CHAPTER EIGHT: Of the Predestination and Providence of God (part 1 of 3)
CHAPTER EIGHT
Of the Predestination and Providence of God
The covenant of life is not preached equally throughout the whole world; and even where it is preached, it is not received equally by all. In this diversity there appears a wonderful secret of God’s judgment. For there is no doubt that this variety is governed by his good pleasure. Now if it is evident that it is by God’s will that salvation is offered to some while others are excluded from it, great and profound questions arise from this which cannot be resolved except by teaching believers what they ought to hold concerning God’s election and predestination.
This subject contains two parts. First, we must explain how it is to be understood that some are predestined to salvation and others to damnation. Then we must declare how this world is governed by God’s providence, since everything that happens depends upon his ordinance. But before proceeding further in the treatment of this subject, I must address two kinds of people by way of preface.
The discussion of predestination is in itself somewhat obscure, but human curiosity makes it tangled, perplexing, and even dangerous. For the human understanding cannot restrain or confine itself, but wanders through great detours and raises itself far too high, desiring, if it were possible, to leave no secret to God which it has not investigated and examined. Since we see many falling into this audacity and presumption, including several who are otherwise not wicked, we must admonish them how they ought to conduct themselves in this matter.
First, then, let them remember that when they inquire into predestination, they enter the sanctuary of divine wisdom. If anyone thrusts and intrudes himself into it with excessive confidence and boldness, he will never succeed in satisfying his curiosity, but will enter a labyrinth from which he can find no way out. For it is not right that men should scrutinize the things which God has willed to keep hidden and whose knowledge he has reserved to himself. Nor should the height of his wisdom—which he has willed us to adore rather than comprehend, so that he might thereby appear wonderful to us—be subjected to human understanding, as though we could search it out even to eternity.
The secrets of his will which he has judged it good to communicate to us, he has testified to us in his Word. And he has judged it good to communicate everything which he saw to concern us and to be profitable for us. If this conviction once takes root in us—that the Word of God is the only way by which we are to be led in searching out everything that it is lawful to know concerning him, and the only light by which we may behold everything that it is lawful to see—it will easily restrain us and draw us back from all rashness. For we shall know that once we have passed beyond the bounds of Scripture, we are wandering off the path and into darkness, and therefore can do nothing but stray, stumble, and strike against obstacles at every step.
Above all, therefore, let us keep this before our eyes: that to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is given to us in the Word of God is no less madness than attempting to walk across inaccessible rocks or to see in darkness. And let us not be ashamed to remain ignorant of anything in this matter, where there is an ignorance more learned than knowledge. Rather, let us gladly refrain from desiring a knowledge whose pursuit is foolish and dangerous, indeed even deadly. If the curiosity of our understanding presses us, let us always have this saying at hand to restrain it:
“He who searches into the majesty of God shall be overwhelmed by his glory.”
This should certainly deter us from such audacity, since we see that it can do nothing but cast us headlong into ruin.
On the other hand, there are others who, wishing to remedy this evil, strive almost to bury every mention of predestination. At the very least, they warn us to avoid making any inquiry into it, as though it were a dangerous subject. Although such modesty is praiseworthy insofar as it insists that we approach the mysteries of God only with great sobriety, yet because they go too far in the opposite direction, their counsel does little good for human minds, which are not so easily restrained.
Therefore, in order to keep a proper measure here, we must return to the Word of God, in which we have a sound rule for attaining certain knowledge. For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which nothing necessary or profitable for us to know has been omitted, and nothing is taught which is not beneficial for us to learn. We must therefore take care not to hinder believers from investigating what Scripture contains concerning predestination, lest we appear either to deprive them of the good that God has communicated to them or to accuse the Holy Spirit of publishing things that ought to have been suppressed.
Let us therefore permit the Christian to open his ears and understanding to all the doctrine addressed to him by God, provided that he always maintains this restraint: when he sees the sacred mouth of God closed, he must also close to himself the way of further inquiry. This will be the proper boundary of sobriety: as we learn, we must follow God, always keeping him before us; and when he ceases to teach, we must cease from desiring to understand any further.
The danger feared by the well-meaning people of whom we have spoken is not so great that we should therefore cease listening to God in everything he says. I confess that the wicked and blasphemers immediately find in this doctrine of predestination something to criticize, distort, attack, or mock. But if we fear their insolence, we shall have to remain silent concerning the chief articles of our faith, scarcely one of which they do not defile with their blasphemies. A rebellious mind will run no less wildly when it hears that there are three persons in the one essence of God than when it is told that, in creating man, God foresaw what would happen to him. Likewise, these wicked men will not refrain from mockery when they are told that the world was created little more than six thousand years ago. For they will ask how it is that God’s power remained idle for so long.
