as the Divine motive for "the special graces granted to the elect. Now, al- though there are several texts (e. g. Matt., xxiv, 22 sq.; Acts, xiii, 48, and others) which might without straining be interpreted in this sense, yet these passages lose their imagined force in view of the fact that other ex-planations, of which there is no lack, are either possible or even more probable. The ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in particular is