Aquinas on Predestination (ST I, Q.23, Arts. 5–6): Is It Caused by Foreseen Merits, and Is It Certain?

Orientation #

He opens: “we’re up to Article Five here in Question Twenty-Three.” He refers back twice to “last time”: the psalm “he gives to his beloved in sleep” and Aristotle’s remark in the Ethics that the beginning is from outside, from God (prev. lecture). The previous class covered aa. 2-4 of q. 23, the next continues with the number of the predestined and prayers of the saints.

The class, in order #

1. Article 5, objections and sed contra (“foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination”) #

He reads the three objections and the sed contra of a. 5.

• Obj. 1: Romans 8, “whom he foreknows, these also he foredestined,” plus the gloss of Ambrose on Romans 9 (“I give mercy to that one whom I foreknow will turn with his whole heart towards me”).
• Obj. 2: predestination includes the divine will, which cannot be unreasonable (“like the Pope was telling us”); Augustine: predestination is the proposal of taking mercy; no reason is possible but foreknowledge of merits.
• Obj. 3: no iniquity (he glosses: inequality, injustice) before God, Romans 9; all men are equal by nature and original sin, unequal only by merits and demerits; so God prepares unequal things only on account of foreknown different merits. He asks “so you’re convinced by the opposite side?” — “that last one” is “pretty good.”
• Sed contra: Titus, “not from the works of justice which we do, but according to his mercy he saves us”; as he saves, so he predestines.

2. Corpus, first part: three rejected positions (“No one, however, was of such insane mind”) #

Point: the question of a cause of predestination is the question of a cause of the divine will, which can only be on the side of things willed.

1. Predestination includes the will (said above); so its reason is the reason of the divine will.
2. No cause can be assigned of the divine will on the part of the act of willing — student: otherwise something would be moved; he adds: God’s act of will is his own substance, so a cause of it would be a cause of God himself.
3. A reason can be assigned on the side of the things willed: God wills this on account of that.
4. No one is so insane as to say merits cause the act of predestinating (“he hasn’t seen the 21st century yet”); the question is whether the effect has a cause, i.e. whether God foreorders to give the effect on account of merits.

Three positions on merits as cause of the effect:

• Origen (“the original Democrat”): merits in another life; souls created from the beginning, obtaining diverse statuses in bodies by diversity of works. Excluded by Romans 9: before Jacob and Esau were born or had done good or bad, “the older will serve the lesser.”
• Pelagians: merits preexisting in this life; the beginning of doing good is from us, the consummation from God. Against the psalm “he gives to his beloved in sleep” — the Pelagian says he gives them “in their waking up.” Refuted by 2 Corinthians: we are not enough to think anything as from ourselves; no beginning is earlier than thinking (cogitatio). Aside: this is why Augustine, taken up with refuting the Pelagians, stressed Paul.
• Others: merits following the effect of predestination; God gives grace because he foresees it will be used well, as a king gives a horse to a soldier he knows will use it well. Thomas’s reply: these distinguish what is from grace and what is from free will as if the same thing could not be from both. What is of grace is the effect of predestination and so is included under it; any other reason on our side would have to be outside the effect, but what is from free will is not distinct from what is from predestination. His example: “is this thing being moved by the mug or by me?” — the same effect from both. Providence produces its effects through second causes, and predestination is a part of providence, so what is through free will is also from predestination.
• Aside on liberum arbitrium: using “free judgment” for free will is “almost a naming by cause” — we have free will because our judgment about means is not determined by nature.

3. Corpus, second part: the effect in particular vs. in general (“the disposition of what matter”) #

Distinction: the effect of predestination considered in particular vs. as a whole.