In order to silence such sacrilegious men, must we cease speaking of the deity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit? Must we remain silent about the creation of the world? On the contrary, the truth of God is so powerful in this matter, as in every other, that it does not fear the slanders of the wicked. Saint Augustine demonstrates this very well in the little book he entitled On the Gift of Perseverance. For we see that the false apostles, though they condemned and defamed Saint Paul’s doctrine, could not make him ashamed of it.
Some consider this whole discussion dangerous even among believers, alleging that it undermines exhortation, shakes faith, troubles hearts, and casts them down. But this is a frivolous objection. Saint Augustine does not conceal that he was reproved on these very grounds for preaching predestination too freely. Yet, as he was well able to do, he refuted these charges sufficiently.
As for us, because many different absurdities are alleged against the doctrine we shall present, it will be better to postpone answering each of them until its proper place. For the present, I desire to obtain this agreement from everyone: that we should not search into those things which God has willed to conceal, nor neglect those which he has revealed, lest he condemn us on the one hand for excessive curiosity or, on the other, for ingratitude. For Saint Augustine speaks very well when he says that we may safely follow Scripture, which stoops down to our littleness, like a mother accommodating herself to the weakness of her child when she wishes to teach him to walk.
The ancient writers have explained the terms foreknowledge, predestination, election, and providence in various ways. Leaving aside all superfluous disputes, let us simply follow the proper meaning of the words.
When we attribute foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things have always been and eternally remain before his sight, so that to his knowledge nothing is future or past, but all things are present. And they are so present that he does not merely imagine them through certain representations, as things retained in our memory are brought before our eyes by the imagination. Rather, he truly sees and beholds them as though they stood before his face. We say that this foreknowledge extends throughout the whole world and over every creature.
We call predestination God’s eternal counsel, by which he determined what he willed to do with each person. For he does not create them all in the same condition, but appoints some to eternal life and others to eternal damnation. Thus, according to the end for which each person is created, we say that he is predestined either to death or to life. Common usage has established the term providence for the order God maintains in governing the world and directing all things.
We shall treat predestination first. According to what Scripture clearly teaches, we say that the Lord once for all determined by his eternal and immutable counsel whom he would receive unto salvation and whom he would leave in ruin. Those whom he calls to salvation, we say, he receives by his free mercy, without any regard whatever to their own worthiness. On the contrary, the entrance into life is closed to all those whom he wills to deliver over to damnation; and this takes place by his secret and incomprehensible judgment, though that judgment is just and righteous.
Furthermore, we teach that the calling of the elect is a manifestation and testimony of their election. Likewise, their justification is another mark and sign of it, until they enter into glory, in which its fulfillment consists. Now, just as the Lord marks those whom he has chosen by calling and justifying them, so, on the contrary, by depriving the reprobate of the knowledge of his Word or of the sanctification of his Spirit, he shows by this sign what their end will be and what judgment is prepared for them.
I shall pass over here many dreams which various fools have invented to overthrow predestination. I shall confine myself to considering only those arguments which carry weight among learned men, which may raise some scruple among the simple, or which possess some appearance of plausibility by suggesting that God would not be just if our doctrine were true.
What we have said concerning the free election of believers is not without difficulty. For it is commonly believed that the Lord distinguishes among men according to the merits which he foresees in each one. Thus, it is said, he adopts into the number of his children those whose nature he foresees will be such that they are not unworthy of his grace; while, on the contrary, he leaves in perdition those whom he knows will be inclined toward wickedness or ungodliness.
This commonly received opinion is not confined to ordinary people, for in every age it has had distinguished advocates. I freely acknowledge this, lest anyone suppose that our cause may be greatly harmed if their authority is brought forward against us. For God’s truth is so clear in this matter that it cannot be obscured, and so certain that it cannot be shaken by any human authority.
Certainly, when Saint Paul teaches that we were chosen in Christ before the creation of the world, he excludes every consideration of our worthiness. For it is as though he were saying—
Because the heavenly Father found nothing in the entire offspring of Adam worthy of his election, he turned his eyes toward Christ, so that he might choose as members of his body those whom he willed to receive unto life.
