1. With the help of what has been said in the foregoing pages, it will be well to attempt to read, to interpret, certain texts of Saint Paul that bear particularly upon predestination.
These questions of grace are very mysterious, very profound. If, in dealing with them, we were to forget that God is a God of love, if we were to speak of them without setting them within that atmosphere of divine goodness which safeguards our hearts, we might say things that seemed, theologically —or rather, let us say, verbally, literally— exact, yet which would in reality be distorted, deceitful, capable of leading astray. In truth, only the great saints, the great lovers of God, can speak of these things without altering them.
Let us recall at the outset that in the word predestination, as in the word prescience, the prefix “pre” signifies a priority of dignity and of excellence, not a chronological priority that would make us think of a stage prepared beforehand. Predestination is an assignment of love come from on high; it is a supreme divine destination in the course of its accomplishment; it is a supreme courtesy of Love, not refused but welcomed and thereafter fulfilled.
2. The doctrine of predestination is a scriptural, revealed doctrine. We must accept it without any doubt whatever. But how are we to understand it? In a Catholic manner, or in a Lutheran or Calvinist manner, which is an aberration and to which we shall return?
The word predestination is Saint Paul’s. He writes in chapter I, 3 of the Epistle to the Ephesians: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in Christ hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places; inasmuch as in Him He chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight, and hath predestinated us in charity unto the adoption of His children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will.”
Shortly after, in chapter II, 4, we read: “But God, who is rich in mercy, for the exceeding great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead by our sins, gave us life together in Christ —by whose grace you have been saved— and raised us up together and seated us together in the heavens through Christ Jesus, that He might show in the ages to come the surpassing riches of His grace, in His bounty toward us in Christ Jesus.” The Apostle beholds there, by anticipation, the elect gathered in heaven around Christ, who will say: Thanks be to Thee, O God, for having predestined us, forestalled by Thy love. The supreme “yes” that I have uttered —it is Thou who hast moved us to say it. To Thee be the glory!
The word predestination was already found in the Epistle to the Romans: “And whom He predestinated, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Rom. VIII, 30). Here too the Apostle beholds by anticipation the elect gathered in heaven, and considers how God has led them thither: first He called them and forestalled them with graces which they might have rejected, even though these could have been invincible; if they welcomed them, it is by a divine impulse, for our “yeses” come always from God: “Thy destruction is from thyself, O Israel; from Me alone comes thy help.” Not having rejected that first call, they passed to justification by a new divine impulse; and those, at last, whom He justified, God brings into heaven: this is the supreme act of care whereby God permits us to die in His love.
3. When you read these texts again, you will not be troubled if you set them within the perspective I am pointing out to you. You will recall that if anyone is not predestined it is because he has said no —and not merely by a single refusal, like the fallen angels— for divine grace visits us again and again and even constrains our hearts. How many times? The Apostles asked Jesus one day: “Lord, how often shall I forgive my brother if he sin against me? Till seven times?” Jesus saith to them: “I say not to thee, till seven times, but till seventy times seven times” (Mt. XVIII, 21-22). Behold what Jesus expects of men, wretched and rebellious to mercy though they be. In another discourse Jesus will say: “What man is there among you who, if his son ask him for bread, will reach him a stone; or if he ask him for a fish, will reach him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him!” (Mt. VII, 9-11; cf. Luke XI, 11-13). Then God too will forgive me seventy times seven; He will come again to knock at the door of my soul. And yet, if I will to refuse, I can do so; I have the terrible power of saying no to God, of uttering a definitive no that will fix my destiny for eternity. I can say to Him: I will have nothing of Thy love; I will remain myself; to be myself not in Thee but against Thee; to be forever like a thorn in Thy Heart. Behold the fearful refusal of hell.