• In particular: one effect of predestination can be cause and reason of another — the posterior of the prior by way of final cause, the prior of the posterior by way of meritorious cause, “which is reduced to the disposition of matter.” Example he puts to students: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee” — is she full of grace because the Lord is with her, or the Lord with her because she is full of grace? Both: the Lord’s presence as efficient cause, her fullness of grace as disposition of the matter, “a suitable temple.” So merits are a cause of salvation as material cause in the broad sense; being saved is a cause of merits as end. God foreorders glory from merits and grace that one might merit glory: grace prior cause of glory, glory end of grace.
• In general: impossible that the whole effect have a cause on our side, since whatever in man orders him to salvation, “even the very preparation for grace,” is included under the effect; Thomas cites Lamentations, “Convert us, Lord, to you, and we will be converted” (he notes Thomas does not cite Psalm 126, “the correct number,” which he had been using).
• On the side of the effect the reason is the divine goodness, to which the whole effect is ordered as end and from which it proceeds as beginning, first moving us. Aside: Apocalypse, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” — “beginning” is usually restricted to the mover, though in a sense the end is a beginning too.

4. Replies to objections 1 and 2 (“except by reason of what the final cause”) #

• Ad 1: the foreknown use of grace is not the reason for bestowing grace except by reason of final cause. He unpacks it: God foresees one will use the grace well and reach the end; another will not, “he’s going to be reprobated.”
• Ad 2 (the “Benedict XVI” objection, the Regensburg address): predestination has a reason on the side of the effect in general, the divine goodness (Augustine: because God is good, we are — and are predestined), and in particular one effect is a reason for another. He notes this simply applies the distinction of the body.

5. Digression: three sources of the modern world (“hard for democratic things”) #

Point: the third objection is what a democratic mind finds hardest; he reviews his three sources of modern customs.

1. The mercantile origin of the modern city in the late Middle Ages, founded by merchants as against Greek cities founded by aristocrats; McNeill: this stamped the whole civilization (civitas).
2. The mathematical union of natural and technical science in the 17th-18th centuries; Heisenberg: it changed man’s attitude to nature from contemplative to practical. Aside: a National Geographic at the dentist, full of letters attacking a scientist who spoke of belief in God as superstition.
3. The democratic revolutions and relative equality, against hereditary inequality; Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, vol. 2, “the single most important work” for this: aristocratic times look to the past for poetry (Homer and Troy), democratic ones to the future (Star Wars, 1984, Brave New World); democracy encourages pantheism in religion, seen in 19th-century German philosophy and in Rome’s repeated corrections of German theologians (Rahner, Küng). Conclusion: democratic customs make this aspect of predestination especially hard to accept.

6. Reply to objection 3: mercy and justice, and the simple will (“represent His goodness by way of what justice”) #

Point: from the divine goodness the reason of predestining some and reprobating others can be taken, but why this one rather than that has no reason but God’s will.

1. God makes all things on account of his goodness, that it be represented in things.
2. The divine goodness is one and simple (with perfection, three attributes of the divine substance), but creatures cannot attain that simplicity, so it must be represented in many forms.
3. So the completion of the universe requires diverse grades, some highest, some infimum — against Origen, for whom all spirits began equal and diversity came from turning to or from God, “as if that was not intended.” He adds: without diversity there would be no order of cause and effect, nothing like God being a cause.
4. To conserve this multiformity God permits some evils lest many goods be impeded: the lion’s dinner requires the death of the prey; the nobility of the martyrs requires the savagery of persecutors.
5. Comparing the human race to the whole universe: in some, whom he predestines, God represents his goodness by mercy; in others, whom he reprobates by punishing, by justice. Aside: his first teacher, Roman Casuri (College of St. Thomas, 1854-58 as heard [ed.: dates as spoken]), said you give glory to God no matter what — if you repent, to his mercy; if not, to his justice.
6. Romans 9: vessels of anger (anger a metaphor for justice) sustained “in much patience,” vessels of mercy prepared in glory; 2 Timothy: gold, silver, wooden and clay vessels, some in honour, some not (“chamber pots, before the flushing toilet”).
7. But why he chooses these and reprobates those has no reason but the divine will; Augustine on John: why he draws this one and not that one, “I do not wish to judge, if you don’t want to be mistaken.”
8. Parallel in nature: prime matter is uniform in itself; that some is under the form of fire (noblest element in the ancient chemistry) and some under earth has a reason, diversity of species; but why this part under that form depends on the simple divine will — as the artist’s reason of art has it that some stones be here and some there, but which stone goes where is his simple will.
9. No iniquity: this would be against justice only if the effect were rendered from debt, not given from grace (and if gratuitous it is not owed); in what is given freely one may give more or less to whom he wishes, provided he subtracts from no one what is owed. Matthew 20: “Take what is yours and go… what I will to do.” Reprobation is not unjust; that he gives more to some has a general reason, but which one is his simple will. The marble (equally good) cannot complain that one piece becomes a statue and another a post; the clay cannot say it is not right. “So that’s tough love.”