Let this principle, therefore, be firmly established among believers: God adopted us in Christ to be his heirs because in ourselves we were incapable of such excellence. Saint Paul also makes this point elsewhere, when he exhorts the Colossians to give thanks to God:
“He has made us fit to share in the inheritance of the saints.”
If God’s election precedes the grace by which he makes us fit to obtain the glory of the life to come, what will he find in us that could move him to choose us?
What I maintain will be expressed still more clearly by another statement:
“God chose us before the foundations of the world were laid, according to the good pleasure of his will, that we should be holy, spotless, and blameless before his face.”
He sets God’s good pleasure in opposition to every merit that could possibly be alleged, for wherever God’s good pleasure reigns, no works come into consideration. It is true that he does not pursue this contrast further in that passage, but we must understand it according to the comparison he explains elsewhere:
“He has called us with his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ from all eternity.”
The words he immediately adds—“that we should be holy and spotless”—remove every difficulty. For if we say that he chose us because he foresaw that we would be holy, we reverse Saint Paul’s order. We may therefore reason confidently in this way: since he chose us so that we should be holy, it was not because he foresaw that we would become so. For these two propositions are contrary to one another: that believers derive their holiness from election, and that they were chosen because of that holiness.
The sophistry to which they continually resort is of no value here. They say that although God does not grant the grace of election as a reward for preceding merits, he nevertheless bestows it because of future merits. But when it is said that believers were chosen so that they should be holy, this signifies that all the holiness they were to possess takes its origin and beginning from election. How, then, can that which is produced by election be the cause of election?
Furthermore, the Apostle confirms what he has said still more strongly by adding that God chose us according to the decree of his will, which he had determined within himself. This is equivalent to saying that, in forming this purpose, he considered nothing outside himself to which he had regard. He therefore immediately adds that the whole sum of our election must be directed toward this end: that we should be to the praise of God’s grace.
Certainly, God’s grace does not deserve to be exalted alone in our election unless that election is free. But it will not be free if, in choosing his own, God takes into account what each person’s works will be. Therefore, what Christ said to his disciples applies equally to all believers:
“You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.”
By this he not only excludes every preceding merit, but also signifies that they possessed nothing in themselves for which they ought to have been chosen, unless he had first come to them in his mercy. In the same sense we must understand Saint Paul’s declaration:
“Who has first given to him, that it should be repaid to him?”
For he intends to show that God’s goodness so completely precedes men that it finds nothing in them, either past or future, which could entitle them to it.
Furthermore, in the Epistle to the Romans, where Saint Paul begins this argument from a higher point and treats it more fully, he sets forth the condition of the elect and the reprobate under the example of Jacob and Esau:
“Before they were born or had done either good or evil, so that God’s purpose might stand according to his election, it was said—not on account of works, but on account of him who calls—‘The elder shall serve the younger,’ as it is written: ‘I have hated Esau and loved Jacob.’”
What will those who assign any place in our election to works, whether past or future, allege to obscure these words? That would be to overturn entirely what the Apostle says: that the distinction made between the two brothers did not depend upon any consideration of their works, but upon God’s pure calling, because God had determined what he would do with them before they were born.
The subtlety employed by the Sophists would not have escaped Saint Paul if it had possessed any foundation. But because he knew that God can foresee nothing good in man except what he has determined to give him by the grace of his election, he rejects the perverse notion that good works precede their own cause and origin. We have the Apostle’s express words: the salvation of believers is founded upon the good pleasure of God’s election, and this grace is not acquired for them by any works, but comes to them from his free goodness.
We also have, as it were, a mirror or picture representing this truth to us. Esau and Jacob are brothers, born of the same parents and conceived together in the same womb. Before their birth, everything is equal in the one and the other. Nevertheless, God’s judgment distinguishes between them, for he chooses one and rejects the other. Only the right of the firstborn could have caused one to be preferred above the other. Yet even that is disregarded, and what is denied to the elder is given to the younger. Indeed, in many other instances God appears deliberately to have disregarded primogeniture in order to deprive the flesh of every occasion for boasting. Rejecting Ishmael, he set his heart upon Isaac; humbling Manasseh, he preferred Ephraim.
If anyone objects that we must not judge eternal life from these lesser and earthly matters, and that it is absurd to infer that the one exalted to the honor of primogeniture was thereby adopted into the heavenly inheritance—as indeed there are many who do not spare even Saint Paul, but say that he misused the testimonies of Scripture by applying them to this subject—I answer that the Apostle did not speak so thoughtlessly, nor did he pervert the testimonies of Scripture to a foreign meaning. Rather, he perceived what such men are unable to consider: that by an outward sign God intended to represent Jacob’s spiritual election, which otherwise remained hidden in his secret counsel.
