predestination stuff

from St. Thomas concerning predestination

“That divine predestination does not impose necessity on human acts

Last of all we come to the question whether, because of divine ordination or predestination, human acts become necessary. This question requires caution so as to defend the truth and avoid falsity or error.

It is erroneous to say that human acts and events escape God’s fore-knowledge and ordination. It is no less erroneous to say that God’s fore-knowledge and ordination imposes necessity on human acts; otherwise free will would be removed, as well as the value of taking counsel, the usefulness of laws, the care to do what is right and the justice of rewards and punishments.

We must observe that God knows things differently from man. Man is subject to time and therefore knows things temporally, seeing some things as present, recalling others as past, and fore-seeing others as future. But God is above the passage of time, and his existence is eternal. So his knowledge is not temporal, but eternal. Eternity is compared to time as something indivisible to what is continuous. Thus in time there is a difference of successive parts according to before and after, but eternity has no before and after, because eternal things are free from any change.

Thus eternity is totally at once, just as a point lacks parts that are distinct in location. For a point can be compared to a line in two ways: first as included in the line, whether at the beginning, middle or end, secondly as existing outside a line. A point within a line cannot be present to all the parts of the line, but in different parts of the line different points must be designated. But a point outside the line can view all parts of the line equally, as in a circle, whose central point is indivisible and faces all the parts of the circumference and all of them are somehow present to it, although not to one another.

An instant, which is a limit of time, is comparable to the point included in a line. It is not present to all parts of time, but in different parts of time different instances are designated. Eternity is something like the point outside a line, like the centre of a circle. Since it is simple and indivisible, it comprehends the whole passage of time and each part of time is equally present to it, although one part of time follows another.

Thus God, who looks at everything from the high point of eternity, views as present the whole passage of time and everything that is done in time. Therefore, when I see Socrates sitting, my knowledge is infallible and certain, but no necessity is imposed on Socrates to be seated. Thus God, seeing everything that is past, future or present to us as present to himself, knows all this infallibly and certainly, yet without imposing on contingent things any necessity of existing.

This comparison can be accepted, if we compare the passage of time to travel over a road. If someone is on a road over which many people pass, he sees those who are just ahead of him, but cannot certainly know those who come after him. But if someone stands in a high place where he can see the whole road, he sees at once all who are moving on the road. Thus man, who is in time, cannot see the whole course of time at once, but only thinks that just in front of him, namely the present, and a few things of the past, but he cannot know future things for certain. But God, from the high point of his eternity sees with certitude and as present all that is done through the whole course of time, without imposing necessity on contingent things.

Just as God’s knowledge does not impose necessity on contingent things, neither does his ordination, by which he providentially orders the universe. For he orders things the way he acts on things; his ordination does not violate but brings to effect by his power what he planned in his Wisdom.

As for the action of God’s power, we should observe that he acts in everything and moves each single thing to its actions according to the manner proper to each thing, so that some things, by divine motion, act from necessity, as the motion of heavenly bodies [according to ancient cosmology], while others contingently, which sometimes fail in their proper action because of their corruptibility. A tree, for example, sometimes is impeded from producing fruit and an animal from generating offspring. Thus Divine Wisdom orders things so that they happen after the manner of their proper causes. In the case of man, it is natural for him to act freely, not forced, because rational powers can turn in opposite directions. Thus God orders human actions in a way that these actions are not subject to necessity, but come from free will.

[this is from 

 De Rationibus Fidei, by St. Thomas

found here:  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/05/predestination-john-calvin-vs-thomas-aquinas/  in comment 66

There is a good discussion of this at that link

also comment 5

It seems to me that the most important question in this context and in relation to our aim of reconciling Reformed Protestants with the Catholic Church is this: What positions does the Catholic Church allow, and what does the Catholic Church condemn, with respect to this subject of predestination?

Given that within those guidelines, there remain open (unresolved) questions and different permitted answers, it seems to me important first to lay out those guidelines, because everything that is *within* those guidelines is not cause for schism, but can be an open question as an in-house matter.

