The Problem
Predestination is the reconciliation of God’s infinite power with man’s free will. If you’ve read my pages on virtue and sin, you may have started to notice the roots of this problem.
First, the Bible and the Church are clear that God desires that all men reach Heaven. St. Paul tells us that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:3-4). St. Peter says, “the Lord [does not wish] that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Ezekiel says that God has “no pleasure in the death of anyone” and asks us to “turn to Him and live” (Ezekiel 18:30-32). Even without these verses, scripture is clear that God made man for righteousness, and thus made man for happiness in Heaven. It would be absurd to say that God created man for a particular end while simultaneously frustrating that end.
Second, the Bible and the Church are clear that God is the origin of all goodness. Therefore, while human love responds to goodness in things, God’s love causes goodness in things. As St. Paul profoundly says, “what have you that you have not received?” (1 Corinth. 4:7). Why are you better than a rock? Because God loves you more than a rock. Why are you better than Satan? Because God loves you more than Satan. Why is the Blessed Virgin better than you? Because God loves her more than you. And there are really no means by which anyone could call this arrangement unfair. “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” (Rom. 9:19).
While each of these concepts are coherent and sensible in a vacuum, the marriage of the two raises a confusing problem. If God’s love is the cause of all goodness, then God’s love is the means of salvation. God is infinite and omnipotent, so there is no limit to His love. If, then, God desires that all men be saved, why aren’t all men saved? How is damnation even possible?
Free Will and Premotion
Ultimately, the question of predestination concerns how God and a particular man each relate to the destiny of that particular man. First, we must acknowledge that man has free will. St. James says “let no one say, ‘I am tempted by God;’ for God cannot be tempted with evil and He Himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:13-15). James’ argument stems from a simple logical deduction: sin is definitionally a departure from God’s will. Therefore, the fact of sin proves that humans can depart from God’s will. But for any will to depart from God’s will, it must be free. It is incoherent to say that sin exists without free will.
But, it is equally incoherent to say God has no role in man’s salvation. Without God as first principle, nothing would even exist in the first place, let alone act one way or another. In order for free will to exist, God must create it and provide it power. It is analogous to how the flame on a stove really heats a pot, but the gas valve must create and sustain the flame’s power. Likewise, human actions have real effects, but all human action relies on God as first principle. As Christ says, “without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). This relationship is called “premotion.” But don’t imagine premotion as a series of dominos irresistibly knocking each other over. God’s act of premotion is simultaneous to and one with the free act of the will. It just precedes it in the order of causality.
If the divine premotion moves the will to act, doesn’t this mean the will is not free after all? Certainly not, as the will maintains its freedom, even in the midst of action. For example, my choice to sit is incompossible with the choice to stand. But no one would say that my choice to sit has somehow made it impossible for me to stand. It is really, truly possible for me to stand, although I have chosen against it. To say the divine will actualizing our choices makes us unfree would be to say that any choice whatsoever makes us unfree, and this is clearly absurd. Rather, the divine premotion moves all things infallibly according to their mode. God pre-moves the stars through the physical constants, animals through instincts, and conscious beings through their free will. Far from frustrating free will, premotion is the cause of free will.
But if God is the origin of free action, and some free actions are sins, then is God the origin of sin? Again, certainly not. The premotive power of God is always perfect, though the secondary cause may not be. For example, consider the gas valve on the stove releasing gas, but the stovetop failing to ignite. Or, a man moving his leg with perfect motive power, but a limp in the leg nonetheless frustrating the act of walking. Of course, we are not talking here about physical defects which bear no moral weight. We are talking about a defect in the human will which results in evil. The means of overcoming a physical defect may be by a technician in the case of the stove, or a surgeon in the case of the leg, but the means of overcoming a defect in the will is actual grace.
Actual Grace
Actual grace is a gratuitous premotion which creates an impulse in the will to move towards a good act. Again, premotion does not violate the will’s freedom, but actualizes it. This grace is made manifest both in the repentance of the hardened sinner and the millionth salutary act of the saint. But there are two “categories”: efficient grace, and sufficient grace.
