Chapter I: Whether Predestination Should be Discussed in the Church, § 19
CHAPTER I: WHETHER PREDESTINATION
SHOULD BE DISCUSSED IN THE CHURCH
Should people argue about predestination?
§ 19. There are letters extant of Prosper and Hilary to Augustine (which are attached to his books De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono1 perseverantiae, vol. 7), and these letters testify that some men in Gaul, known at that time as authoritative, judged that an explanation of predestination was unhelpful in preaching. However, Augustine responds to them (De dono persev., ch. 14):
Did not the apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, many times commend predestination in faith and truth, and did he ever cease preaching the Word? Did he not say, “It is God who works in us to will and to do” [Phil. 2:13]? Therefore is it not He who urges us to will and to do the things that please God? Did he not say, “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” [Phil. 1:6]? Therefore did not He Himself persuade people to begin and to persevere until the end? Surely the Lord Himself has commanded people to believe and says: “Believe in God!” and “Believe in Me!” [cf. John 14:1]. Yet therefore this is no misleading statement of His, nor is it an empty pronouncement when He says: “No one comes to Me,” that is, no one believes in Me, “unless it has been given him by My Father” [cf. John 14:6]. Nor, on the other hand, is that command empty on the basis of the pronouncement being true. Why, then, do we think that explaining predestination, which Holy Scripture recommends, is unhelpful for preaching, teaching, exhortation, and correction—all of which Holy Scripture frequently does?
And later:
The preaching of a persevering and active faith should not be hindered by the preaching of predestination, so that people hear what they should hear and obey what they are given to do. Nor again should the preaching of predestination be hindered by the preaching of an active faith which perseveres to the very end, so that he who lives faithfully and obediently is not puffed up about his own obedience as if about something he did not receive, but let him who boasts boast in the Lord [cf. 1 Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 10:17].
See also the following chapters, in which he proves this point in detail.
§ 20. Certainly, then, we should not keep silent about something that the Holy Spirit has revealed in divinely inspired Scripture, something that Christ and the apostles taught in their preaching, that represses every swelling of our spiritual pride, that stirs up the love of God and thanksgiving to Him, and that rouses us to zeal of piety. But such is the mystery of predestination, as is easy to show, part by part.
How people should discuss predestination.
§ 21. Therefore we must discuss this mystery in the scholarly discussions of Christians, but in a due manner which we shall express in the words of the devout fathers. Hilary (De trinit., bk. 5): “We should not ponder the predestination of God with human judgments, for our nature is not such that it can raise itself to heavenly understanding by its own powers. We must learn from God how to understand God2 and the will of God, because God cannot be known unless He takes the initiative. Therefore, because it was impossible to learn about God without God, He teaches people to know God through His Word.” Ambrose (De vocat. gent., bk. 1, ch. 7): “We should not investigate the things which God wanted to keep secret, but we must not deny what He has made manifest, lest being unlawfully curious about the former we are found damnably ungrateful of the latter.” Augustine (Sermon 7 de verbis apostoli, vol. 10): “Some people go beyond their own thoughts and speak about the depths of God. They drown in the depths.” From these statements we conclude that if we wish to think about or discuss the mystery of predestination, we must follow the light of the Word of God alone and not the darkness of human reason. We should speak not what the blindness of the human heart dictates nor what human curiosity desires but what the precept of the Holy Spirit supplies us in the Scriptures.
Forms of speaking about this mystery.
§ 22. Not only must we reflect reverently upon this mystery from the pages of Scripture, but we must also speak reverently with its statements. Augustine (De dono persev., ch. 16):
Let the truth be spoken, especially when some question demands that the truth be spoken, and let those who are able grasp the truth, lest by chance—because nothing is said because of those who are incapable of grasping the truth—they be robbed
(others: “cheated”)
of the truth and even captured by falsehood, though they could have grasped the truth by which they could have evaded falsehood,… though it is possible to speak in a certain way so that what is said is milk for infants and food for adults.
Chapter 21:
We should not preach predestination to the people in such a way that for the unlet tered multitude of slower intellect their own predestination
(others: “prediction”)
is called into question; so also foreknowledge seems to be refuted, though they cer tainly cannot deny it, when someone tells people that, whether you run or sleep, either way you will be what He who cannot be deceived has foreknown. Indeed, he is a deceitful or unskilled physician who applies even a useful medication in such a way that it either does not help or does injury. Rather, one should speak thus: “Run in such a way that you win, and by your very running you will know that you have been predestined to run lawfully,” and in any other way that the foreknowledge of God can be preached to drive back man’s sluggishness.
Chapter 22:
Although these things
(that some in the assembly of the church are elect and some are reprobate)
are true, nevertheless we should not say them when many are listening so that the sermon is even turned against them, and what is spoken in Gaul
(according to Prosper and Hilary)
is told them also, [namely,] that “God’s definite will concerning predestination is such that some of you have come to faith from faithlessness having received the will to believe.” Why say “some of you”? After all, if we are speaking to the church of God, if we are speaking to believers, why should we be judged to do an injustice to the rest when we say that “some of them” have come to faith? Especially since we can say more fittingly that God’s definite will concerning predestination is such that you have come to faith from faithlessness having received the will to believe, and having received perseverance you shall remain in faith. Furthermore, we should certainly not say, “The rest of you who remain in your love of sin, therefore, have not yet risen, because the support of merciful grace has not yet raised you up.” We can and should say what is meet and right, that “if any of you still tarry in your delight of damning sins, take hold of discipline which is most salutary. Yet when you have done this, do not become proud, as if over your own works, and do not boast, as if you were not given this, because it is God who works to will and do. Then from this good and upright course of yours learn carefully that you belong to the predestination of God’s grace.” Likewise, the following is harsher than it need be: “If any of you have not yet been called, whom He has predestined by His grace to be elected, you will receive that grace by which you will desire to be elected and will be.” Let us consider that we are speaking not to just any people but to the church of Christ. For why do we not rather speak in this way: “And if some are still not yet called, let us pray that they be called”? You see, perhaps they have been predestined so that by our prayers they will be pardoned and receive that grace by which they can desire to be elected and by which they will be made elect. For God, who has fulfilled everything which He has predestined, wants us to pray also for the enemies of the faith so that we may learn from this that He grants also to the unbelieving that they believe and that He makes willing people out of the unwilling.3
So much wrote Augustine. Be sure to read him.
1 Here, and elsewhere in this commonplace, read De dono perseverantiae with Cotta instead of De bono perseverantiae.
2 Read de Deo with Cotta instead of de Dei.
3 See FC Ep II 15.