What might perhaps be a cause of confusion here is the deeply moving parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke XVI, 19), in which the rich man is seen to implore: Father Abraham, permit Lazarus to go and warn my brethren, that they may change their lives! But Abraham answers: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. If they hear them not, neither will they believe, though one should rise again from the dead. The intention of the parable, as you see, is to teach that one must listen now, while it is yet time; afterward it will be too late. But one would be mistaken to think that in hell the damned have the sentiments of charity that the parable lends to the rich man. If a damned soul could say: “O Lord, permit me to go and announce to others what Thy love is, that they be not damned as I am,” he would introduce love into hell, and hell would be destroyed. (One must always discern the intention with which a parable is told —an intention which the evangelist indicates— without which it would be denatured and would risk leading astray. Recall the parable of the unjust steward, at which so many unintelligent Christians take scandal.)
Thus, then, if anyone is not found among the predestined, it will be by some refusal of which he is the author, and for which he will not cease to be responsible. He will persist in his refusal, in his hatred —and this very thing will constitute his torment— yet without disavowing his first choice. Saint Thomas gives us a comparison: suppose a man who hates his enemy. He would wish to kill him: If I find him, he thinks, I will kill him. But he meets with a hindrance; perhaps he is in prison. Ah, he says to himself, when I come out of prison! He lives and feeds upon his hatred. He is told: Do you not see that your hatred makes you wretched? It is true, he will answer, but even so I wish to avenge myself. We all know, moreover, that it is possible for us to keep within ourselves sentiments that torture us. Well then, that example is but an image of what the perpetual refusal of the damned will be —a refusal which is the cause of their not being found among the predestined. Behold the Catholic doctrine.
What we have said above about divine prescience allows us to make this doctrine more precise. Let us not say: “God does not predestine, God abandons, God reproves those whom He knows beforehand will refuse or would refuse His attentions.” What we say is: “God does not predestine, God abandons, God reproves those whom He sees, from all eternity, taking upon themselves the first initiative of the definitive refusal of His attentions.” He takes account, from all time, of their free refusal, in order to establish His immutable and eternal plan.
4. The erroneous doctrine set forth by Luther and by Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion holds that, just as some are predestined for heaven, others are predestined for hell, from which they will never escape. This is the thesis of double predestination: the one for heaven, which is true, provided it be not understood as Luther and Calvin understand it (for whom, as we have seen, the good action comes solely from God and not from God through man); the other for hell. As you see, there is a twofold error: predestination for heaven is falsified, and there is introduced that notion of predestination for hell which is the worst aberration. Present-day Protestants, moreover, no longer defend Calvin on this point; Karl Barth frankly declares that he cannot find in Saint Paul that predestination for hell. (Yet, from the doctrinal point of view, some critics have seen in the thesis of double predestination the keystone of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.)
5. We are now going to examine certain texts which, ill read, may be interpreted in the manner of Calvin —particularly in chapter IX of the Epistle to the Romans. I deliberately choose these critical points in order to show you the way to set them in a clear light. But ought one truly to treat of these questions? Is it not imprudent to do so?
I believe one must proceed differently according to the case. I find myself before a person tormented by the problem of predestination. He asks himself: Shall I be saved? If I am predestined I am certain of my salvation, whatever I do; and if I am not, all the good I may do will be useless. What shall I answer to such difficulties? My task will consist first of all in discerning the meaning of the question. It is, perhaps, a speculative question, a question of revealed truth, of Theology. In that case my answer will doubtless be a mystery, but not a contradiction. You know that mystery is adorable; it is the night of God, on which the metaphysician, the theologian, the saint are nourished; whereas contradiction, on the contrary, is odious; it is the night of incoherence and of evil. But it may be a tormenting question, the question of a soul passing through an interior trial by which God wishes to nail it to the cross. Then I will not attempt to give explanations. They would be out of place. I will say: Bear this trial for the present; endure it in the night by making great acts of faith, and something very mysterious is going to be wrought in you. Afterward, one day, when what God sought in working upon your soul has been accomplished, you will come to me and we shall speak of the matter again, and the answer I give you will be made manifest to you in its truth. But for the moment you are cast down; it is because God requires of you an act of total abandonment. Do not try to elude it. Were I to begin to argue with you, I would betray my role of the “angel” charged with assisting you, with showing you the way.