The Catholic Church does teach definitively that some people are predestined to heaven through grace. We can see this in the canons of Trent 6. She also teaches that some are destined to hell, on the basis of their foreseen sin and free rejection of God, as just retribution for their sin. But she teaches that no one is predestined to sin. (See the Second Council of Orange) God’s foreknowledge imparts no necessity on man’s free will. Likewise, man’s will remains free under the influence of grace. (Trent 6 can. 4) Grace is resistable. No one perishes because he is unable to be saved, but because he is unwilling to be saved. God desires all men, without exception, to be saved. God gives sufficient grace [for salvation] to all men, yet not all men are saved.

As for the question concerning why in some persons sufficient grace is efficacious, and in other persons, sufficient grace is not efficacious (is it because of a qualitative difference in the grace given, or because of a difference in the willed response), the Church has (for now) left that question open. That entails that a Catholic may believe that God gives sufficient grace to all, but gives efficient grace only to some. A Catholic may, alternatively, believe that what makes sufficient grace efficient is the free acceptance by the will, and what makes sufficient grace not efficient is the free rejection by the will. A Catholic may, alternatively, prescind altogether from answering this question. This question (in this paragraph) is an open-question within the Catholic Church, and therefore need not be a cause for division.

end of quote

and from comment 8

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on ‘predestination’ gives three limiting conditions for any orthodox theory on predestination and reprobation:

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 following theses: (a) At least in the order of execution in time (in ordine executionis) the meritorious works of the predestined are the partial cause of their eternal happiness; (b) hell cannot even in the order of intention (in ordine intentionis) have been positively decreed 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.

see also: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/12/signs-of-predestination-a-catholic-discusses-election/

and http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/11/lawrence-feingold-on-predestinatio/#comment-49726

and  http://www.thesumma.info/predestination/predestination4.php

St. Thomas Aquinas

Although one may neither merit in advance nor call forth divine grace by a movement of his free choice, he is able to prevent himself from receiving this grace: Indeed, it is said in Job(21:34): “Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Your ways”; and in Job (24:13): “They have been rebellious to the light.” And since this ability to impede or not to impede the reception of divine grace is within the scope of free choice, not undeservedly is responsibility for the fault imputed to him who offers an impediment to the reception of grace. In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all; “indeed He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4). But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsible for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun. (SCG III 159)

below from comment 63 here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/12/signs-of-predestination-a-catholic-discusses-election/

 You are asking four distinct but related questions, and they are all good questions. First, if God truly desires all men to be saved, then how can we make sense of the notion that God predestines only some? Second, if God truly desires all men to be saved, why does He give more grace to some than to others? Third, how can God be love, and yet give less grace to some? Fourth, how can God desire all men to be saved, yet not give the grace of perseverance to all who come to faith?

Let’s look at your third question first, because it is about the compatibility of love with unequal distributions of gifts. That God is love, and loves all His creatures, does not entail that God loves each creature equally. Even in the act of creating, God makes some creatures greater than other creatures, giving to some more gifts than to others. In other words, even in the order of nature (as opposed to the order of grace) we see that God gives more good to some creatures than to others, and this is compatible with His love for all His creatures, even the least endowed of His creatures. (See Summa Theologica I Q.20 a.3 “Does God love one thing more than another?”) The question, essentially, is whether God truly loves those persons to whom He gives less grace. And the answer is yes. We often underestimate the greatness of the gift of God’s invitation to be with Him eternally, and the magnitude of the sacrifice Christ made to merit this gift. God gives this gift to all men. He has given to all men His very Son; He does not withhold from anyone the grace that person needs to turn away from sin and turn to God.

For those who receive less grace, even the grace they receive is entirely sufficient for them to turn to Him and be saved. God gives them sufficient grace precisely because He truly loves them and desires that they be with Him in heaven. Those who choose to reject God do so not because He did not give them sufficient grace, but because they freely reject the sufficient grace He has given them in love. It would be a mistake to assume that truly loving a man requires giving to him all possible graces, just as it would be a mistake to infer that God loves only the wealthiest 1%, since He did not give to the rest of the population that same measure of wealth.

