CHAPTER TWO: CHRISTIANITY
DIVINE AND HUMAN POWER:
GRACE, PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL
2.1 Scripture
The little the Old Testament has to say about this question is taken up in Paul. We must first note the statement in 1 Tim 2:4: “God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.” The fact that not all do so is the problem that Paul faces in Romans, chs. 8-9. In 8:29-30 we read:
Those whom he foreknew he predestined to share the image of his Son, that the Son might be the first-born of many brothers. Those he predestined he also justified; and those he justified he in turn glorified. (NAB)
Paul is not distinguishing here between Christians who are predestined and those who are not. “Those who love God” (v. 28) are all grouped together. Christians are to grow in the likeness of the Son. (Cf. 8:17, 2 Cor 3:18, Phil 3:21.)
Chapter 9 considers the problem of the Jews who rejected Christ. The example of Rebecca's sons is invoked (v. 11ff):
But in order that the choice of one son might be completely the result of God's own purpose, God said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” he said this before they were born, before they had done anything either good or bad; so God's choice was based on his call, and not on anything they had done. As the scripture says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau” (Mal 1:2-3)
Shall we say, then, that God is unjust? Not at all. For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on anyone I wish; I will take pity on anyone I wish” (Ex 33:19). So then, everything depends, not on what man wants or does, but only on God's mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I made you king in order to use you to show my power and to spread my fame over the whole world” (Ex 9:16 LXX). So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes.
The contrast between Jacob and Esau is in the form of exaggerated contrast common to ancient Near Eastern peoples, and cannot be used to argue for negative predestination. Pharaoh was used in God's plan in site of his trying to frustrate it. His hardness of heart is sometimes attributed to God (Ex 4:21, 7:3, 9:12 etc.) and sometimes to himself (Ex 7:14,22, 8:15,19,32 etc.). The phrase does not refer to any divine decree, but “is the OT way of expressing God's recognition of a situation due to man himself who rejects God's invitation”.[1]
Paul goes on (vv. 19-21) to use the image of two very different pots made from the same lump of clay. The word for “lump” in Greek is phryama, translated into Latin as “massa”, giving rise to Augustine's phrase “massa damnata” = “the damned mass [of people]”. So some are “instruments of his retribution and designed to be destroyed”, while others are “instruments of his faithful love and were long ago prepared for that glory” (23-24, New JB). This is not an absolute predestination, since Christians are warned against falling away (Rom 11:22).
Eph 1:3-14 is another passage that refers to predestination, especially v.5: “God marked us out beforehand, to be adopted sons..” and v.11: “marked out beforehand as we were.. for the praise of his glory”. See also 2 Thes 2:13: “God chose you from the beginning (New JB) to be saved by the Spirit..”
Some Gospel passages indicating predestination are Mt 25:34: “Take as your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world”; and Jn 10:28-29: “They will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from my hand... and no one can steal anything from the Father's hand.”
With regard to the need of God's grace to do or think anything good, we have 1 Cor 12:3: “Nobody is able to say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit”; 2 Cor 3:5: “It is not that we are so competent that we can claim any credit for ourselves; all our competence comes from God;” and Jn 15: “You can do nothing without me”.
On the other hand, the New Testament constantly stresses human responsibility and the need for effort and care.
2.2 In the early Church
During the first few centuries of the Christian era the Fathers of the Church consistently taught the necessity of divine grace to be acceptable to God or do anything acceptable to him. They also repeated the general teaching of Paul on the subject of divine choice from all eternity.
Controversy first broke out on the subject with the teaching of Pelagius, who was born probably in Britain around 354. He came to Rome around 380 and then went to Africa with his close friend, Coelestius. Pelagius then went on to the Holy Land. The two spread the teaching that the human will is completely free to choose good or evil; God's grace is an added help which one merits by good actions. Adam's sin did not hurt us, nor did Christ's sufferings help us (except by way of good example), since everyone bears his own burden alone (cf. Qurân 6:164 etc.). Even praying for others is useless.
Aurelius, the bishop of Carthage, summoned a local council in 411 which excommunicated Coelestius and forced him to leave the country. When Augustine heard of Pelagius' preaching in the Holy Land, he sent Orosius to warn the bishops, and wrote several tracts himself on the danger of Pelagianism. Jerome also joined the attack. At the request of the African bishops, Pope Innocent I excommunicated Pelagius and Coelestius in 417. The next pope, Zozimus, in the same year tried to reconcile Pelagius and Coelestius, but after doing so they disappointed him by continuing to debate their points in public. The Pope then issued a statement ratifying the Council of Carthage and renewing the excommunication of the two. He asked all bishops to sign the statement. Julian of Eclanum and 17 other bishops of Italy refused, and Augustine wrote some tracts against them.
Augustine, the “doctor of grace”, also combatted a modified form of Pelagius' teaching, called semi-Pelagianism, held by John Cassian, propagator of monasticism in the West, and some of his friends. Their opinion was that one could make an initial act of faith without the aid of divine grace. This opinion was condemned in the Second Council of Orange in 529. The Council of Ephesus, to which Julian had appealed, in 431 condemned Pelagianism as well as Nestorianism.