For unless we refer the primogeniture given to Jacob to the life to come, the blessing he received would be utterly ridiculous, since it brought him nothing but misery and calamity. Saint Paul therefore saw that by this outward blessing God had testified to the eternal blessing he had prepared for his servant in the heavenly kingdom. He therefore did not hesitate to use Jacob’s reception of the birthright as proof that he had been chosen by God.
Jacob, then, is chosen and Esau rejected; and they are distinguished by God’s election, though there was no difference between them in merit. If the cause is asked, Saint Paul gives this answer:
“For he said to Moses, ‘I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I will show compassion.’”
What does this mean? Certainly, the Lord plainly declares that he finds in us no reason that should move him to do us good, but that he takes the whole reason from his own mercy, because the salvation of his people is his own work. Since God establishes your salvation in himself alone, why will you descend to yourself? Since he assigns his mercy alone as the entire cause, why will you turn aside to your merits? Since he wills to confine your whole thought to his goodness alone, why will you divert any part of it to the consideration of your works?
But someone will tell me that Saint Ambrose, Jerome, and Origen wrote that God distributes his grace among men according to his foreknowledge of how well each one will use it. I concede still more: Saint Augustine was once of the same opinion.
But after making greater progress in the knowledge of Scripture, he not only retracted this opinion as false but vigorously refuted it. Indeed, in reproving the Pelagians for persisting in this error, he spoke as follows: “Who would not marvel that so great a subtlety escaped the Apostle? For after setting forth the remarkable case of Esau and Jacob, and raising the question,
‘What then? Is there unrighteousness with God?’
he ought to have answered that God had foreseen the merits of each, if he had wished to settle the matter briefly. Yet he does not say this, but refers everything to God’s judgment and mercy.”
Let Saint Augustine’s testimony carry some weight with those who willingly defer to the authority of the Fathers. But let us suppose that he had said nothing, and consider the matter itself. Saint Paul had raised a very difficult question: whether God acts justly in granting grace only to those whom he pleases. He could have resolved it in a single word by alleging that God considers men’s works. Why, then, did he not do so? Why does he continue his argument in such a way that he leaves us facing the same difficulty? There is no other reason than that he ought not to answer in that way, for the Holy Spirit, who spoke through his mouth, omitted nothing.
He therefore answers without evasion that God graciously receives his elect because it pleases him, and that he shows them mercy because it pleases him. For the testimony of Moses which he cites—
“I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I will show compassion”
—is equivalent to saying that God is moved to pity and goodness by no other cause than his own will.
Therefore, what Saint Augustine says elsewhere remains true: God’s grace does not find those whom it ought to choose, but makes them such. I have no regard for Thomas Aquinas’s subtle distinction: that although the foreknowledge of merits cannot be called the cause of predestination on God’s part, it may nevertheless be so called on our part. Thus, he says, God predestined his elect to receive glory because of their merits, since he willed to give them the grace by which they might merit that glory.
On the contrary, since God does not will us to consider anything in our election except his pure goodness, it is a perverse ambition to seek anything further. If I wished to contend by subtle reasoning, I would have ample means to refute Thomas’s sophistry. He argues that glory is in some sense ordained beforehand for the elect because of their merits, since God first gives them the grace by which they may merit it. But what if I reply that the grace of the Holy Spirit, which our Lord gives to his people, serves their election and follows it rather than precedes it, since it is bestowed upon those to whom the inheritance of life had already been assigned? For this is the order God observes: after choosing them, he justifies them. It will therefore follow that God’s predestination, by which he determines to call his people to salvation, is the cause of his determination to justify them, rather than the reverse.
But let us leave aside all such disputes as superfluous among those who consider the wisdom contained in God’s Word sufficient. For an ancient teacher spoke very well when he said that those who assign the cause of election to merits desire to know more than it is profitable to know.
Let us now treat of the reprobate, of whom Saint Paul also speaks in this same passage. For just as Jacob, having merited nothing by his good works, is received into grace, so Esau, having committed no offense, is rejected by God. If we direct our thoughts to works, we do injury to the Apostle, as though he had failed to see what is obvious to us. Yet it is evident that he did not consider works, since he expressly insists that, although the two had done neither good nor evil, one was chosen and the other rejected. From this he concludes that the foundation of predestination does not lie in works.