Efficient grace is grace which infallibly leads to the completion of the salutary act. That is, an efficient grace is inherently efficacious. The very nature of efficient grace is to soften a hard heart, so it would be incoherent to say a hard heart can resist it. However, this does not make it a necessitating premotion – the will remains free, even under the influence of efficient grace. Again, premotion is not like a series of dominos, one knocking over the other; premotion simply provides the power to act. This is, of course, in keeping with the words of scripture. “For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish according to His good will” (Phil. 2:13); “I will cause you to walk in My commandments, and to keep My judgments, and do them” (Ezek. 36:27).
Sufficient grace is grace which really provides the required power to complete a salutary act, but infallibly results in incompletion. That is, a sufficient grace is always resisted. The common inclination here is to say that we should instead call it insufficient grace, since it never works! But sufficient causes can remain sufficient while failing to produce their effect. St. Thomas invokes the example of the sun casting light on the earth. The sun is sufficient in itself to illuminate man’s sight, and, indeed is ultimately required for all sight. But someone can frustrate and cease to participate in the sun’s inherent ability to illuminate by closing their eyes. And just as man requires the sun to see but is sufficient to cause his own darkness, so man requires grace to perform salutary acts, but is sufficient to cause his own sin (Summa, Q79 A3).
But let us discuss this further; sometimes the academic use of the word “sufficient” or the example of closing one’s eyes can make the rejection of grace sound benign or blameless. It is anything but benign and blameless. First, we must more explicitly orient ourselves to what sufficient grace is: it is not some “lesser form” of grace. It is grace which, of itself, is sufficient to bridge the infinite gap between fallen man and God. It is grace which, of itself, has the power to transform man into an image of God, capable and worthy of the perpetual, infinitely intimate, glorious, beatific vision of His face. God is not lacking in His gifts, and God does not command what is not really, truly possible. On the contrary, the infinite value of grace should make us shudder to think of our malice and depravity in rejecting it.
To elucidate this even further: sufficient grace is not like commanding a man chained to the radiator to leave a burning building and then condemning him when he fails. Rather, imagine a man chained to the radiator setting his own house on fire, with no one around to help. Then imagine that – purely out of compassion – God incarnates as a man, bursts into the house, and breaks the man’s chain off the radiator, dying from smoke inhalation in the process. Then imagine that this man totally ignores this sacrifice and starts playing a board game instead of evacuating. If he should die in the fire, would there be anyone to blame but himself? Does the enormity of the act of sacrifice to save him not make his careless disregard utterly deplorable? This is analogous to sufficient grace and the rejection thereof.
God gives grace to all. To some, that they may not boast; to others, that they may have no excuse.
Salvation
Salvation is entirely the act of God working within us through efficient grace. “Whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the firstborn amongst many brethren. Whom He predestined, them He also called. And whom He called, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Rom. 8:28-31). St. Paul is making the point that God predestines men as a gift, not according to man’s foreseen merits. That is, there is nothing you can do by your own power to “earn” salvation nor entice God to save you, because all of your good acts come from Him in the first place. God gives us the gift of grace, then rewards us for the gift He gave us. “What have you that you have not received,” after all?
What, then, is God’s motive for saving people? God’s only motivation is love, because the salvation of anyone is inherently a good thing. Heaven is not like some sort of amusement park where an evil person could slip in and escape their crimes. No one “gets away with it” and then goes to Heaven. Heaven is definitionally the result of learning your lesson, taking responsibility for what you’ve done, and repenting – which is inherently good. God’s mercy is not taking an evil person who does not deserve Heaven and putting them in Heaven as if they were a saint. This would be incoherent and unjust. Rather, God’s mercy is providing a sinner the grace to become a saint while they’re alive, such that they actually deserve to go to Heaven, being “conformed to the image of His Son.”
Can God’s saving power fail? No; God is omnipotent. Christ said, “[My sheep] shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:28). St. Paul adds a corollary to this fact in Romans, stating that “all things work unto good for those who love God (Romans 8:28).” The sins of others may cause some to falter, as in a friend encouraging another friend to tell a lie. But among the predestined, the sins of others only give them more strength, as in the example of the martyr courageously defying the persecutor. One’s own sins also typically cause them to falter, as the habit of vice makes it more difficult to return to virtue. But among the predestined, even one’s own sins are taken instead as opportunities to grow in humility and hope.
