Chapter 4 (118): Whether One Is Loved By God More Or Less At One Time Than At
134 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
to be loved by him, when they begin to receive the effect of God's eternal love, namely grace or glory— AUGUSTINE, BOOK 5, IN ON THE TRINITY.
Hence Augustine: "Far be it from us to say that God loves someone in time, as if with a new love, which was not in him earlier, before whom past things have not passed away, and future things have already happened. And so he loved all his saints before the foundation of the world, as he predestined them. But when they are converted and find him, then they are said to begin to be loved by him, in order that what is said may be expressed in a way in which it can be grasped by human feeling. In the same way, when he is said to be angry with the unrighteous, and gentle toward the good, they are changed, not he. Just as the light is harsh to weak eyes, pleasant to those that are strong, namely because of change in them, not in it," so also, when someone by justification "begins to be a friend of God, he himself is changed,"* not God.
Chapter 4 (118)
WHETHER ONE IS LOVED BY GOD MORE OR LESS AT ONE TIME THAN AT
ANOTHER. But if it is asked concerning someone whether he is loved more by God at one time than at another, we must distinguish the meaning of the statement: if it refers to the working of love, it may be granted; but if to the essence of love, then it is to be denied.
Chapter 5 (119)
WHETHER GOD LOVED THE REPROBATE FROM ALL ETERNITY. As for the
reprobate, who are prepared not for life, but for death, if it is asked whether it ought to be granted that God may have loved them from all eternity, we say that this is to be granted simply only with regard to the elect, that God loved from all eternity them whom he prepared for justice and the crown. Concerning those who are not of the elect, it is to be granted simply that he held them in hate, that is, he reprobated them, as we read: J loved Jacob; I held Esau in hate.' Yet it is not to be simply said that he loved them, lest they be understood to be predestined, but with this qualification: he loved them insofar as they were to be his work, that is, he loved what and of what kind he was going to make them.
*Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 5 c16 n17.
'Rom. 9, 13; cf. Mal. 1, 2-3.