Furthermore, when he raises the question whether God is unjust, he does not allege that God dealt with Esau according to his wickedness —which would have been the clearest and surest defense of God’s righteousness—but gives an entirely different answer: that God raises up the reprobate in order to exalt his glory in them. Finally, he adds by way of conclusion:
“God has mercy upon whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills.”
We see how he refers both to the good pleasure of God. If, therefore, we can assign no other reason why God receives his elect except that it pleases him, neither shall we have any reason why he rejects the others except his will. For when it is said that God hardens or shows mercy according to his pleasure, this is intended to admonish us not to seek any cause beyond his will.
Now when the human understanding hears these things, its intemperance cannot refrain from stirring up disturbances and commotions, as though a trumpet had sounded the charge. For carnal men, filled as they are with folly, bring suit against God as though he were subject to their censure. First they ask why God is angry with his creatures when they have not provoked him by any offense. For, they say, to destroy and ruin whomever he pleases is more characteristic of a tyrant’s cruelty than of a judge’s righteousness. Thus they imagine that men have good reason to complain against God if, by his mere will and without regard to their own merit, they are predestined to eternal death.
If such thoughts ever enter the minds of believers, they will be sufficiently armed to repel them if they consider only what rashness it is even to inquire into the causes of God’s will, since his will is—and rightly ought to be—the cause of everything that is done. For if it has some cause, that cause must precede it and must, as it were, govern it, which it is unlawful to imagine. For God’s will is so completely the supreme and sovereign rule of righteousness that whatever he wills must be held as righteous simply because he wills it.
Therefore, when it is asked why God has acted in this way, we must answer: because he willed it. If anyone proceeds further and asks why he willed it, he is asking for something greater and higher than the will of God, which cannot be found. Let human rashness therefore restrain itself and cease seeking what does not exist, lest it fail to find what does exist. This bridle will be sufficient to restrain all who are willing to contemplate the secrets of God with reverence.
Against the wicked, who do not hesitate openly to slander God, the Lord will sufficiently defend himself by his own righteousness, without our serving as his advocates. For when he strips their consciences of every evasion, he will press and convict them so thoroughly that they will be unable to escape. Nevertheless, so that we may not tolerate their mockery of his holy name, he provides us in his Word with armor to resist their fury.
Therefore, if anyone attacks us by asking why God predestined some to damnation when they had not yet merited it, since they did not yet exist, we shall ask him in return what he thinks God owes to man if man is considered in his natural condition. Since we are all corrupted and defiled by sin, it is impossible for God not to hate us—not with tyrannical cruelty, but according to righteous justice. If all men, by their natural condition, are guilty of mortal condemnation, of what injustice, I ask, will those complain whom God has predestined to death? Let all the children of Adam come forward to contend and dispute with their Creator because, by his eternal providence and before their birth, they were consigned to perpetual misery.
But when God brings them to a true knowledge of themselves, what will they be able to murmur against this? If they are all taken from a corrupted mass, it is no wonder that they are subject to damnation. Let them not therefore accuse God of injustice because by his eternal judgment they are appointed to the condemnation toward which their own nature leads them.
But someone will ask whether they were not predestined by God’s ordinance to this corruption, which we say is the cause of their ruin. For if this is so, when they perish in their corruption, they are merely bearing the misery into which Adam fell by God’s will and into which he cast all his descendants. Will God not therefore be unjust for thus making cruel sport of his creatures?
In reply, I confess that it was by God’s will that all the children of Adam fell into this misery in which they are now held. This is what I said at the beginning: we must always return to the sole pleasure of God, the reason for which he keeps hidden within himself. But it does not follow that God may therefore be slandered. For with Saint Paul we shall answer in this manner:
“O man, who are you to contend with God? Does the vessel say to the potter who made it, ‘Why have you formed me in this way?’ Does not the potter have authority to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?”
They will deny that God’s righteousness is properly defended in this way, and will say that it is merely the sort of evasion commonly sought by those who lack a sufficient excuse. For it may seem that nothing more is being said than that God’s power cannot be prevented from doing whatever pleases him. But I say that the matter is entirely different.
For what argument could be firmer or more solid than to admonish us to consider who God is? How could he who is Judge of the world commit any injustice? If it is proper to his nature to execute righteousness, then he naturally loves that righteousness and hates all iniquity. The Apostle therefore did not seek some hiding place, as though he had been driven into a corner. Rather, he intended to show that God’s righteousness is too high and excellent to be reduced to the measure of man or comprehended by the narrowness of the human understanding.
