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 PREDESTINATION

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PREDESTINATION

claimed by the advocates of absolute predestination as that "classical" passage wherein St. Paul seems to represent the eternal happiness of the elect not only as the work of God's purest mercy, but as an act of the most arbitrary will, so that grace, faith, justification must be regarded as sheer effects of an absolute, Divine decree (cf. Rom., ix, 18: "Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will; and whom he will, he hard- eneth"). Now, it is rather daring to quote one of the most difficult and obscure passages of the Bible as a "classical text" and then to base on it an argument for bold speculation. To be more specific, it is im- possible to draw the details of the picture in which the Apostle compares God to the potter who hath "power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour" (Rom., ix, 21), without falling into the Calvinistic blasphemy that God predestined some men to hell and sin just as positively as he pre-elected others to eternal fife. It is not even admissible to read into the Apostle's thought a negative reprobation of certain men. For the primary intention of the Epistle to the Romans is to insist on the gratuity of the vocation to Christian- ity and to reject the Jewish presumption that the possession of the Mosaic Law and the carnal descent from Abraham gave to the Jews an essential prefer- ence over the heathens. But the Epistle has nothing to do with the speculative question whether or not the free vocation to grace must be considered as theneccs- earj' result of eternal predestination to celestial glorj' [cf. Franzelin, "De Deo uno", thes. Ixv (Rome, 188.3)].

It is just as difficult to find in the writings of the Fathers a solid argument for an absolute predestina- tion. The only one who might be cited with some semblance of truth is St. Augustine, who stands, how- ever, almost alone among his predecessors and suc- cessors. Not even his most faithful pupils. Prosper and Fulgentius, followed their master in all his exag- gerations. But a problem so deep and mysterious, which does not belong to the substance of Faith and which, to use the expression of Pope Celestine I (d. 432), is concerned with profundiores difficilioresque partes incurrenlium qwistionum (cf. Denz., n. 142), can- not be decided on the sole authority of Augustine. Moreover, the true opinion of the African doctor is a matter of dispute even among the best authorities, so that all parties claim him for their conflicting views [cf. O. Rottmanner, "Der August inismus " (^Iunich, 1892); Pfiilf, "Zur Priidestinationslehre des hi. Au- gustinus" in "Innsbrucker Zeitschrift fUr kath. Theologie", 1893, 483 sq.]. As to the unsuccessful attempt made by Gonet and Billuart to prove absolute predestination arite pravisa merita "by an argument from reason", see Pohle, "Dogmatik", II, 4th ed., Paderborn, 1909, 443 sq.

B. The Tlieory of the Negative Reprobation of the Damned. — What deters us most strongly from em- bracing the theory just discussed is not the fact that it cannot be dogmatically proved from Scripture or Tradition, but the logical necessity to which it binds us, of associating an absolute predestination to glory, with a reprobation just as absolute, even though it be but negative. The well-meant efforts of some theo- logians (e. g. Billot) to make a distinction between the two concepts, and so to escape the evil consequences of negative reprobation, cannot conceal from closer inspection the helplessness of such logical artifices. Hence the earlier partisans of absolute predestination never denied that their theory compelled them to assume for the wicked a parallel, negative reprobation — that is, to assume that, though not positively pre- destined to hell, yet they are absolutely predestined not to go to heaven (cf. above, I, B). While it was easy for the Thomists to bring this view into logical harmony with their prccmotio phyuca, the few Molin- ists were put to straits to harmonize negative reproba- tion with their scientia media. In order to disguise the

harshness and cruelty of such a Divine decree, the theologians invented more or less paUiative expres- sions, saj^ing that negative reprobation is the absolute will of God to "pass over" a priori those not predes- tined, to "overlook" them, "not to elect" them, "by no means to admit" them into heaven. Only Gonet had the courage to call the thing by its right name: "exclusion from heaven" (exclusio a gloria).

In another respect, too, the adherents of negative reprobation do not agree among themselves, namely, as to what is the motive of Divine reprobation. The rigorists (as Alvarez, Estius, Sylvius) regard as the motive the sovereign will of God who, without taking into account possible sins and demerits, determined a priori to keep those not predestined out of heaven, though He did not create them for hell.

A second milder opinion (e. g. de Lemos, Gotti, Gonet), appealing to the Augustinian doctrine of the massa damnata, finds the ultimate reason for the ex- clusion from heaven in original sin, in which God could, without being unjust, leave as many as He saw fit. The third and mildest opinion (as Goudin, Graveson, Billuart) derives reprobation not from a direct exclusion from heaven, but from the omission of an "effectual election to heaven"; they represent God as having decreed ante praiisa merita to leave those not predestined in their sinful weakness, without denying them the necessary sufficient graces; thus they would perish infalliblv (cf. "Innsbrucker Zeitschrift fiir kath. Theologie", 1879, 203 sq.).

Whatever view one may take regarding the internal probability of negative reprobation, it cannot be harmonized with the dogmaticallj' certain universality and sincerity of God's salvific will. For the absolute predestination of the blessed is at the same time the absolute will of God "not to elect " a priori the rest of mankind (Suarez), or which comes to the same, "to exclude them from heaven" (Gonet), in other words, not to save them. 'While certain Thomists (as Banez, Alvarez, Gonet) accept this conclusion so far as to degrade the "voluntas salvifica" to an ineffectual "velleitas", which conflicts with evident doctrines of revelation, Suarez labours in the sweat of his brow to safeguard the sincerity of God's sahnfic will, even towards those who are reprobated negatively. But in vain. How can that will to save be called serious and sincere which has decreed from all eternity the metaphysical impossibility of salvation? He who has been reprobated negatively, may exhaust all his efforts to attain salvation: it avails him nothing. Moreover, in order to realize infallibly his decree, God is com- pelled to frustrate the eternal welfare of all excluded a priori from heaven, and to take care that they die in their sins. Is this the language in which Holy Writ speaks to us? No; there we meet an anxious, loving father, who wills not "that any should perish, but that all should return to penance" (II Pet., iii, 9). Lessius rightly says that it would be indifferent to him whether he was numbered among those reprobated positively or negatively ; for, in either case, his eternal damnation would be certain. The reason for this is that in the present economy exclusion from heaven means for adults practically the same thing as damna- tion. A middle state, a merely natural happiness, does not exist.

C. The Theory of Predestination post prmvisa merita. — This theory, defended by the earlier Scho- lastics (Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus), as well as by the majority of the Molinists, and warmly recommended by St. Francis de Sales "as the truer and more attractive opinion", has this as its chief dis- tinction, that it is free from the logical necessity of upholding negative reprobation. It differs from pre- destination ante pra^-ixa merita in two points: first, it rejects theab.solutc decree anda.ssumes a hypothetical predestination to glory; secondly, it does not reverse the succession of grace and glorj' in the two orders of