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 creates all men for beatitude. 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 working against 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 created all men for salvation, why aren’t all men saved? How is damnation even possible?
We will discuss the Augustinian-Thomistic view and the Jesuit Congruist views. These two schools cover all major points of orthodox Catholic teaching on the topic. I would recommend reading this page before proceeding; it gives important perspective on God’s nature and the problem of evil.
Free Will and Premotion
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. 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, according to the Thomists, 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 running. Likewise, God can provide the premotion of grace, while a defect in the human will may overcome it and frustrate it. This means that in order to make grace work, God must provide the premotion in such a way that it infallibly overcomes any such resistance. That is, the Thomists teach that God does not depend on our cooperation for salutary acts; rather they teach that our cooperation depends on God.
Free Will and Middle Knowledge
In the 16th century, the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina proposed a different theory of grace. Instead of premotion, Molina suggested that God acts through scientia media, or “middle knowledge.” All theologians agree that God has two kinds of knowledge – natural knowledge of all things He could do, and free knowledge of all things He has done and will do. Natural knowledge is necessary, like God’s knowledge of necessary truths, whereas free knowledge is freely chosen. Molina proposed a novel type of knowledge in God which lies “between” natural and free knowledge. Like natural knowledge, it is not “under God’s control.” Rather, it pertains to the free choices made by other agents. Here’s an example:
God has natural knowledge that there is a possible world in which I go to the grocery store next Tuesday morning and witness someone else drop a $100 bill on the ground. God has middle knowledge that if He creates this possible world, I would cooperate with the interior motivation of grace to return that $100 bill to the rightful owner. Seeing this, God chooses to create this world, making it free knowledge. Molina’s formulation thus clearly departs from premotion in two ways. First it means that we have a role in determining God’s action, whereas for Thomists, God’s sovereignty is absolute. Second, it posits (in the original formulation) that man has an inclination towards goodness in his will that does not come from God. Molina explicitly taught this, comparing predestination to God and man pulling a boat together, each doing half of the work.
The Jesuits harshly criticized and immediately rejected Molina’s “50/50” theory. St. Robert Bellarmine – often erroneously thought to hold Molina’s opinion because he holds middle knowledge – when he examined this opinion, wrote: “This theory is entirely alien to the opinion of St. Augustine and, in my judgment, even to the meaning of Holy Scripture.” Claude Acquaviva, General of the Jesuit order, wrote in 1613: “We ordain and command that in propounding the efficacy of divine grace . . . our fathers should in the future explicitly teach that… something more is always contained, morally, in [grace which succeeds] than in [grace which is resisted], both by reason of its benefit and with respect to first act; and thus God effects that we may act of ourselves, not so much because He gives grace by which we are able to act.”
Despite their vehement rejection of Molina’s teaching on the will, Jesuits like Bellarmine and Suarez were fond of middle knowledge. They borrowed it, but posited that circumstance and disposition play a role in God’s sovereign bestowal of grace. When these factors are “congruous,” grace will have the intended effect. For example, an extraordinary grace would be congruous to inspire a hardened killer to overcome his hardness of heart and refrain from stealing $100 at the grocery store, whereas a monk – already well-disposed by practicing the vow of poverty – would find an ordinary grace congruous. The Congruist would further say that God could give the killer the extraordinary grace to infallibly secure his cooperation despite his disposition (like He did to St. Paul), but ordinarily wouldn’t, since it wouldn’t be fitting. Where Molina taught that God depends on cooperation, the Congruists teach that cooperation depends on God.
Actual Grace
These two schools debated each other ferociously in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Augustinian Thomists called the Congruists semi-pelagians, while the Congruists called them determinists. The Pope eventually settled the debate by declaring both solutions – Premotion and Middle Knowledge- orthodox. For all their differences, we see that both orthodox schools of thought teach that cooperation with grace depends on God. “What have you that you have not received,” after all? Now that you understand the nuances of the two orthodox schools, you can decide which solution you prefer; we will press onward here by explaining the implications of what is common between them:
Actual grace is a gift from God which moves the will towards a salutary act. 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,” as we have seen: grace which works, and grace which the agent resists. These are, respectively, referred to as efficient grace, and sufficient grace. We have already settled that all schools believe that God causes our cooperation, not the other way around. That is, all schools agree that God sometimes refrains from providing agents the power to cooperate. We must now endeavor to explain how this works, and how it aligns with God’s justice and mercy.
Efficient and Sufficient
Efficient grace is grace which infallibly leads to the completion of the salutary act. That is, God makes the grace efficient, whether by premotion or ensuring congruity. However, this does not make it a necessitating grace – the will remains free, even under the influence of efficient grace. Neither Thomists nor Jesuits teach that grace is like a series of dominos, one knocking over the other; salutary acts are 100% God and 100% agent, simultaneously. It is of this grace that we might say, “It is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish according to His good will” (Phil. 2:13), or “I will cause you to walk in My commandments, and to keep My judgments, and do them” (Ezek. 36:27).