He readily confesses that God’s judgments possess a depth capable of swallowing up the minds of the whole world if they attempt to penetrate it. But would it not be utterly unreasonable to subject God’s works to the condition that whenever we cannot understand their reason, we may dare to condemn them?
Let some Manichean, Coelestian, or other heretic come forward to slander God’s providence. I answer with Saint Paul that there is no need to give a full account of it, since by its greatness it entirely surpasses our understanding. What absurdity is there in this? Would they have God’s power so restricted that he could do nothing beyond what our minds are capable of comprehending?
I say with Saint Augustine that God created some whom he foresaw would go into eternal perdition, and that this was done because he willed it.
Why he willed it is not for us to demand, since we cannot comprehend the reason. Nor is it fitting for us to dispute whether God’s will is just, for whenever it is mentioned, we must understand by it an infallible rule of righteousness. Why, then, should anyone question whether there is unrighteousness where righteousness plainly appears?
Let us therefore not be ashamed to silence the wicked in Saint Paul’s manner. Whenever they dare to bark like dogs, let us answer them: Who are you, miserable creatures, to bring an accusation against God merely because he has not lowered the greatness of his works to the level of your dullness? Do you imagine that what he does is unjust simply because its reason is hidden from us?
We shall gain nothing by going further, for we shall never satisfy their insolence. Moreover, God requires no other defense than that which he has employed by his Spirit, speaking through the mouth of Saint Paul. Indeed, we forget how to speak rightly whenever we do not speak according to God.
There is another objection raised by ungodliness, which aims not so much to condemn God as to excuse the sinner—although, in truth, the sinner cannot justify himself without bringing dishonor upon the Judge. Nevertheless, let us see what it is. Why, they ask, would God impute as sin to men those things which he has made necessary for them by his predestination? What could they do? Could they resist his decrees? That would be in vain; indeed, they are altogether unable to do so. Therefore, they say, God does not justly punish those things whose chief cause lies in his predestination.
I shall not employ here the defense commonly advanced by the teachers of the Church: that God’s foreknowledge does not prevent man from being regarded as a sinner, since it is man’s sins that God foresees, not his own. For the cavillers would not be satisfied with this, but would press further, saying that God could have prevented the evils he foresaw if he had wished. Since he did not do so, they would argue that he deliberately created man to conduct himself in this manner. And if man was created under the condition that he should afterward do everything he does, then he cannot be blamed for things which he cannot avoid and to which he is bound by God’s will.
Let us therefore consider how this difficulty may be resolved. First, we must all hold as settled what Solomon says:
“The Lord has made all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of destruction.”
Since the ordering of all things is in God’s hand, and he can appoint life or death according to his pleasure, he disposes and ordains by his counsel that some should be certainly destined from their mother’s womb to eternal death, in order that he may glorify his name in their destruction.
If anyone, wishing to excuse God, alleges that by his providence he imposes no necessity upon them, but creates them in this condition because he foresees what their perversity will be, such a person will say something true, but not the whole truth. The ancient teachers sometimes employed this solution, though rather hesitantly. The theologians of the Sorbonne rest entirely upon it, as though nothing could be raised against it.
For my part, I readily concede that foreknowledge alone imposes no necessity upon creatures, though not everyone will grant this, for some make it the cause of all things. But Lorenzo Valla appears to me to have drawn a subtler distinction. He shows that this dispute is vain because life and death are acts of God’s will rather than of his providence. If God merely foresaw what happens to men without disposing and ordaining it according to his good pleasure, then it would not be pointless to debate what necessity God’s providence imposes. But since he foresees things for no other reason than that he has determined they should happen, it is foolish to dispute what his foreknowledge accomplishes when it is evident that everything comes to pass by his ordinance and disposition.
It cannot therefore be denied that before creating man, God foresaw the end to which he would come, and that he foresaw it because he had so ordained it in his counsel. If anyone here accuses God’s foreknowledge, he does so rashly. For why should God be blamed for not being ignorant of the things that were to come? If there is any complaint, whether just or merely plausible, it must be directed rather against his providence.
What I say ought not to appear strange: God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in it the ruin of all his posterity, but also willed it to be so. For just as it belongs to his wisdom to possess foreknowledge of all future things, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern everything by his hand.