What we are now saying with regard to predestination may hold good in other circumstances. If a speculative problem is raised, strive to set it in a clear light. You may not always have answers for everything, but the Church does have them, and you can inform yourselves. But there is also the plan of God’s conduct with respect to souls. I think of a certain person for whom the stumbling-block was the suffering of animals. None of the answers offered to her satisfied her. She was not in a condition to understand them. There remained for her only to carry that disquiet as a cross. And that was precisely what God doubtless expected of her. For the question of predestination the saints have known how to find answers that resolve the problem, not theoretically but concretely, in the night of love. For example: “Lord, if Thy justice must one day condemn me, I desire to be condemned, because I know that it is adorable.” Or: “Lord, if I were not to love Thee later in eternity, at least let me love Thee here during the present time.” Or: “O my God, Thou knowest that I cannot endure hell, and I know that I am not worthy of Paradise. What stratagem shall I employ? Thy pardon!” It is thus that God sets them at peace. The devil said to Saint Teresa: “Why take so much trouble? The die is cast!” As a woman of wit, she answered: “Then it was not worth your while to trouble yourself to tell me so.” The devil understood then: he too had wit.
6. Let us come now to the theme of the rejection of the Jews as it is treated in the Epistle to the Romans, chapters IX and XI. “For salvation is of the Jews,” Jesus had said to the Samaritan woman. God had prepared that people —privileged among all the peoples of the world— as a cradle for the Incarnation. Privileges, I have already said, are not the principal thing. The principal thing is the love that God dispenses to all because of the death of Christ upon the cross, and which each one is free to welcome or to reject. But, in short, the messianic salvation, the honour of announcing and of receiving the Messiah, was offered first to the Jews. And behold, when the Messiah comes, the Jews as a body fail to recognize Him, they pass Him by. What will God do? He might say: Have they not accepted My attentions? I will keep them to Myself. But God never does that. When the gift of His love is refused by a soul or by a people, He transfers it to other souls or to other peoples. He does not close the doors of the feast: in place of the first guests, He sends to seek out the poor, the maimed, the blind (Luke XIV, 21). In place of the Jews, the immensity of the Gentiles is called. Thus the fault of the Jews becomes the salvation of the Gentiles. “By their offence salvation is come to the Gentiles…, their diminution is the riches of the Gentiles” (Rom. XI, 11-12). And when the Gentiles who have welcomed that light begin to grow lukewarm, God will bring the Jews back. The mass of Israel —which does not mean all the Jews, but the body of the Jews— filled with envy at seeing that other peoples have been preferred to it, will enter at last into the Church. And the conversions from Judaism, which take place continually in the course of the ages, show the way by which, one day, the multitude of the Jews will come. “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits: that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the nations should come in; and so all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. XI, 25-26). It is then that the Apostle exclaims: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!” (Rom. XI, 33).
7. Saint Paul grieves, nonetheless, that Israel as a body has refused that Messiah born in its midst: “That I have great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart; for I could wish myself to be an anathema from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, the Israelites, whose is the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the worship and the promises; whose are the patriarchs, and from whom, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen” (IX, 2-5).
But then, the Apostle asks, has God failed His word, seeing that He had promised Abraham a whole posterity? No; for the Church, in her origin, was composed entirely of Jews, with the Virgin and Simeon and Anna and the apostles, and she will never be so beautiful as she was in those moments. God’s promise has not failed, for there has been a “remnant” —that is the technical word— which remained faithful when the mass went astray.
