19. Predestination and free will
19. PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL
The Bible teaches predestination (Rom 8). But if God eternally predestines everything that happens, including my life, then it seems that everything is necessary, everything has to be, “whatever will be, will be.” In that case, how can I be free and responsible? It seems I’m just one of God’s puppets, or chess pieces, or characters in a novel which He writes. So why does He hold me responsible for my choices?
(Objection:) All good things that exist God wills to be. If therefore His will imposes necessity on things willed, it follows that all good happens of necessity; and thus there is an end to free will, counsel, and all other such things (commands, rewards, punishment, praise, blame, duty, responsibility—in fact, “there is an end to” the meaningfulness of all moral language!).
(Reply:) The divine will imposes necessity on some things willed but not all . . . this happens (not on account of the lack of omnipotent power and efficacy of the divine will, but precisely) on account of the efficacy of the divine will. For when a cause is efficacious. . . the effect follows upon the cause not only as to the thing done, but also as to its manner of being done. . . . Since then the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things are done which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills. Now God wills some things to be done necessarily, some contingently, to the right ordering of things, for the building up of the universe. Therefore to some effects He has attached necessary causes, that cannot fail; but to others, defective and contingent causes, from which arise contingent effects (I,19,8).
The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen by necessity or by contingency. Therefore whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency which the plan of divine providence conceives to happen from contingency (I,22,4).
There is no distinction between what flows from free will and what is of predestination, as there is no distinction between what flows from a secondary cause and from a first cause. For the providence of God produces effects through the operation of secondary causes . . . wherefore that which flows from free will is also of predestination (I,23,5).
Predestination does not remove free will, it establishes it. For to corrupt nature is not the work of providence. And free will is an aspect our nature, our essence. If a thing lacks free will, it’s not a human being. Therefore God’s grace and providence perfects rather than undermines our free will. He turns it on, not off. The First Cause establishes second causes rather than undermining them. Grace perfects nature.
Therefore we can trust God for everything, as if everything is His predestinating providence, for everything really is His providence; and at the same time we can make choices as if we are truly free and really responsible for our own good and evil, and our own salvation or damnation, since we really are. Thus the Apostle tells us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you” (Phil 2:12-13). It is another both / and rather than an either / or.
All good human acts are co-operative: ours and God’s at the same time, not ours alone or God’s alone. They are not ours rather than God’s, for we cannot do good without His grace; and they are not His rather than ours, for He will not do our moral good for us without our free choice. Thus it is correct to say that we should pray as if it all depended on God and work as if it all depended on us, because both parts of that saying are not an “as if”; both parts are true. But since the cooperation is not 50-50 but 100-100, it is not correct to say or think that we should pray as if it did not depend on us or to work as if it did not depend on God, because that is not true.
Truth is our ultimate standard for all practice. That is why St. Thomas is so practical.