Predestination, Election, and Free Will
By: John Fisher
Tags: Free Will, Augustine Of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Predestination, Election

Predestination, Election, and Free Will

An Augustinian-Thomistic Model

The old Catholic Encyclopedia features an article on the various solutions to the Controversies on Grace. Although there are 4 main solutions (Molinism, Thomism, Congruism, and Augustinianism), the Augustinian solution is the least developed and addressed. However, when combined with the Thomistic understanding of free will as detailed in the previous article, it can be a powerful tool in understanding predestination, election, and free will.

It is important to note that when speaking of the “Augustinian model”, it is not the historical model taught by Saint Augustine himself. However, what Augustinian models share in common is they

(1) distinguish between efficacious and sufficient grace whereby they are both essentially different from one another. Sufficient grace is required to choose one’s salvation, whereas efficient grace is required to choose and claim one’s salvation.

(2) recognize a tension between man’s desires for sin, and their desire to serve God which explains why one grace will overcome sin, and one will not.

(3) accept the fact God chooses not to elect all, but only some of the mass of sinners.

The aforementioned article describes the Augustinian system like this,

there is a ceaseless conflict between the heavenly delight and the evil delight of the flesh, and the stronger delight invariably gains the mastery over the will. Sufficient grace, as a weak delight, imparts merely the ability (posse), or such a feeble will that only the advent of the victorious delight of grace (delectatio coelestis victrix, caritas) can guarantee the will and the actual deed… The necessity of gratia efficax [springs] from the inherited perversity of fallen human nature, whose evil inclinations can no longer, as once in Paradise, be overcome by the converting grace (gratia versatilis; adjutorium sine quo non), but only by the intrinsically efficacious heavenly delight (gratia efficax; adjutorium quo). Augustinianism differs, however, from Jansenism in its most distinctive feature, since it regards the influence of the victorious delight as not intrinsically coercive, nor irresistible. Though the will follows the relatively stronger influence of grace or concupiscence infallibly (infallibiliter), it never does so necessarily (necessario). Although it may be said with infallible certainty that a decent man of good morals will not walk through the public streets in a state of nudity, he nevertheless retains the physical possibility of doing so, since there is no intrinsic compulsion to the maintenance of decency.

Think of the sinner as a beam balance scale, on the right-hand side of the scale is our desire for sin. On the left-hand side of the scale is our love of the good. After the fall, our love of sin weighs down the scale to the right, where we are necessarily disposed to sin. God places the sufficient grace needed to draw them away from that desire for sin, but the scale will still balance out to the right-hand side since it only imparts such a feeble weight. What is needed to overcome the weight sin bares on us is for God to place the weight of efficient grace on the right-hand side so that we can overcome our sins and accept God’s love, and the Catholic faith.

There are numerous issues with this model, but I think it can be reformulated to side-step them.

Objection 1

The first issue comes from the Controversies of Grace article, even though it is applied to the Thomistic system, it equally applies here.

The first objection is the danger that in the Thomistic system the freedom of the will cannot be maintained as against efficacious grace, a difficulty which by the way is not unperceived by the Thomists themselves. For since the essence of freedom does not lie in the contingency of the act nor in the merely passive indifference of the will, but rather in its active indifference — to will or not to will, to will this and not that — so it appears impossible to reconcile the physical predetermination of a particular act by an alien will and the active spontaneousness of the determination by the will itself; nay more, they seem to exclude each other as utterly as do determinism and indeterminism, necessity and freedom. The Thomists answer this objection by making a distinction between sensus compositus and sensus divisus, but the Molinists insist that this distinction is not correctly applicable here. For just as a man who is bound to a chair cannot be said to be sitting freely as long as his ability to stand is thwarted by indissoluble cords, so the will predetermined by efficacious grace to a certain thing cannot be said to retain the power to dissent, especially since the will, predetermined to this or that act, has not the option to receive or disregard the premotion, since this depends simply and solely on the will of God. And does not the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, cap. v, can. iv) describe efficacious grace as a grace which man “can reject”, and from which he “can dissent”? Consequently, the very same grace, which de facto is efficacious, might under other circumstances be inefficacious.

Despite the technical terminology at play, the argument is rather simple to understand syllogistically.

P1. For all choices, if a choice is a free action, then it requires some agent has the ability to do otherwise. P2. Either (1) efficient grace cannot be rejected, or (2) it can be rejected. P3. Efficient grace cannot be rejected [assumption 1] C1. If efficient grace cannot be rejected, then it violates human free will [P1, P3]. P5. Efficient grace can be rejected [assumption 2] P6. If efficient grace can be rejected, then human free will isn’t dependent on God as a cause, and it violates the nature of efficient grace being efficient. C2. Either the doctrine of efficient grace (1) violates human free will or (2) isn’t dependent on God as a cause, and it violates the nature of efficient grace being efficient [P3-P4, P5-P6, P2]

The Council of Trent makes taking the third premise of the syllogism impossible since it claims,

If any one [sic] saith, that man’s free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema [1]

The justifying grace is the efficient grace in the case of the believer since it would be the grace that ends up bringing about the justification of the believer.