Some resort here to the distinction between will and permission, saying that the wicked perish by God’s permission, but not by his will. Yet why should we say that he permits it except because he wills it? Nor is it even plausible in itself that man brought condemnation upon himself by God’s mere permission rather than by his ordinance, as though God had not ordained what condition he willed for the chief and noblest of his creatures.
I therefore do not hesitate simply to confess with Saint Augustine that the will of God is the necessity of all things, and that whatever he has ordained and willed must necessarily come to pass, just as everything he has foreseen will certainly occur.
Now if the Pelagians, Manicheans, Anabaptists, or Epicureans—for in treating this matter we have to contend with these four sects—allege in their defense the necessity imposed upon them by God’s predestination, they bring forward nothing relevant to their case. For if predestination is nothing other than the ordering and administration of divine justice, which remains blameless although it is hidden, then, since it is certain that they were not undeserving of being predestined to such an end, it is equally certain that the ruin into which they fall by God’s predestination is just and righteous.
Furthermore, their destruction proceeds from God’s predestination in such a way that its cause and substance will be found in themselves. The first man fell because God had judged it expedient. Why he so judged, we know nothing. Nevertheless, it is certain that he judged it so only because he saw that it served the glory of his name. And whenever God’s glory is mentioned, let us also think of his righteousness, for whatever deserves praise must be righteous.
Man therefore falls according to God’s ordinance, yet he falls through his own wickedness. Shortly before, the Lord had declared:
“Everything that he had made was very good.”
From where, then, did man’s perversity arise except that he turned away from his God? Lest anyone should think that it proceeded from his creation, the Lord had approved by his own testimony everything he had placed within him. Man therefore corrupted by his own wickedness the good nature he had received from the Lord, and by his fall dragged all his offspring with him into ruin.
Let us therefore contemplate the cause of man’s condemnation in his corrupted nature, where it is evident to him, rather than seek it in God’s predestination, where it is hidden and altogether incomprehensible. And let us not begrudge submitting our understanding so completely to God’s infinite wisdom that it yields to him in many secret matters. For concerning things which it is neither lawful nor possible to know, ignorance is learned, while the desire to know them is a kind of madness.
Someone may perhaps say that I have not yet given a reason sufficient to restrain the blasphemous excuse which I condemn. I confess that this cannot be done in such a way that ungodliness will not continue to murmur and slander. Nevertheless, I believe I have said enough to deprive man not only of every reason for murmuring, but also of every pretext.
The reprobate wish to appear excusable in sinning because they cannot escape the necessity of sin, especially since that necessity proceeds from God’s ordinance and will. I deny, however, that this excuses them, because the ordinance of God against which they complain is righteous. Although its righteousness is unknown to us, it is nevertheless most certain. From this we conclude that they suffer no punishment which is not imposed upon them by God’s perfectly just judgment.
We also teach that they act perversely when they seek to penetrate the inaccessible secrets of God in order to discover the origin of their damnation, while overlooking the corruption of their nature, from which it truly proceeds. That this corruption must not be imputed to God is evident from the good testimony he gave concerning his creation. For although by God’s eternal providence man was created to come into the misery in which he now exists, he nevertheless derived the cause of that misery from himself and not from God. He perished for no other reason than that he degenerated from the pure nature God had given him into perversity.
The adversaries of God raise yet another alleged absurdity in order to discredit his predestination. Since, when speaking of those whom our Lord withdraws from the common condition of mankind to make them heirs of his kingdom, we assign no other cause for this than his good pleasure, they infer that there must therefore be partiality with God, which Scripture everywhere denies. Consequently, they say, either Scripture contradicts itself or God considers the merits of those whom he chooses.
First, when Scripture says that God shows no partiality, it means something different from what they suppose. By the term person, Scripture does not mean the man himself, but those outward circumstances visible in a man which might procure for him favor, approval, or dignity—or, on the contrary, hatred, contempt, or disgrace—such as wealth, influence, noble birth, honorable office, nationality, bodily beauty, and similar things; or else poverty, low birth, lack of influence, absence of honor, and so forth.
Thus Saint Peter and Saint Paul teach that God shows no partiality because he makes no distinction between Greek and Jew, receiving one and rejecting the other merely on account of nationality (Acts 10:34–35; Romans 2:10–11; Galatians 3:28). Saint James uses the same expression when he says that God places no value upon riches in his judgment (James 2:1–5). Saint Paul also employs it elsewhere to show that when God judges master and servant, he makes no distinction between them (Colossians 3:25; Ephesians 6:9).