Sufficient grace comes in two varieties – external, and immanent. External sufficient graces are graces sufficient to make salvation really possible that remain external to the will. For example, being conceived as a human being (as opposed to an animal or vegetable) is a sufficient grace. Hearing the Gospel is a sufficient grace. This grace, which potentially offers salvation, God gives to all men. But what we commonly refer to as sufficient grace is immanent sufficient grace – an interior, resistible motion which virtually, or immediately – not potentially – offers salvation. This would be an interior desire to respond to the Gospel’s call for repentance, for example. So, an external sufficient grace offers the possibility of salvation; an interior sufficient grace offers salvation in itself.
What distinguishes immanent sufficient grace from efficient grace is that it 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 Christ, 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 who chained himself to the radiator setting his own building on fire, hopeless to escape. Then imagine that – purely out of compassion – God incarnates as a man, bursts into the room, 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 exercising that gift. As Augustine said: “They are not chosen because they have believed, but in order that they may believe.”
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 from the foundation of the world to save some, others He chooses to permit to sin unto damnation (Summa, Q23 A3). God “loved Jacob and hated Esau”; that is, God willed more good for Jacob than Esau (Malachi 1:3). The lack of willingness to save some is called reprobation. God’s decree of reprobation is final and unconditional, but in no way causes sin; sin comes entirely from man’s defective will. That is, 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 in Jesus’ response to Judas – permissive, but not encouraging. Return to the analogy of the sun. If a man closes his eyes, who would blame the sun for his blindness? Who would say blindness is anyone’s fault but his?
We have already discussed that it is always a good thing when God’s mercy molds someone into sainthood. But punishment is a different story. It is good to desire to rehabilitate an imprisoned man (salvation), but it is not good to desire to imprison an innocent man. Likewise, it is only after one resists grace and freely sins that God desires vengeance. And how does God manifest vengeance? By denying the grace necessary for rehabilitation, as a parent wisely and justly denies an allowance to a child who uses it to buy drugs. While God is bound by justice to provide all men sufficient grace for salvation, He is not bound to provide extraordinary grace to rehabilitate the degenerate sinner. God punishes the sinner by giving them up to their desires, permitting them to sin more, deadening their conscience and developing a disgusting “reprobate mind” steeped in evil (Rom. 1:28).
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, after so many repeated betrayals God departs, 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 we’ve discussed, both predestination and reprobation are in God (Summa, Q23 A3). That is, just as God creates some seeds which will be eaten by birds rather than grow into trees, God creates men who will be damned rather than achieve beatitude. God has a special love for the elect, by which He will gratuitously overcome any obstacle to ensure their salvation, but God “passes over” the reprobate, willing not to save them, but rather to let them sin unto damnation. Both of these decrees exist from all eternity. “It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:16). The elect will be saved, and the reprobate will not be saved. Now you may ask: “Why then does [God] still find fault? For who can resist His will?” (Rom. 9:19). St. Paul answers:
“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? [So] 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 [so] 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)” With this passage, St. Paul tells us everything. As a master artist uses shadow and light in proportion, God reprobates and predestines to manifest His glorious justice and mercy.
Obviously, the Holy Spirit wrote these verses with the intent to demonstrate God’s sovereignty and special purpose for the elect. But let us not think these verses teach that God makes pawns out of us in some divine game. Though God be absolutely sovereign, He is not a puppet master who contorts creation to His will. When we describe God as “predestining” or “reprobating,” we must remember these are analogical – pure anthropomorphisms. What God speaks simply is reality, and reality is nothing other than what God speaks. To say “God abandoned Judas” is completely and totally identical to saying “Judas damned Himself.” Let no man say “I am damned, and there is nothing I can do about it!”; if you are damned, it is because there was something you could do about it, and didn’t!
What is predestination? It is a sentient being freely choosing salvation. What is reprobation? It is sentient being freely choosing damnation. 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 who we are. Again, Judas is said to have “gone to his own place” – that is, the place he truly belonged due to his own real, free choices. For one who chooses sanctity, God will provide abundant help, for God is good and gracious (Prov 16:9). For one who chooses malice, God will permit them all the blindness and hardness of heart they need, for God is just (Psalm 69).
So the motives and means of God’s mercy and justice manifesting are as clear as they can be. But why was, say, Peter predestined while Judas wasn’t? That is, why this man, or why that man, and not another? St. Thomas answers: “the divine wisdom” (Summa, Q23 A5). Whereas our minds receive from creation, God’s mind “receives” from nothing – His wisdom is uncreated and uncaused; it is the last link in the chain, there is nothing prior to it to appeal to. Therein lies the answer, and 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).