Response 1

The flaw in the above argument is in thinking that “the essence of freedom does not lie in the contingency of the act”. From a Thomistic perspective, this is false. There is freedom both in the act of free will and in God. On Thomism, God is the cause of all actions. Even Saint Thomas admits as much in the Summa when he confesses that God’s will is the cause of the act of sin (not that he is morally responsible for it as we shall see further down).

The act of sin is a movement of the free-will. Now “the will of God is the cause of every movement,” as Augustine declares (De Trin. iii, 4,9). Therefore God’s will is the cause of the act of sin. [2]*

First, remember that God is the cause of our freedom. Looking back at my last article on God’s relationship to free will, I claimed God and human free will are both causes working at two different levels. Our free choice and God’s causal power are not exclusionary, but rather one is derivative of the other.

Secondly, what exists in the cause also exists to some degree in the effect, meaning that there is freedom both in the cause (God) and the effect (us). As an analogy, when fire creates heat to weaken some piece of metal, heat would exist in both the fire, as well as the metal. However, the heat would exist in two different ways. In the same matter, our freedom does exist differently in God and us, but it exists regardless in both the contingency of our actions and in God. This means mankind does retain the freedom to reject God’s efficient grace. Does this mean efficient grace is not efficient?

Human beings do retain their free will, but this does not render efficient grace inefficient. A distinction has to be made between necessary propositions, and propositions which are true in an infallible sense. A proposition is made of a subject, a predicate, and a connective. Think of “Water is H20”, “water” is the subject, “is” is the connective, and “H20” is the predicate. There is no way water can exist unless it is H20. Thus, it is necessary. However, if we say “I am thinking”, such a proposition is infallibly true, not because you must always be thinking, or you couldn’t exist without thinking, but because every time you reflect on your thoughts, you are thinking, and that’s something you must always be aware of, whether you’re dreaming, awake, or being deceived.

Likewise, efficient grace is efficient, not because it must always work out of necessity, but because God infallibly knows how a man will cooperate with his efficient grace in a free manner. He knows all men will cooperate with his efficient grace, not despite their free will, but because of it.

Objection 2

The next objection from the old Catholic Encyclopedia’s article the Controversies on Grace is made along the same lines as the last.

Herein the second objection to the Thomistic distinction between gratia efficax and gratia sufficiens is already indicated. If both graces are in their nature and intrinsically different, it is difficult to see how a grace can be really sufficient which requires another grace to complete it. Hence, it would appear that the Thomistic gratia sufficiens is in reality a gratia insufficiens. The Thomists cannot well refer the inefficacy of this grace to the resistance of the free will, for this act of resistance must be traced to a proemotio physica as inevitable as the efficacious grace

The objection here concerns what is sufficient grace sufficient for? If sufficient grace requires some efficient grace, it cannot be sufficient on its own.

Response 2

Sufficient grace is sufficient to grant those who suffer from the depravity of sin the ability to recognize and desire the good, even if God knows infallibly sinners will not act on it. Whether or not God wishes to add efficient grace is up to him. Some will say this is unfair, but after he knows we will reject such a sufficient grace (not out of necessity) the fact he wishes to give additional grace is a mercy unto itself.

Objection 3

The next objection is accounted for by Saint Thomas himself.

Moreover, a third great difficulty lies in the fact that sin, as an act, demands the predetermining activity of the “first mover”, so that God would according to this system appear to be the originator of sinful acts. The Thomistic distinction between the entity of sin and its malice offers no solution of the difficulty. For since the Divine influence itself, which premoves ad unum, both introduces physically the sin as an act and entity, and also, by the simultaneous withholding of the opposite premotion to a good act, makes the sin itself an inescapable fatality, it is not easy to explain why sin cannot be traced back to God as the originator. Furthermore, most sinners commit their misdeeds, not with a regard to the depravity, but for the sake of the physical entity of the acts, so that ethics must, together with the wickedness, condemn the physical entity of sin.

Since God is the cause of our sinful actions, while withholding the ability to not sin through efficient grace, it becomes difficult to see how our sins are not just inevitable. Thomas, as just cited earlier in the Summa, does agree God moves us towards sin. The problem is that the levels of causality are misplaced.

Response 3

Thomas does not hold God is the direct cause of every sin, but the indirect cause of sin. Sin is a privation of the good (much the same way coldness is a privation of heat, or a hole is a privation of surface area). This is why we cannot trace back sin to God as originator, because God himself has no privation like evil.

Since an act of sin requires goodness to exist, and God is the cause of the good an agent has, it could be said God is the cause of the act of sin only insofar as allows it to exist through some greater good God graces us with. Does this mean God is morally responsible and blameworthy for that act of sin? No, God is only the cause by giving us the greater good of free will, which we can abuse to cause evil ourselves. While it is true he withholds efficient grace, sufficient grace still retains within its nature, no matter how feeble, a potency to overcome sin, even if God knows infallibly we will not utilize it.

Objection 4

Thomists…have only apparently found in their physical premotion an infallible medium by which God knows in advance with absolute certainty all the free acts of his creatures, whether they be good or bad. For as these premotions, as has been shown above, must in their last analysis be considered the knell of freedom, they cannot well be considered as the means by which God obtains a foreknowledge of the free acts of rational agents. Consequently the claims and proper place of the scientia media in the system may be regarded as vindicated.