7. Article 6, objections (“Whether predestination is certain”) #

• Obj. 1: Apocalypse 3, “hold what you have, let no one take your crown”; Augustine: another would not take it unless this one had lost it; so the crown, the effect of predestination, can be lost.
• Aside on crown and truth: we reign with Christ; in John, Christ tells Pilate he was born to give testimony to the truth; Shakespeare’s “crowned truth”; Scripture and Thomas sometimes name Christ king and priest and leave out prophet, but he thinks king includes prophet, setting the truth. He used to call the principle of contradiction “the king of all statements” because it rules the others.
• Obj. 2: from the possible laid down nothing impossible follows (Aristotle); Peter, predestined, could sin and be killed; then the effect would be frustrated.
• Obj. 3: whatever God was able to do he can do; he was able not to predestine whom he predestined; so now he is able not to. “Are you convinced by the opposite side? That was clever.” Aside: Voltaire raising objections to bother his Catholic friends; his prayer that his enemies look ridiculous.

8. Sed contra and corpus of a.6 (“most surely, right, and infallibly achieves its effect”) #

• Sed contra: gloss on Romans 8, predestination is the foreknowledge and preparation of God’s benefits by which “most certainly” (certissime) whoever are freed are freed.
• Corpus: predestination most surely and infallibly achieves its effect, yet does not impose necessity. This “comes out of what we saw in general about foresight”: predestination is part of providence; not all under providence is necessary; some things happen contingently according to the condition of the proximate causes, yet the order of providence is infallible. God orders necessary causes for some things, contingent for others, and both come about, the latter contingently — “the marvelous thing about divine providence,” compared to the poet ordering chance events in a plot for a pleasing effect. So the order of predestination is certain, but free will, from which the effect comes contingently, is not removed. He adds: the same was said of divine knowledge and divine will, both most certain, “fail safe,” yet not removing contingency.

9. Ad 1: the crown in two ways (“no one what loses his crown”) #

A crown is someone’s in two ways: from divine predestination, and so no one loses it; from the merit of grace (what we merit is in some way ours), and so one can lose it by mortal sin. Another takes the crown insofar as he is substituted: God does not permit some to fall without raising others (Job 34, “he crushes many… and makes others to stand for them”); men in place of fallen angels, Gentiles in place of Jews. Also, he takes the crown insofar as he rejoices in eternal life over the goods the other did, since there everyone rejoices over goods done by himself and by others — “we’ll be rejoicing more about what others have done.” Student: maybe our sins cause someone else to pray for us; he cites St. Teresa (as heard “Visio”): someone she does not know is praying for her. In “the other place” you will not care who helped you get there.

10. Ad 2: possible by itself vs. on a supposition (“can I be standing when I am sitting”) #

Though the predestined, considered by himself, can die in mortal sin, it is impossible given that he is predestined; so predestination cannot fail. His example: could I be standing now instead of sitting? Yes, considering my muscles. Can I be standing when I am sitting? No. So the predestined may commit mortal sin but will be forgiven; he cannot die in it.