Fine Points
Some try to reject the teachings above by citing various Catholic resources. I will not exhaust every such example, but will address the major ones.
1 Tim 2:3-4: “[God] desires everyone to be saved.” This is used to contradict unconditional antecedent reprobation. Now, this verse obviously cannot refer to God’s consequent, efficacious will, considering He easily could’ve made a world where everyone actually goes to Heaven, but didn’t. Even if you’re a total libertine free will Molinist, it is undeniable that God could’ve just created everyone, given everyone sanctifying grace (whether by Baptism or decree), then painlessly killed everyone, ensuring universal salvation. Again, this obviously didn’t happen. What this verse really means is that God created all men ordered toward beatitude, not that He efficaciously desires universal salvation after considering all providential goals. We might likewise say that God desires all seeds to become trees by virtue of their being seeds, though He efficaciously wills that the majority fail and become food instead after considering the needs of animals (Summa Q19 A6).
CCC 1037: “God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.” This is congruent with all the teachings above. God reprobates, but reprobation in no way causes sin, it only permits it to persist. On the other hand, sin, which comes from the sinner’s free will, does cause the sentence of damnation. God permits the reprobate to persist in sin to the end, exactly as the Catechism states. The heretical theory that God in some way causes sin is equal ultimacy, not unconditional antecedent reprobation.
Canon 17, Trent: “If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.” Some will say that this proves that God does not predestine and reprobate prior to foreseen cooperation or rejection. But this is condemning the Protestant doctrine that it is impossible for the reprobate to receive grace at all. Such Protestants would teach, for example, that a reprobate, baptized as an infant or willingly as an adult, would not actually receive any grace from it because they are reprobate. Catholics, on the other hand, teach that reprobation is not an obstacle to grace, whereby God frustrates His own actions. Reprobation is merely God refraining from giving certain graces.
Canon 23, Trent: “lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace… let him be anathema.” Some will say this proves that predestination is not certain, but conditional. But this canon is condemning the doctrine of “once saved always saved,” which teaches that, once justified, one cannot lose their salvation, contrary to the plain words of scripture (Heb. 6:4-6, Heb. 10 26-27, 2 Peter 2:20-22, Romans 11:20-22, 1 Tim 1:18-20, John 15:1-6, James 5:19-20, 2 Cor 6:1, and on and on and on). Catholic predestination does not teach that the predestined can never lose justification. The predestined may fall into mortal sin countless times, but God will infallibly ensure they choose to repent every time. Specifically, the Thomists and Jesuits teach that the elect will infallibly receive the grace of final perseverance.
Some will cite Molina’s original theory in an attempt to escape antecedent unconditional antecedent predestination and reprobation. Technically it is a permissible opinion, but the Jesuits condemned it for good reasons. First, Molinism only achieves a pyrrhic victory for free will. It diminishes God’s sovereign rule expressed in passages like Romans 9 by replacing it with actual circumstantial determinism. Further, it doesn’t even solve the problem of reprobation. For example, if God really wanted to save all men, couldn’t He omnisciently refrain from creating the damned? Or couldn’t He have created more expedient circumstances, as He must in Molina’s Heaven? Obviously He could’ve. So we are left with an impotent God, determinism, and the same problem of reprobation we started with! Molinism is an example of why we should not try to escape the Church’s judgments by appealing to spurious fringe theories, but submit to her wisdom.
Fruits
A proper understanding of predestination is absolutely necessary for growth in the spiritual life, particularly passive purification. 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? Who could hate sinners knowing that any one of them could become a living saint after one confession?
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). It instills in us a healthy desire to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).
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. Few things reveal God’s inescapable power as viscerally as predestination. But it should also bring us peace to know our election is in God, not us. All that is within us in inconstant, weak, and temporary; but God’s will never changes and never fails. Understanding this, we may follow the Lord’s command: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
Fourth, it should bring us fervor to evangelize when we can, and peace when we cannot. To the former, our calling to find those who are seeking – that is, under the influence of grace – and expose them to the Gospel appropriately should be even more important to us, knowing God is calling them interiorly and expects us to provide for them exteriorly. On the other hand, it explains Christ’s command not to “feed pearls to swine” (Matt 7:6). For those who are not seeking, whose eyes are shut tightly to grace, we need not make ourselves anxious. Though we ought to earnestly pray for them, salvation is between them and God, not them and us.
Finally -and paradoxically – it should give us great confidence and fervor in securing our own 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. It is with this confidence in God’s power that St. Paul spoke of the crown of glory awaiting him (2 Tim 4:7). With what gall would we insult Christ by claiming He cannot make us saints? With what criminal sloth would we decline Christ’s great gift of salvation to stay in the darkness of sin, knowing that He has the power to overcome all of it?