Augustine's teaching was accepted in its main lines by the Church. For example, Pope Celestine I said: “If you want to know what the Church holds bout grace and free will, read the books of Augustine.” Augustine held that God's foreknowledge and predestination are the same, but his foreknowledge is not of what people would merit, but of what gifts he had decided to give them freely for their salvation. Christ died for all, and all are called to eternal life, but only some are chosen.
The controversy continued in the 9th century, when Gotescalc in France proposed an extreme form of predestination, maintaining that God has determined some to glory, and however they try they cannot be lost, whereas those he has destined to be lost cannot be saved no matter how hard they try. John Scotus Erigena replied to him, but he in turn was accused of Pelagianism. The debate went on and was taken up in the Councils of Quirzy in 853, Sovonnière in 859 and Thuzy in 860.
2.3 The Middle Ages
The medieval theologians all wrote about predestination. To be brief, we can present the views of Thomas Aquinas: His views are presented most definitively in his Summa theologiae, I, q.23. To appreciate his style of argument, we can quote part of the beginning:
How right it is that God should predestine human beings. We have seen that everything falls under his Providence, also that the function of Providence is to arrange things to an end. Now the destiny to which creatures are ordained by God is twofold. One exceeds the proportion and ability of created nature, and this is eternal life, which, as we have shown, consists in the vision of God and surpasses the nature of any creature. The other is proportionate to it, and can be reached by its own natural powers.
Now when a thing cannot reach an end by its own natural power, then it has to be lifted up and sent there by another, as when an archer flights an arrow to the target. So a creature of intelligence, capable of eternal life, is brought there, properly speaking, as sent by God. The idea of this sending pre-exists in God, as does the idea of ordering the whole of things to their end, which we have called Providence.
Their existence is anticipated in the maker's mind. Accordingly the planned sending of a rational creature to the end which is eternal life is termed predestination, for to predestine is to send. And so it is clear that predestination as regards what it does objectively is a part of Providence.
Thomas goes on to say that divine Providence allows some to fall short of the goal of eternal life by their free will. He gives all sufficient grace to be saved, but this grace is efficacious only for those he has chosen. God chooses some for eternal life by a love which makes them good and lovable, unlike us who choose something which was already good before we met it. Our merits or good works do not influence God's choice of us, but are the effect of his choice, coming from our free will as a secondary dependent cause, and from his choice as a primary cause. On the other hand, God destines us to glory through good works, so that our eternal glory depends on the good works we do in this life, which God has destined us to perform from our free will. Finally, Thomas notes that predestination infallibly achieves its aim, the salvation of a definite list of people whose number God alone knows. Our prayers cannot change his predestination, but we can take them as part of God's providential plan on how he intends to save us: by means of our prayer and good works.
In question 24 Thomas discusses the “Book of Life” (cf. Ex 32:32, Ps 69:28, Is 4:3, Dn 7:10, 12:1, Acts 13:48, Phil 4:3, Rev 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 21:12,27). The first two references talk of wiping names from the Book of Life. Thomas says that the Book of Life is a metaphorical way of referring to divine predestination. All who are predestined are in the Book of Life absolutely, but those who are given God's grace and later reject it are known by God as on the path of eternal life for some time, but later going another way.
In all of this the freedom of the human will remains intact, because God wills some things to happen from necessity and other things to happen from chance or free agency (q.19, a.8). When the human will chooses evil, God is not at all responsible. The reason is that an evil is an apparent good which is preferred to another good, of which the evil is a privation. God could never prefer another good to his own goodness. So he could not will sin, even indirectly. But he could will some natural defect or punishment indirectly if it helps to establish justice or bring about some other good (q.19, a.9).
Thomas throughout maintains the freedom of the human will when it comes to the choices we make in this life. Let us turn to his argument in the Summa theologiae, I-II, q.13, a.6:
Man does not choose of necessity. This is because a possible-not-to-be is not a bound-to-be. Why it is possible for a man to choose or not to choose may be gathered from a double ability. First, to be able to will or not and to act or not; second, to will and act thus or thus.
The grounds lie in the very range of reason. Whatever the reason can apprehend as good, to that the will can stretch out. Now the reason can apprehend as good, not only willing and acting, but also not willing and not acting.
Again, in any particular good it can attend to the goodness there, but also to the lack of some goodness; this has the nature of an evil. Accordingly the reason can apprehend it as something to be sought or something to be avoided. The perfect good alone, which is beatitude, cannot be apprehended under the aspect of evil or as displaying any defect. Hence of necessity a man wants to be happy and cannot will not to be happy or to be unhappy.
Now since, as we have seen, choice is of the means, not the end, it is about particular goods, not the perfect good, which is happiness.
On these grounds we say that choice is free, not necessary.