And Paul explains here (Rom. IX, 6-8) that those who are of Abraham’s posterity are not all children of Abraham. There is the Israel of the flesh (those who descend by way of carnal generation from Abraham) and then the Israel of the Promise, who are those, among the descendants of Abraham, that have the spirit of Abraham. And there are the Gentiles, to whom grace will be offered and who will unite themselves to these latter; they form part of the Israel of the Promise, of the Israel of the spirit —not by way of generation and carnal descent, but by way of the spiritual generation given in baptism.
8. We now come to the capital passage. Saint Paul begins by saying: Can reproaches be made against God because He is going to choose another people in place of the one He had first chosen and which did not accept His gift? No, declares the Apostle, for God, without injustice, chooses whom He pleases and rejects whom He pleases. To understand the meaning of his answer I should like to draw a distinction; it will become the key to this chapter IX.
There are two kinds of vocations, of destinations, of callings: vocations bearing upon the present time, which we might call temporal, in which God’s choice is entirely free; and vocations of destination bearing upon eternal life, in which God is not free to give or to withhold the grace which, if it be not rejected, will lead us to the Fatherland: God is not free because He is bound by His love.
Then, pursuing that distinction, shall I reproach God for not having made me a poet like Dante, or for not having given me the genius of Pascal? For having caused me to be born among such a people or in such an epoch of history? In such a social milieu, with such a constitution, in such a state of health? For not having given me, as He gave the Apostles, the grace to foretell the future or to work miracles? He is entirely free; He has no account to render. But if it be a question of eternal life, then no, God is not free; He must give me such graces that, were I to lose my salvation, it would be by my own fault. You see the difference. If I am the victim of an accident, if I die when I thought I still had a right to life, I shall not be able to say to God: that is not just. In this regard Saint Paul will declare: If the potter makes a common jar and a splendid jar, can the common jar lodge a complaint against the potter? If it is fitting that there be common utensils and also works of art, what would you have the clay say? So it will be with the temporal vocations of the various peoples, and also with their “prophetic vocation”: Why was Israel the depositary of the message that announced the Messiah? Why it and not the other peoples? On this there is nothing to say.
It is, then, Israel alone that received the prophetic vocation concerning the Messiah. Does this mean that the other peoples were abandoned by God? No; God sent them secret graces, not that they might be bearers of the messianic message, but to orient them toward eternal salvation, in respect of which no soul in any people was forgotten. There are thus, as you see, two registers, two plans. In one plan —that of the temporal gifts and destinations, and also that of the charismatic graces— God is entirely free: He chooses whom He pleases and rejects whom He pleases, without there being any injustice in Him. In the other plan —that of the graces of salvation— God is doubtless free to give His children diverse and unequal graces: two talents to one, five to another (the parable of the talents); but He is not free to deprive any soul of what is necessary to it: He is bound by His justice and by His love to give to each of them those graces which, if they are not refused, will lead them to the threshold of the Fatherland.
9. I believe I have given you the distinction that permits us to understand chapter IX. Let us read it first according to the plan of the vocations concerning the present time and the charismatic gifts. It is the plan to which Saint Paul first refers. “And it is not that the word of God hath miscarried. For not all who are born of Israel are Israel, neither are all the descendants of Abraham children of Abraham; but: In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is to say, not the children of the flesh are the children of God, but the children of the promise are accounted for the seed. The terms of the promise are these: About this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son” (Rom. IX, 6-9). Abraham had a son by Agar, the handmaid, while Sara, his wife, remained barren. But the angel comes and announces: Sara shall have a son next year. From then on we have two sons: Ishmael, the son of the flesh, and Isaac, the son of the promise. To whom shall the posterity go? Shall it be to Ishmael, from whom Islam believes it descends? No, but to Isaac, the son of the promise. Through him the prophetic message will be transmitted. This does not mean that Ishmael is rejected by God as regards the things of eternal salvation, but that he is not chosen to be the spokesman of the prophetic message.