We see a very clear example of this reality in the Gospel. At the Last Supper, Jesus said to Peter, “Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” And Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me” (Luke 22:31-34). Peter then betrayed Jesus exactly as described. But as Jesus had prayed, he did not ultimately fail; this event instead led him to recognize his own weakness. After Pentecost, he led the Apostles faithfully and did not falter again, even bravely facing his own crucifixion.
Reprobation
But compare Peter to Judas. Again at the Last Supper, Jesus said “very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” John asked, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus said, “the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then he dipped the bread and gave it to Judas. Judas then made his mind up to turn Christ over to the authorities. Jesus said to him, “What you must do, do it quickly” (John 13:21-30). Of course, this story turns out much differently than Peter’s. Judas despaired, hanged himself, and Jesus declared “it would have been better for him not to have been born” (Matt 26:24).
As God chooses some for salvation, others He permits to sin (Summa, Q23 A3). God “loved Jacob and hated Esau” (Malachi 1:3). But it is not as if God causes certain men to sin the way he causes certain men to perform good works. That is, whereas salvation is a cooperative act in which “man plans his way, but God directs his steps” (Prov 16:9), reprobation is when man plans his way, and God lets him. We see this manifested in Jesus’ response to Judas – permissive, but not encouraging. If that all still sounds like God is causing the sin, return to the analogy of the sun. The sun can only cause light; darkness has no “cause,” it is the absence of light. If a man erects an obstacle between himself and the sun, who will say the sun is at fault for not illuminating his vision?
We have already discussed that it is always a good thing when God’s mercy molds someone into sainthood. But reprobation is a different story. It is good to rehabilitate an imprisoned man (salvation), but it is not good to imprison an innocent man. Likewise, God does not desire damnation for anyone while they are yet innocent. It is in this antecedent sense we say God desires all men to be saved. It is only after one resists grace and freely sins that God wishes to justly punish them. And how does God punish sin? By revoking His grace. While God is bound by justice to provide all men sufficient grace for salvation, He is not bound to provide sufficient grace all the time. A wise parent denies allowance to a child who continually spoils it; likewise, God wisely denies the power of grace to those who abuse it.
I give some concrete examples of this phenomenon on my page about sin. Consider a person telling their first lie. They know better, but they ignore the fact that they know better because they prefer the consequences of the lie to the innate goodness of truth. That is, they choose a good thing over goodness. But God is goodness, and so this is truly a betrayal of God. Now, the first lie causes some guilt, but the second is easier. And the third even easier. Eventually, the repeated betrayals cause God to depart, and the liar’s conscience dies; they then lie without second thought. The more chilling examples are the Nazi gas chamber operators. Though troubled at first, eventually the job became so mundane they would fall asleep at the controls. This is what St. Paul means when he says God “hardens sinners’ hearts” (Rom. 9:18).
So, God did not use His divine power to make Judas fail, nor was God like a negligent captain who failed to be at the helm when He should’ve been. Rather, “[God] called, and was refused” (Prov. 1:24). God, in His wisdom, has “arranged all things, by measure, and number and weight” (Wis. 11:20). He knows when a man has truly given himself to sin, and when this moment occurs, God lets him go. God, seeing that Judas’ heart truly belonged to sin, left him to “go to his own place” (Acts 1:25). God permitted this final betrayal as the natural consequence of many previous betrayals.
God’s Purposes
As righteousness is its own reward, and the end of righteousness is Heaven, sin is its own punishment, and the end of sin is Hell. The proper consequence of sin is damnation, just as the consequence of pushing a boulder off the top of a steep hill is that it will roll to the bottom. The only way to stop a sure path toward damnation is God’s mercy, which is like a strong man stopping the boulder’s descent and pushing it back up. Now why does God permit some sinners to “roll down the hill” while manifesting His saving power in others?