The argument here is that since Thomists require infallible certainty prior to God’s premotion, it follows that God would need to possess middle knowledge.

Response 4

The issue here is that middle knowledge proceeds the decree of God’s will, while under a Thomistic-Augustinian system our free will and grace (either efficient of sufficient) are an effect of God’s causal power, it is not an antecedent to it. Thus, what we have is not an issue of “middle knowledge”, but rather is just a part of God’s free knowledge.

Objection 5

Unlike the Thomistic model of predestination, Augustinianism rejects the notion that he wills the salvation of all men. As Fr. William Most, a critic, writes,

Tragically, St. Augustine did, more than once, deny that God wills all to be saved… In his work De correptione et gratia 14. 44 he quotes 1 Timothy 2. 4 and continues: [it] can be understood in many ways, of which we have mentioned some in other works, but I shall give one here. It is said in such a way. . . that all the predestined are meant, for the whole human race is in them.” But this is not honest. All really means only those whom He predestines. [3]

Now, Fr. Most claims that 1 Timothy 2:4 is a strong scriptural proof that God elects all men to be saved. We read,

This, first of all, I ask; that petition, prayer, entreaty and thanksgiving should be offered for all mankind, especially for kings and others in high station, so that we can live a calm and tranquil life, as dutifully and decently as we may.Such prayer is our duty, it is what God, our Saviour, expects of us, since it is his will that all men should be saved, and be led to recognize the truth; there is only one God, and only one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is a man, like them (1 Timothy 2: 1–4)

Response 5

But ‘all’ doesn’t need to refer to every single person without exception. In fact, as Fr. Ronald Knox points out in his commentary,

It is possible that the false teachers at Ephesus, if they were Jews, may have been influenced by the unpopularity of Roman rule in Judaea, so as to preach disloyalty to the Empire; perhaps, too, they refused to recognize that the gospel was offered to the whole of mankind. [4]

In this context ‘all men’ could refer to “men of all nations and in every station of government”, rather than every single individual. This would include kings (as the passage mentions) and Roman citizens (as well as citizens of all nations).

Paul uses similar wording elsewhere,

All alike have sinned, all alike are unworthy of God’s praise (Romans 3:23)

A literal reading would deny the sinlessness of the Virgin Mary, yet Fr. Most and many other Catholics would not say a plain reading makes her a virgin. Not to mention Christ himself, who is sinless. Yet when remembering that the chapter is about Jew and gentile nations, not individuals, we realize that it would be fallacious to apply what is true of the nations to the individuals. Just because something is true of the whole, does not mean it is true of the part. Just because both nations alike have fallen short, does not speak to every individual therein. Likewise, just because God wills that all of mankind is saved, it does not follow every individual is willed to be saved, but it suffices that Paul was speaking about people from all sorts of national backgrounds.

However, a point to bring up is that while God does not will for the salvation of all people after the fall, it would be silly to believe God’s will prior to the fall wasn’t to will Adam and his descendants to salvation. God willed that Adam and his descendants would be saved (giving him the free will to merit for himself and others eternal life), but would permit the fall only to bring about a greater good. Furthermore, even by providing the reprobate a sufficient grace to weakly move our desire towards the good shows God is damning them not out of his will, but because of their resistance.

Objection 6

Fr. Most claims that to deny the universal sense of 1 Timothy 2:4 amounts to throwing away the notion of God’s love, he writes

To deny the words of St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2. 4. is horrendous: “God wills all men to be saved.” Why? When The Father says in 1 Tim 2.4 that He wills all men to be saved, it really means that He loves them, for He wills them good, even divine good [3]

This is an issue that a lot of Augustinians wrestle with, but must we assume that God hates those who he permits to fall away, that they are a mere means?

Response 6

Not at all, when people fall away, they are using their free will, they are not forced to fall away. Furthermore, God shows love and hatred to sinners, and there is no contradiction. As Saint Thomas says,

Nothing prevents one and the same thing being loved under one aspect, while it is hated under another. God loves sinners in so far as they are existing natures; for they have existence and have it from Him. In so far as they are sinners, they have not existence at all, but fall short of it; and this in them is not from God. Hence under this aspect, they are hated by Him. [5]

God hates nothing which exists (Wisdom 11:25). God loves sinners because they exist, and to exist is a good of some kind. Evil for Thomas and Augustine are privations of the good, and as such, they have no existence in themselves. God hates this aspect of the sinner, but because of their positive nature, God still shows love to them. Even in sin, God allows them to have pleasures in this world (Luke 16:25). God’s mercy might be small but to some degree it is present.

Footnotes

[1] Trent, Session 6, Canon 4, link

[2] Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part > Question 79, Article 2, On the Contrary, link

[3] Fr. William Most, Summary of Debate on Salvific Will Started by Augustine, link

[4] Fr. Ronald Knox, Bible Commentary, The First Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul to Timothy, link

[5] Summa Theologiae, First Part, Question 20, Article 2, Reply to Objection 4, link