There will therefore be no contradiction in saying that by his good pleasure God chooses those whom he wills, without regard to any merit, while rejecting and reprobating the others. Nevertheless, to satisfy the matter more fully, we shall explain it in this way.
They ask how it can be that, of two men who differ in nothing as to merit, God leaves one behind and chooses the other. I ask them in return whether they suppose there is anything in the one who is chosen that inclines God’s heart to love him. If they confess that there is nothing, as they necessarily must, it follows that God does not look to the man but draws from his own goodness the reason for doing him good.
Therefore, God’s choosing one and rejecting another does not arise from any consideration of the man, but from his mercy alone, which must be free to manifest itself wherever and whenever he pleases. It is therefore false and wicked for some to accuse God of unequal justice because in his predestination he does not deal identically with all men.
“If God finds all men guilty,” they say, “let him punish them all equally. If he finds them innocent, let him refrain from severity toward them all.” But they treat God as though he were forbidden to show mercy, or as though, whenever he willed to show it, he were compelled entirely to renounce his judgment. For what else are they demanding when they insist that if all have sinned, all must be punished equally?
We confess that guilt is universal, but we say that God’s mercy comes to the aid of some. “Then let it come to the aid of all,” they reply. But we answer that it is right for him also to show himself a just Judge by punishing. When they refuse to permit this, are they not attempting either to deprive God of the liberty to show mercy or to allow it only on the condition that he cease to exercise judgment?
These statements of Saint Augustine are therefore most fitting: “Since the whole mass of mankind fell into condemnation in Adam, those who are taken from it and raised to honor are not vessels of their own righteousness, but of God’s mercy. As for the others, who are appointed to dishonor, nothing is to be assigned except to his judgment, without accusing him of unrighteousness.”
Again: “That God renders to those whom he has rejected the punishment due to them, while giving to those whom he has chosen the grace which was not due to them, may be shown to be righteous and blameless by the example of a creditor who is free to forgive one debtor while requiring payment from another.”
The Lord, then, may give grace to whom he wills because he is merciful, and not give it to all because he is a just Judge. By giving some what they do not deserve, he may display his free grace; by not giving it to all, he may display what all deserve.
The adversaries of the truth employ another slander in order to overthrow predestination. They say that once it is established, all concern and diligence for living well are destroyed. For who, they ask, upon hearing that death or life has already been decreed for him by God’s immutable counsel, will not immediately think that it makes no difference how he lives, since God’s predestination can neither be hindered nor furthered by his works? Thus everyone will abandon himself and allow himself to be carried without restraint wherever his desires lead him.
This allegation is not entirely fictitious, for there are certain swine who defile God’s predestination with such blasphemies and, under this pretext, mock every admonition and warning: “God knows what he has once for all determined to do with us. If he has determined to save us, he will bring us to salvation in his time. If he has determined to damn us, we would torment ourselves in vain by attempting to be saved.”
But Scripture, in teaching us with how much greater reverence and fear we ought to consider this mystery, instructs God’s children in an entirely different understanding and condemns the wicked audacity and madness of such men. For it does not speak to us of predestination in order to fill us with rashness or incite us, through unlawful boldness, to scrutinize the inaccessible secrets of God. Rather, it does so that in humility and modesty we may learn to fear his judgment and magnify his mercy. All believers will therefore direct themselves toward this end.
The grunting of these swine is thoroughly silenced by Saint Paul. They say that they have no concern about living dissolutely because, if they belong to the number of the elect, their sins will not prevent them from attaining salvation. Saint Paul, on the contrary, teaches that the end of our election is that we should lead holy and blameless lives (Ephesians 1:4).
If the purpose of our election is that we should live holy lives, it ought to urge and spur us to pursue holiness rather than provide a pretext for negligence. How different these two things are: to have no concern for doing good because election is sufficient for salvation, and to be chosen for the very purpose of devoting oneself to good works! How, then, can we tolerate these blasphemies, which so wickedly overturn the whole order of predestination?
As for the other part of their argument—namely, that anyone rejected by God would labor in vain by striving to live purely and innocently—they are convicted in this of an impudent falsehood.
For from where could such a desire proceed except from God’s election? All who belong to the number of the reprobate, being vessels made for dishonor, continually provoke God’s wrath by innumerable crimes and confirm by evident signs the judgment decreed against them. So far are they from resisting it by some vain effort. Nevertheless, to clarify the matter more fully, we must treat both the calling of the elect and the hardening and blinding of the reprobate.