Later a new disjunction occurs: Rebecca conceived two sons of Isaac, our father. They were twins: Esau and Jacob. Which of the two shall be the bearer of the prophetic promise? Here too God is entirely free: “For when they were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil —that the purpose of God, according to election, not by works but by Him that calleth, might stand— it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger; as it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” (IX, 10-13). “Jacob I have loved,” as bearer of the promise; “more than Esau,” whom I have set aside —not as regards eternal life but as regards the promise. “What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? No; for He said to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show compassion on whom I have compassion. Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh: To this very purpose have I raised thee up, that I may show My power in thee, and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth” (IX, 14-18).
How are we to understand this passage? Moses is sent by God to Pharaoh to say to him: Let my people go. But Pharaoh will not understand. Had he been more intelligent he would have answered: Depart with your people. In that case he would have entered into the designs of God; he would have shared, in a certain measure, in the vocation of the people that bears the promise. But, against his will, Israel will depart, and he will send his troops in pursuit. Pharaoh deceives himself as regards the plan of high politics: his error does not necessarily require that he be condemned, but the glory of God will be manifested in spite of him; Moses and his people will pass through the sea in which the armies of Pharaoh will perish.
I go on reading, still on the first plan: “So then He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth” (IX, 18). That is to say, He abandons to their lack of understanding whom He pleases. Pharaoh errs on the plan of high politics. Cyrus, on the contrary, will be more clear-sighted: he will free Israel from captivity and restore them to their homes for the rebuilding of the Temple; he will carry out the policy of God. For this he is praised in Scripture.
“But you will say to me: Then why doth He find fault? For who can resist His will? O man, who art thou to demand an account of God? Doth the vessel say to the potter: Why hast thou made me thus? Or can the potter not make of the same clay a vessel unto honour and a vessel unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath, ripe for perdition, and on the contrary willed to make a display of the riches of His glory upon the vessels of His mercy, which He hath prepared unto glory?” (IX, 19-23)
“To show His wrath” means: to set aside. The message will pass by another channel, as He says in Osee: I will call that which is not My people, My people, and her that is not beloved, beloved. And where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” there they shall be called sons of the living God. And Isaias cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant shall be saved; for the Lord shall execute upon the earth a sentence consummated and decisive” (IX, 25-28).
10. We have read these texts according to the plan of vocations bearing upon the present time. Let us now try to consider certain passages according to the plan of the vocation bearing upon salvation in eternal life. This is not the plan to which Saint Paul directly refers, but it may at times underlie his thought.
Let us begin with the text: “Jacob I have loved more than Esau” (IX, 13). If its meaning were: I loved the person of Jacob and gave him eternal salvation; I hated the person of Esau and gave him eternal reprobation —we would say: from all eternity God knows that from Him proceeds the supreme initiative of Jacob’s last act of love; Jacob is saved by the divine goodness. From all eternity God sees that the first initiative of Esau’s rejection proceeds from Esau; Esau is condemned as a consequence of that free rejection, in spite of the attentions of the divine goodness and because he brought those attentions to nothing. One must distinguish clearly the manner in which Jacob is saved (it is by the divine goodness) and the manner in which Esau is rejected (it is by his own ill will). Not to make that distinction —to say that God has the first initiative of Esau’s ruin as He has the first initiative of Jacob’s salvation, that God is the cause of Esau’s ruin as He is the cause of Jacob’s salvation— is the aberration of Calvin.
Second text: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show compassion on whom I have compassion” (IX, 15). Behold here, on the plan of the vocation to salvation, the Catholic lesson: Let us suppose a man whom God has forestalled with His love and who sins, freely refuses that love, plunders the grace within him. God can say to him: “Henceforth I abandon thee to thy sin” —is that just or not just? He will answer: It is just. But God can say: “In justice I ought to abandon thee, as I do with others; nevertheless, this time again, out of pure mercy, out of pure compassion, I come once more to seek thee.” Let us now see the Calvinist lesson: Original sin has destroyed our free will. God chooses some of us to save them; He has compassion on whom He has compassion. The rest are predestined for hell. And if you protest, saying that it is iniquitous that men deprived of freedom should be cast into hell, Calvin will confront you and answer that, since God does it, it is not an iniquity but a mystery that must be adored.
