Chapter VIII. The nature and reason of predestination according to st. thomas

WitH this principle of predilection as his guiding star, St. Thomas wrote the whole question concerning predestination in which he gives us the mature reflection of his thought on this point. We may say that all the articles of this question are so many corollaries of this principle. Let us note carefully the conclusion and proof of each article. We shall again take up the discussion of these articles in the theoretical or synthetic part of this work.

1. The first article defines predestination as: “The plan of the direction of a rational creature towards the end, i. e., life eternal; for to destine is to direct or send.” It is therefore the plan in God's mind of directing this particular man or that particular angel to the ultimate and supernatural end. It is this plan, once ordained and willed which, from all eternity, determines the efficacious means that will lead this particular man or that particular angel to his final end. In so defining predestination St. Thomas is faithful to the very letter to St. Augustine’s definition, who states that it is: “the foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits by which most certainly are liberated whoever are liberated.” * “By predestination God knew what He Himself will do.” ? The point at issue here is not a foreknowledge of our merits; for this would presuppose a passivity or dependence in God with regard to our conditionally future free determinations, and then to our future ones. The foreknowledge in question concerns what

God will do, what graces He will grant so as to lead this particular man or that particular angel to his final end. Thus predestination, by reason of its object, is to be considered as a part of providence. Note well that predestination so defined is predestination to glory; the formal wording of the text is: “towards the end, i. e., life eternal.” Moreover, predestination merely to grace is not predestination in the true sense, since it is not the contrary of reprobation. This is admitted not only by Thomists but also by congruists of the Bellarminian and Suarezian type, and even by such Molinists as Father Billot.

2. The second article proves that predestination is in God who predestines and not in the one predestined; but its effects in the one predestined are calling, justification, and glorification.

3. The third article defines its contrary, which is reprobation. It is a part of Providence to permit certain ones to fall into and remain in sin (negative reprobation), and for this defection it inflicts upon them the penalty of damnation (positive reprobation). But whereas predestination is the cause of grace and of our salutary acts, reprobation is by no means the cause of sin.* Nowhere do we find in this article that negative reprobation consists, as some later ‘Thomists thought, in a positive exclusion from glory on the grounds of an undue benefit. It is merely the non-election and the will to permit certain ones to fall into and remain in sin. We shall see that the motive for this reprobation is indicated by St. Thomas.*

4. The fourth article proves that the predestined are elected by God, so that predestination presupposes election, and this latter presupposes love. As St. Thomas says: “Predestination presupposes election in the order of reason; and election presupposes love.” *

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Here we see the application of two principles ignored by some later theologians. First of all we have this principle that God, in this case as always, wills the end before the means, and therefore He wills the predestined glory before willing them grace by which they will merit it. Duns Scotus is not, therefore, as some recently maintained, the first one to apply this principle here. St. Thomas writes on this point as follows: “But nothing is directed towards an end unless the will for that end already exists. Whence the predestination of some to eternal salvation presupposes in the order of reason, that God wills their salvation, and to this belong both election and love—love inasmuch as He wills them this particular good of eternal salvation—since to love is to wish well to anyone, as stated above (q. 20, a. 2, 3); election inasmuch as He wills this good to some in preference to others, since He reprobates some, as stated above (a. 3).” °

The second principle applied here is that of predilection: no thing would be better than another, unless it were loved more by God. St. Thomas, without alluding at all to the foreseeing of our merits, whether conditionally future or future, excludes any idea of passivity or dependence from the divine knowledge. He writes as follows: “Election and love, however, are differently ordered in God and in ourselves: because in us the will in loving does not cause good, but we are incited to love by the good which already exists; and therefore we choose someone to love, and so election in us precedes love. In God, however, it is the reverse. For His will, by which in loving He wishes good to someone, is the cause of that good possessed by some in preference to others. Thus it is clear that love precedes election in the order of reason, and election precedes predestination. Whence all the predestinate are objects of election and love.” ° The Pelagians looked upon God as merely the spectator and not the author of the good

and salutary consent which distinguishes the just person from the sinner. Both St. Thomas and St. Augustine maintain that the better and more intimate part in the free determination of this good consent must come from the source of all good. No one has asserted this more positively than the Angelic Doctor.

We shall see that Molina departs from the teaching of St. Thomas in this fundamental article. In accordance with a definition of liberty which, in the opinion of the Thomists, cannot be reconciled with the principle of predilection, he affirms that: “Of two persons who receive an equal interior grace when called by God, it may happen that one of them, because of the freedom of his will, is converted and the other remains an infidel.” 8 He even affirms ° that of two sinners, the one who is converted is sometimes the one who received less help from God. Contrary to the principle of predilection formulated by St. Thomas and enunciated in various forms by many of his predecessors, this person thus becomes better than the other without having been loved more by God. This explains why Molina, in contradiction to St. Thomas, said that “election did not precede predestination.” ° He recognizes that St. Thomas seems to have held the contrary opinion; ™ but he adds: “I never approved, however, of this opinion.” 1? He speaks in the same manner of the divine motion, regretting that St. Thomas and the majority of the Scholastics admitted with St. Augustine a predestination that did not have its foundation in the foreknowledge of merits. Here we detect the point about which, as we shall see, Thomists and Molinists differ. What they seek to know is this: whether the principle of predilection, which presupposes the

ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS 89 intrinsic efficacy of the divine decrees and of grace, is true or false.

5. In the fifth article, St. Thomas deduces other consequences from the principle of predilection, asking whether the foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination. He gives a negative answer to this question and explains it by a series of definite conclusions in the body of the article and in the reply to the third objection.

It is especially in connection with this principal point at issue that St. Thomas gives us his interpretation of the principal texts of St. Paul concerning predestination. It is of importance for us to insist on them,