Regarding your first question, it is not predestining per se that raises the problem regarding God’s desire that all men be saved; it is His predestining some and not all, that seems (prima facie) incompatible with His genuinely desiring that all men be saved. If everyone were predestined, you wouldn’t be asking this first question. So the question is more fundamentally: Why are any reprobate? The Church has set down certain truths concerning the dogma of predestination, but she has also [for now] left open certain questions regarding this sacred mystery. I discussed this briefly in May of 2009 in comment #5 of Taylor’s post titled “Predestination: John Calvin vs. Thomas Aquinas.” Concerning this subject there are a few theological positions that are permissible; two were represented in the early seventeenth century by the Molinists and the followers of Banez. Pope Paul V declared that they stop feuding over the question, and prohibited both sides from condemning the position of the other.

One permissible way of reconciling God’s desire that all men be saved with the fact that some are reprobate is that God reprobates those whom He foresees do not cooperate with the sufficient grace they are given. (See Fr. Most’s position described in Taylor’s post linked just above.) This idea depends on something we can see in St. Thomas, even if St. Thomas himself did not fully develop it. St. Thomas writes:

Although one may neither merit in advance nor call forth divine grace by a movement of his free choice, he is able to prevent himself from receiving this grace: Indeed, it is said in Job(21:34): “Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Your ways”; and in Job (24:13): “They have been rebellious to the light.” And since this ability to impede or not to impede the reception of divine grace is within the scope of free choice, not undeservedly is responsibility for the fault imputed to him who offers an impediment to the reception of grace. In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all; “indeed He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4). But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsible for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun. (SCG III 159)

The key line here is “But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace.” [sed illi soli gratia privantur qui in seipsis gratiae impedimentum praestant] So, according to this explanation, those alone are reprobate whom God has foreseen completely and finally reject the sufficient grace He offers them. This explanation allows it to be true that God genuinely desires the salvation of all men, because He truly gives to all men sufficient grace to be saved. But this explanation also allows it to be simultaneously true that some are reprobate (and thus that not all are predestined), not because God does not love the reprobate or genuinely desire their salvation, but because they themselves offer an obstacle within themselves to grace. In the asymmetry of salvation, man cannot save himself, but he can damn himself. God predestines none to sin or to hell. (See the Second Council of Orange, which states, “We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.”)

A similar idea can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its explanation of the role of free human responses in God’s eternal plan of predestination:

Jesus’ violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God’s plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: “This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God. To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: “In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. (CCC 599,600, my emphasis)

A few paragraphs later the Catechism reaffirms that the Church, following the Apostles, has always taught that Christ died for every human being:

By giving up his own Son for our sins, God manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent love, prior to any merit on our part: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.” God “shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” At the end of the parable of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God’s love excludes no one: “So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” He affirms that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many;” this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us. The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.” (CCC 604,605, my emphasis)

According to this explanation, there is a great asymmetry between predestination and reprobation. Predestination is not due to man’s foreseen merit, but reprobation is due to man’s free rejection of grace. This allows the truth of predestination and the truth of God’s universal salvific will to be held together. This is not the only possible explanation; nor does it answer all the questions that could be raised. But it is one possible and permissible explanation for Catholics.

Regarding your second question, I don’t know why God gives more grace to some than to others; presumably, in His goodness and wisdom He sees this as better than giving all an equal measure of grace. But, those who receive less grace, do not receive insufficient grace. And that’s the important point, as I explained in answer to your third question above. That some receive lesser grace is fully compatible with His universal salvific desire so long as that lesser grace is sufficient grace. The Second Vatican Council taught: “For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery” (Gaudium et spes 22).

