Second Objection
manner. For (to omit the angels) if you consider the elect by themselves, they are many. "I say to you, that many shall come from the East, and West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 8:11). "I beheld and lo a great multitude, which no man could number of all nations, kindreds, people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with long white robes, and palms in their hands" (Rev.
7:9). Yea, there is as it were a world of elect. Augustine: "The church which is without spot and wrinkle and gathered together out of all nations and which shall reign with Christ forever, even she is the land of the blessed and the land of the living."43 Again, the reconciling world "shall be delivered out of the maligning world."
Eusebius: "Christ suffered for the salvation of the world, of those which are to be saved."45 The author of the book de vocations gentium book 1: "In those which are elected, foreknown, and severed from the multitude of men, there is a certain special universality counted, that the whole world may seem to be delivered out of the whole world, and that all men may seem to be taken out of all men."
Bede calls those "a world to be enlightened and healed who were predestinated to eternal life." Thomas: "The true light enlightens those who come into the world of virtues, not those which come into the world of vices."47
Nevertheless, if those same elect be compared with them that are justly damned, we say according to the Scriptures that they are few.
"The gate is narrow and the way straight which leadeth to life, and few there be which find it" (Matt. 7:13–14). Again, "Many are called, but few are chosen" (22:14).
Second Objection
The second crimination is that we teach that God ordained men to hellfire and created them to the end that He might destroy them.
Answer. Here the distinction of the double act in reprobation must be repeated and retained. First therefore, I answer that reprobation in regard of the former act is absolute—that is, in regard of the purpose to forsake the creature and to manifest justice in it. So we teach and believe. For we cannot so much as imagine a cause in the creature why it was God's will to pass by it and to suffer some to fall finally from their blessed estate. Yea, sin is itself after the desertion and just permission of God; and therefore it can by no means be the cause of the permission and desertion. Whence it is that Lombard, the master of all the schoolmen, says that "God has rejected whom
He would not for any future merits which He did foresee, but yet most righteously, though we cannot conceive the reason thereof."
And Jerome long before him does thus expound the place of Paul:
"Ere the children were born, and when they had neither done good nor evil" (Rom. 9:11). "If Esau," says he, "and Jacob were not yet born neither had done good or evil whereby they might win to God's favor or offend Him, and if their election and rejection does not show their several deserts, but the will of the elector and rejecter, what shall we say?"49 Afterward: "If we grant this, that God does whatever
He will, and that He either chooses or condemns a man without desert and works, it is not therefore in him that wills nor in him that runs, but in God that shows mercy." Again: "Therefore it is in vain asked, seeing that it is in His power and will either to choose or to refuse a man without good and evil works." Anselm: "It is not ours to know why God denies grace to them which would gladly receive" and consent to grace, "and neglects another that would so well consent to it. This is only known to God." Again: "No creature is able to search out why He is merciful to this man rather than to another."51 The same do other schoolmen affirm in the midst of papacy. Gregorius
Armineus lays down six conclusions concerning predestination.
First, that there is nobody predestinated for the willing of free will which God foreknew that he should have. Secondly, that no man is predestinated because he was foreknown to continue to the end without any let of habitual grace. Third, that whomever God predestinated, "him He did predestinate freely, purposely and of His pure mercy." Fourthly, that no man is rejected for the evil using of free will which God foresaw he would be tainted with. Fifthly, that there is not any rejected because he was foreknown to have finally an impediment of divine grace. Sixthly, that whomever God rejected, him He did reject without any cause in him. The very same conclusions has Petrus de Alliaco and Marsilius of Inghen, some of whose words I will set down: "He is predestinated," says he, "to whom God has purposed to give everlasting life. And he is rejected on whom God has determined not to bestow the same, as the apostle teaches (Romans 9)." Again: "No man that is predestinated is predestinated for anything which should be in him in time to come, so also there is no reprobate rejected for any cause which was to be in him in time to come. And everyone that is predestinate is predestinated only by grace and by God's merciful disposition, not for any cause either actual or privative to be found in him while he lives." Again: "To reject is to nill to show mercy, and this is not for the evil works of any creature, for however holy the works were, God would show mercy as He listed."52 So also Francis of Mayrone says that there are four signs necessary for the understanding of the proceeding of predestination and reprobation. First, in which Peter and Judas are offered to the divine will, as to neither of them both.
And then the divine will did preordain Peter to glory, but it had no positive act about Judas, according to Augustine.54 The second sign is in which He preordained Peter to grace, and then He had no positive act as yet about Judas. The third sign is in which they are left to themselves, and both of them do fall into sin. The fourth sign is that in which Peter rises again, for he cannot continue because he is
predestinated by the first sign. But Judas rises not again, because he has not God to raise him up; therefore, he is rejected. "The cause and reason of the whole work of reprobation cannot be said to be in the reprobates, for sin itself cannot be the cause of that permission of sin for which a man is damned, whether it be original or actual, as it appears in infants who die only with original sin. Which verily, however it may be the cause why infants are forsaken in it, yet nevertheless it cannot be the cause and reason why the whole nature of man should be suffered to fall in Adam." And Ferrariensis says that "four things are found in a reprobate—to wit, a sufferance to fall into sin, the sin itself, God's forsaking not raising him from sin, and the punishment or damnation. Now reprobation is not alike but diversely affected to all these. For if we consider sin in itself, reprobation is not caused by it. Although nothing on our parts, to wit, no work of ours be the cause of the whole work of reprobation
(for of all these together—namely, of the permission, forsaking and punishment—the manifestation of God's justice is the alone cause, considering that no work of ours is the cause of the permission), yet notwithstanding our wicked working or sin is the cause why we are damned and punished." Again: "We deny that God is cruel, for we say that God does not punish and torment the reprobate for the fulfilling (as it were) of his own fancy, but for sin eternally foreknown, which He determined so to dispose of by punishing of it, that His justice might be made manifest."
Thomas: "Why He elects these to glory and rejects those, He has no reason but the divine will." Again: "The difference of those which are to be saved from them that are to be damned proceeds from the principal invention of the first Agent." Again: "We must not inquire why He converted these and not those. For this comes of His own mere will." And Augustine upon John: "Why He draws this man and not that, do not desire to judge, if you would not err."58