Third text: “For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh: To this very purpose have I raised thee up, that I may show My power in thee, and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth” (IX, 17-18). On the plane of eternal salvation, to harden someone means, according to the Catholic lesson: to let develop the consequences of the acts he has voluntarily performed. I have committed such a sin as normally engenders such or such another; if God does not intervene out of pure mercy to break that chain of my sins, if He abandons me to my own logic, it will be said that I have hardened myself; I shall freely descend the slope that goes from sin to sin. Is it in this sense that Pharaoh was hardened? Was he personally condemned? How shall we know? In the Calvinist lesson, to harden means to hurl ever deeper into sin by a voluntary punitive action of God.
Fourth text: “But you will say to me: Then why doth He find fault? For who can resist His will? O man! who art thou to demand an account of God? Doth the vessel say to the potter: Why hast thou made me thus? Or can the potter not make of the same clay a vessel unto honour and a vessel unto dishonour?” (IX, 19-21). According to the Catholic lesson, God is bound to give grace to all, but He is not bound to an equality of graces. He gives His servants one, two, or five talents, to each according to his capacity (Matt. XXV, 15); and this diversity will contribute to the splendour of Paradise. But He is bound by His love to give to each of us such graces that, if we do not enter into the Fatherland, we shall acknowledge ourselves the sole responsible ones.
Fifth text: “For if God, willing to show His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath, ripe for perdition, and on the contrary willed to make a display of the riches of His glory upon the vessels of His mercy, which He hath prepared unto glory” (IX, 22-23). God can abandon the sinner in his sin and in the dialectic of his sin: in that case He endures “with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath, ripe for perdition.” Why does He endure them? Perhaps at the last hour He will come once more to visit them in His goodness. But God can also draw the sinner immediately out of his sin; and in that case He will make “a display of the riches of His glory upon the vessels of His mercy.” Peter and Judas deny Jesus; Jesus could abandon both the one and the other in their sin —it would be just. He looks upon Peter; that look moves Peter: behold mercy.
According to the Calvinist lesson, God endures with great patience the vessels of wrath destined for perdition, as He does the vessels destined for glory. Such is the perspective of double predestination.
11. The idea of predestination must never lead to fatalism, nor make us say: What is the use? Is everything useless? You would then be deceiving yourselves as regards faith and as regards Theology. What are we to think of the peasant who should say: God knows beforehand whether I shall reap next summer; why then sow in autumn? We would answer him: Doubtless God sees from all eternity whether you will reap or not, just as He sees from all eternity that Mary Magdalene will enter into heaven, because from all eternity He sees that she will be converted. And when it is a question of our rejection, He takes account of it from all eternity in establishing His unvarying plan.
But the thought of predestination may become a temptation to despair which the devil will try to introduce into us. If God permits this temptation, it will not be that we may fall into it, but that we may make great acts of hope in the night. To all souls, at every moment, temptations may present themselves upon a point of faith —or of hope, for example, the one who says: I believe in the blessed life for others, but not for me, who am too great a sinner— or again upon the point of love. The great mystics, Saint John of the Cross, Marie of the Incarnation, are those who have best spoken of these trials. If we were to meet souls thus tempted, it would be well to answer them simply: God is within your heart and is mysteriously digging His furrow. This puts you into agony, but something profound is being prepared, and the acts of faith and of hope that you thus make in the night are perhaps the most precious of your life. In heaven you will be “consoled eternally, because here below you have been desolated inconsolably.”
Nihil Obstat: Dr. Antonio Zaldúa Uriarte
Imprimatur: Bilbao, 14 September 1962. PABLO, Bishop of Bilbao
Source: Talks on Grace, by Cardinal Charles Journet