St. Paul gives us the explanation. “For the scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing My power in you, so that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then [God] has mercy on whomever He chooses, and He hardens the heart of whomever He chooses… You will say to me then, ‘Why then does [God] still find fault? For who can resist His will?’ But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?”
“What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if He has done so in order to make known the riches of His glory for the objects of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory? (Rom. 9:17-23)” St. Paul uses the phrase “what if” in these verses. He is not asking a genuine question, but the rhetorical question: “so what?” So what if God wishes to make His power known through justice and through mercy? With this passage, St. Paul tells us everything. God permitted the Pharaoh’s obstinance to make known His glory to the Jews, and to establish His religion. Likewise, all evil is permitted to greater manifest the glory of God.
These verses carry a temptation to surmise that God makes pawns out of us in some divine game. But we must remember all that was written above. Salvation is a cooperation, whereby “man plans his way, but God directs his steps” (Prov 16:9), but damnation belongs to the will of man. Contrary to being pawns, salvation and damnation occur precisely because our actions are so real and so free. Predestination is not an arbitrary, extraneous force; it is the mode by which God helps us become who we choose to be. For one who chooses sanctity, God will provide them every grace they need. For one who chooses malice, God will provide them all the blindness and hardness of heart they need. Again, Judas is said to have “gone to his own place” – that is, the place he truly belonged due to his own free choices.
So the means and the motives of God’s mercy and justice are as clear as they can be. But why did God predestine Peter over Judas? That is, why save this man, or why save that man and not another? St. Thomas answers, “the divine wisdom” (Summa, Q23 A5). There is no other answer than this, and therein lies the mystery. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). The final reconciliation of justice and mercy in the mystery of predestination can only be seen clearly when one is face-to-face with God in Heaven. Until then, we must simply trust in God’s wisdom and goodness. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
Fruits
St. John of the Cross said that a proper understanding of predestination is absolutely necessary for growth in the spiritual life. First, it remedies the false idea that we are the cause of our own salvation. As previously stated: salvation is entirely caused by God’s will, and sin is entirely caused by our own fallible wills. “Destruction is thy own, O Israel; thy only help is in Me” (Hosea 13:9). This paradoxical reality ought to plant deep roots of humility. How can we hate our neighbor when they fail, knowing that we ourselves are completely dependent upon God’s grace to preserve us from evil? How can we hate sinners when we know that any one of them is potentially one good confession away from far exceeding our own sanctity?
But it also should give us a horror of sin and a strong motivation to be holy. One who understands that they need to become a saint in this life will accept the help God gives them. Conversely, if one believes God’s mercy is a “get out of Hell free” card, they will act like it, and make certain their own damnation in doing so. “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of Heaven” (Matt 7:21-23).
Third, it should destroy our modern notions of self-determination. Our salvation is in God alone; without Him, we are nothing. Less than nothing. The question of predestination should be jarring – it lays bare how utterly naked and poor we are before Almighty God. Without Him, our sole possessions are disorder, sin, and misery. Few things reveal how small we are with greater force than predestination.
Finally -and paradoxically – it should give us great confidence and fervor in securing our election. The image at the top of this article is The Calling of St. Matthew. In it, we see Christ choosing Matthew while he is yet counting his ill-gotten gains. With what gall would we insult Christ by claiming He cannot make us saints once He has chosen us? With what criminal sloth would we decline Christ’s great gift of salvation to stay in the darkness of sin?
How great are the fruits of predestination! What other mystery encourages such depth of humility and such depth of hope?
However: a final word of caution. The mystery of predestination is complex and requires a certain degree of spiritual maturity to comprehend. Writing this article took me around a year of research and three different drafts. Though we should always emphasize that we are not self-saviors, this more thorough explanation should only be shared by one who has a strong grasp of it, and only with those who are ready. As St. Paul says, “infants in Christ” need milk until they are ready for “solid food” (1 Cor. 3). We can see an example of this in the almost gnostic way Calvinists tend to treat predestination, as if it were some secret knowledge that makes them better than the “totally depraved” – viz, everyone else. Though the true riches of predestination are great, the spiritually untrained can make it into fool’s gold.