As for the end, or ultimate goal of our life, in this life we necessarily must will happiness, but that is a general idea which we can apply to any variety of particular things that we think will make us happy. We do not see God as he is in himself, the perfect good, and it is possible for us to reject him.
In the next life, if we are admitted to see God as he is, we see him as the perfect good and are not free to reject him. Besides, in the next life we will not have the flexibility that our physical life here gives us. Here through our senses and imagination we are exposed to many options. When we die, that flexibility is gone and the state of will we had when we left this life will remain for eternity, for or against God. Even if those who rejected God were given the option to come out of hell, they could not choose to do so.
2.4 The Reformation and after
Among pre-Reformation Protestants, Huss (1415) was accused of the predestinarian teachings: 1) that a predestined soul now in mortal sin is a living member of the Church, 2) that a reprobate soul not now in mortal sin is not a member of the Church, 3) that Judas Iscariot was never a member of the Church.[2]
Martin Luther attacked the idea of free will in his De servo arbitrio (The will enslaved), written in answer to Erasmus' De libero arbitrio (Free will). Luther held that the human will is completely corrupt and incapable of choosing anything but sin. All that is left is God's predestination of some to salvation through faith in God's mercy.
The Swiss reformer, Huldrych Zwingli (d. 1531), held to a similar deterministic predestination which did not admit free will.
Lutheranism did not follow the teaching of Luther on this question, but that of Philip Melanchthon (d. 1560), who said that God elects those he foresees will believe. If some are not elected, the fault is their own.
John Calvin (1509-64) borrowed a deterministic predestinationism from Luther and Zwingli, saying that grace is given only to the elect and it imposes on them a necessity of acting good (taking away their freedom). Calvin upheld negative predestination, saying that God wills the reprobate to sin and turn away from him; these are, however, blameworthy because they are free from external compulsion. Calvin also extolled the virtue of industry and the “work ethic”, and took prosperity in this life as a sign that a person is virtuous and predestined.
In Catholic circles in the 16th century the Council of Trent reasserted both divine predestination and human free will. Shortly afterwards the Catholic theologian Jansen proposed a form of predestinationism which denied free will, which Pius V condemned. On the other side, the Jesuit L. Molina proposed a modification of the traditional teaching on predestination so as to give more scope for human freedom, the details of which are too complicated to discuss here. This caused a debate among Catholic theologians which lasted for centuries without Church authority intervening to settle the dispute.
The Quietist movement in 17th century France, led by Madame Guyon and Archbishop Fénelon, basically was a movement which sought to displace (quiet) all human action in prayer and make it entirely passive to the work of God alone. (See the next chapter for more on Quietism.)
Karl Barth gave his own interpretation of the idea of predestination by making Jesus, in his divine and human natures, the meeting point between God who chooses and man who is chosen. Jesus also identifies with rejected man in order to redeem him. Every Christian likewise feels in himself the tension between the unredeemed old man and the new man living for God. And as Jesus radiated the saving love of God, so should each Christian. Barth, in effect, redefines predestination to mean the life of grace that anyone so happens to have; it is no longer the eternal decision of God. It is not clear whether Barth thinks all will eventually be saved.
2.5 God's omnipotence and human free will harmonized
The secret of Christian philosophy is that it sees created causality as real, and creatures as real, because God has given them existence and power like his own, according to an analogy of proportionality. (See ch. 2 of Islamic theology.) The entire reality of creatures is at the same time a participation in God's being and power by an analogy of attribution. So creatures in different ways share in divine qualities in a real way.
This sharing has different levels. The lowest level is that termed by some Fathers of the Church as a “trace”. All creatures have an existence which matches their own finite essence similarly to the way God's infinite existence matches (and is identified with) his own infinite essence. Creatures also have their own proper nature which is a power to act in a specific way. They act, not as completely independent agents, but as secondary causes under the influence of the primary causality of God who keeps them in being. So they are true and real agents, but dependent on God.
The next level of participation in God's being is that of an “image”. Humans more perfectly resemble God's being because they have an intellect and will and share in God's domination of the world (cf. Gen 1). This is true of all men, whether friends or enemies of God.
On this level we must distinguish our natural action, which depends on God, just as explained in the first level, and action which goes beyond our own nature, such as prophesy or miracles. In this case our dependency on God is more pronounced and we are mere instruments of his action. Yet even here God does not bypass our natural powers but raises them to a higher level. So in Scripture composition we see the personality of the writer (e.g. Matthew) as well as divine influence. The human author cooperates without competing, so that the book has 100% divine authorship and 100% human authorship.
The third level of participation in God's being is that of grace. This is a share in the divine nature (1 Pet 1:4), which empowers a person to know God (by faith) and love him as he is in himself. It makes us friends of God through our “brotherhood” with Jesus his Son or being “members of his body” and temples of his Spirit. Grace is brought to its fruition in glory, the vision of God in the life to come.
The fourth and ultimate level of participation in God's being is that of Jesus himself who has both a human and divine nature.