Regarding your fourth question, I think this is an important question, and helpful in answering your first question, and vice versa (i.e. the answer to your first question is helpful in answering your fourth question). In other words, the question of why some who receive the grace of faith and justification do not receive the grace of perseverance, is a species of the broader question, “Why are some reprobate?” The Council of Trent has a fascinating line in its paragraph on perseverance:

For God, unless men themselves fail in His grace, as he has begun a good work, so will he perfect it, working to will and to accomplish. (Phil. 1:6, 2:13.) (Council of Trent, Session VI, chapter 13)

Notice that phrase “unless men themselves fail in His grace.” Implied there is the idea that God wants to give the gift of perseverance to all who come to faith. The Council seeks to avoid two errors with respect to perseverance: presumption that those who come to faith are guaranteed to persevere, and despair that those who come to faith can persevere, even with God’s help, or that God is truly willing to help them. That can be seen in canon 22 of that same session:

If anyone says that the one justified either can without the special help of God persevere in the justice received, or that with that help he cannot, let him be anathema.

The Christian is to believe that he must seek the gift of perseverance from God, who will not withhold good gifts from those who ask. He can know with encouragement that God will help him persevere if he faithfully implores God’s aid and does not neglect the means of grace. But the believer is simultaneously warned that he cannot presume to have the gift of perseverance, or think he can persevere by his own strength. Here again, I think, we see a similar relation to the relation of predestination and God’s universal salvific desire. Only those who freely neglect the means of grace do not receive the gift of perseverance. It is not God that causes men not to persevere; it is God who is working in us to persevere. But we can place an obstacle, to use the language of St. Thomas. And if we place an obstacle, then our not persevering is due to us, not to God.

http://archive.catholic.com/thisrock/1993/9309fea1.asp

Aiken explains the Catholics version of TULIP

In view of this, we might propose a Thomist version of TULIP (catholic view)

T = total inability (to please God without special grace);
U = unconditional election;
L = limited intent (for the atonement's efficacy);
I = intrinsically efficacious grace (for salvation);
P = perseverance of the elect (until the end of life).

For the full article on the TULIP from a Calvinist and a Catholic perspective go  here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/TULIP.htm

a book type on it http://www.thesumma.info/predestination/index.php

also good quotes here from a book that discusses it from different RC viewpoints:
http://catholicforum.forumotion.com/t914-god-s-permission-of-sin-negative-or-conditioned-decree
here is a sample:

“Marin goes on to discuss three cases that manifest our ignorance in these matters: 1. the conversion of one infidel and not another; 2. the justification of one faithful sinner and not another; 3. the final perseverance of a just man and not another:

"All that we know for certain in each off these three cases is tow things:

(a) that if someone converts to the faith or is justified from sin or is saved dying in the grace of God, all of this comes from the pure mercy of God and never comes from the nature of the merits of man;

(b) that if anyone remains all his life in infidelity, or remains all his life in mortal sin, and therefore dies without the grace of God and is condemned, this comes from man freely placing, to some sufficient grace, which God denies to no one, some impediment that it was in his hand, by virtue of the grace which he possessed, not to have placed. That is, it always comes from the man not having with sufficient grace something that he, and above all not praying with the grace that he actually had for something that he could have prayed. In this manner is verified that God saves those whom He wills and how He wills, in which the mystery of predestination consists, but He does not cease to save one who, with the grace that God has given him, prays for what he can pray..................

This speculative mystery of predestination does not disappear with this, but what disappears with it is desperation, because God, notwithstanding this mystery, has placed in the hands of men a practical way of salvation. This way is the way of impetration, and infallible way on the part of God, while man does not fail on his part, that is, while man does not place, to the grace which he at each moment has, some impediment that he could in sensu composito not place (2 55 860-1 0037-eight)."“The final point made by Marin is particularly worthy of note. Were the practical mystery of predestination as obscure as the speculative one, one would be led to desperation; that is, one would have no confidence that one was on the way to glory or that one had a hope of obtaining salvation. In fact, however, one does possess a practical means of possessing some confidence in one’s ultimate destiny, namely the way of prayer, or reliance upon God’s mercy. And this way in a sense confirms itself, for the experience of prayer is often the solace of God’s presence and His loving aid. Thus, even though one does not know that one is predestined, one does know that if one does not refuse God’s mercy, then the graces that flow from that mercy will bring one to glory. This is all that is needed to lead a life of Christian hope. It is the particular character of Marin’s doctrine to bring the speculative mystery of predestination back to the practical life of Christian hope and prayer