11. Ad 3: necessity ex suppositione and the composed sense (“the fallacy of composition and division”) #

Predestination includes the divine will, and for God to will something created is necessary not absolutely but ex suppositione, on account of the unchangeableness of the divine will. Student exchange: could God will me to be or not to be? Yes, either; but having willed me to be, he cannot will me not to be. So it is not necessary to say God can not-predestine whom he predestines, taking it in the composed sense; absolutely, he can predestine or not, and this does not remove certitude. He connects this with the fallacy of composition and division from the Sophistical Refutations (after equivocation and amphiboly, where words have two meanings): composed sense, I cannot be standing when sitting; divided sense, at the time I am sitting I could be standing.

His words #

• foreknowledge of merits; the question of a. 5, whether it is “the cause or the reason” of predestination.
• iniquity; glossed as inequality, injustice (obj. 3, Romans 9).
• proposal of taking mercy; Augustine’s phrase for predestination.
• “the original Democrat”; his tag for Origen (all souls created equal).
• he gives to his beloved in sleep; Psalm 126, God before any activity of ours.
• cogitatio; thinking, the earliest beginning, not from ourselves (2 Cor).
• free judgment; liberum arbitrium rendered as free will “by cause” [ed.: free choice].
• disposition of matter; the meritorious cause reduced to material cause in the broad sense.
• vessels of anger / vessels of mercy; anger a metaphor for justice.
• infimum; the lowest grade in the universe.
• simple will; the divine will as reason why this one, not that.
• tough love; his summary of ad 3.
• certissime; “most surely,” infallibly.
• fail safe / fail proof; divine knowledge, will and predestination.
• composed vs. divided sense; the fallacy of composition and division.
• ex suppositione; necessary on a supposition, not absolutely.
• king of all statements; his name for the principle of contradiction.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 23, a. 5 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 23, a. 6 (whole article)
• Romans 8 (whom he foreknew); Romans 9 (Jacob and Esau; vessels of anger and mercy); Titus (sed contra a. 5); 2 Corinthians (not enough to think); 2 Timothy (vessels in a great house); Matthew 20 (take what is yours); Lamentations (convert us); Apocalypse 3 (hold your crown); Job 34; gloss of Ambrose on Romans 9; gloss on Romans 8; Augustine on the Gospel of John (why he draws this one)

Mentioned

• Psalm 126 (he gives to his beloved in sleep); Apocalypse (Alpha and Omega); John (Christ before Pilate on truth); Psalm 109 (as heard, king and priest); Aristotle, Ethics (beginning from outside); Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations (composition and division); Aristotle, on the possible laid down (obj. 2, work as heard “Book of Wisdom” [ed.: unclear]); Benedict XVI, Regensburg address; McNeill (world history); Heisenberg; Tocqueville, Democracy in America vol. 2; Shakespeare (“crowned truth”); Homer; 1984, Brave New World, Star Wars; Voltaire; St. Teresa

His questions #

• Why can no cause be assigned of the divine will on the part of the act of willing? Otherwise something would be moved; God’s act of will is his substance, so a cause of it would be a cause of God.
• Is Mary full of grace because the Lord is with her, or is the Lord with her because she is full of grace? Both: the Lord’s presence as efficient cause, her fullness as disposition of the matter.
• Is this thing being moved by the mug or by me? By both — the same effect from free will and from predestination.
• Grace is a cause of glory in what sense, and glory of grace? Grace the prior (meritorious) cause; glory the end.
• Wherefore he chooses these and reprobates those? No reason except the divine will; Augustine: I do not wish to judge.
• Can the marble or the clay complain? No; what is given from grace may be given more or less, so long as nothing owed is subtracted.
• Could I be standing now instead of sitting? Can I be standing when I am sitting? Yes by myself; no on the supposition — so the predestined cannot die in mortal sin.
• Could God will me to be or not to be? Having willed me to be, can he will me not to be? Either, absolutely; but not, given his unchangeable will.
• Why do Scripture and Thomas sometimes name Christ king and priest and leave out prophet? His suggestion: king includes prophet, setting the truth; left open.