St. Augustine on predestination

Many believe that predestination is ainvention by Calvino, when instead this biblical truth had already been introduced by St. Augustine, one of the greatest Fathers of the Church lived between 300 and the 400 D.C.. He also questioned the free will, stating that the human being, born in sin, he has no ability to discern good from evil, because he is always predisposed to evil, and from this it would follow that we have no free will, but we are under the servant will of sovereign God.

On free will

According to Augustine, the origin of evil lies in the freedom of man (the original sin of Adam), in the possibility that God has given him to exercise his free will, independently deciding whether to realize the good, or choose the path of sin. Man is truly free? In discussing this issue, Agostino confronts the pelagianesimo, the doctrine advocated by the Irish monk Pelagius (n. 360 that), according to which man would be able to do good even without the need for God's help. In Augustine's opinion, this underestimates the nature of original sin, making the mission of the redeemer useless. He therefore affirms that without the help of divine grace man is unable to escape damnation (humanity is a "damned mass"). The exercise of freedom from sin is possible) it gave, through grace, it gives the human soul sufficient strength to overcome its weakness.

On predestination

The theme of grace is very delicate due to its theological implications. First of all, it is necessary to know if grace alone is sufficient to save an individual, or if commitment is still necessary (and free choice) of the latter. Furthermore, God offers his grace to all the faithful, or just some (the elected)? In the latter case, what guides God in the decision to help one individual rather than another? For Augustine, man's intellect is unable to understand the reasons why God, through the gift of grace, he chooses the elect and leaves the rest of humanity in its state of damnation. And it does not clearly say whether God's action alone has the effect of predestining some men to salvation and others to damnation. Catholic thought will tend to deny this implication, but Calvino will do just that, referring expressly to Augustinian thought.

On the Predestination of the Saints

St. Augustine firmly believed that faith was a gift from God and consequently He gives it to whoever he wants and hardens whoever he wants. After all, this is what Scripture tells us. In doing so, it is God who predestines man to salvation based on his decisions.

The following passages are taken from Augustine's work On the Predestination of the Saints, writings he sent to Prospero and Ilario, defending his position and explaining it. You can consult the full text on the site www.augustinus.it

Point to prove: faith is a gift from God.

So in the first place we must show that the faith that makes us Christians is a gift from God, provided that we are able to demonstrate it with greater precision than we have already done in many and many volumes. Here is the thesis that we, what I see, we have to fight back: according to the dissenters, the divine testimonies we have used on this topic serve to make us know that faith in and of itself depends on ourselves, but we receive its increase from God, as if faith were not given to us by him, but He added it to us simply for this merit: that the beginning started with us. Ultimately, there is no detachment from that opinion: “God's grace is given according to our merits” which Pelagius himself in the episcopal synod of Palestine was forced to condemn, as attested by the proceedings. That is, it would not belong to the grace of God that we begin to believe, but rather the addition of faith that is given to us for that merit, so that we believe more fully and perfectly. So we will be the first to give God the beginning of faith, so that the increase of it and what else we can ask for with faith be returned to us as a reward.

The Apostle says that man is justified by faith and not by works, because faith is given first.

But maybe they could say: “The Apostle distinguishes faith from works; it says that grace does not come from works, however, it does not say that it does not derive from faith”. Yup, it is so, but it is Jesus who says that faith is also the work of God and orders us to practice it. In fact, the Jews asked him: What will we have to do to do God's work? Jesus answered and told them: This is God's work, believe in the one he sent. Therefore the Apostle distinguishes faith from works in the way in which Judah and Israel are distinguished in the two kingdoms of the Jews, although Judah is also Israel. Therefore he says that man is justified as a result of faith, not following the works , because faith is given first and from it all the other goods that are strictly called are obtained “works”, by which one lives as the righteous. In fact it still says: By grace you have been saved by faith, and that doesn't come from you, but it is a gift from God; that is, even though I said by fede, the faith does not come from you, but it is also a gift of God. Not through works, keep it going, so that by chance someone does not boast. In fact it is customary to say: Of course he deserved to believe; he was a good man even before he believed. It can be said of Cornelius, whose alms were accepted and prayers answered before she believed in Christ. and yet, I reply, he gave and prayed not without some faith. Indeed how could he invoke what he did not believe in? If he could have been saved without faith in Christ, the apostle Peter would not have been sent as the architect of its construction. however if it is not the Lord who builds the house, in vain do the masons labor to build it. We object: Faith comes from us, all other things concerning the practice of righteousness by the Lord; as if faith did not concern that building. As if the foundation, I repeat, did not concern the building! If instead they belong to him before and more than any other architectural element, in vain does one labor to build the faith by preaching, if the Lord does not build up within by giving his mercy. Therefore any good work Cornelius has done, both before believing in Christ and believing in Christ and after believing in him, everything must be attributed to God so that we do not boast.

E’ the Father who grants to believe.

Hence the same one Master and Lord, after saying what I mentioned above: This is God's work, believe in him whom he sent, in the same speech shortly after he says: I told you: you saw me and did not believe me. All that the Father gives to me, will come to me. What does it mean: will come to me, if not: will believe in me? But the Father grants this to happen. Equally shortly after: Don't murmur, dice, among you; no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me has attracted him; and I will resurrect him on the last day. It is written in the Prophets: They will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. What does it mean: Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me? It just means: There is no one who hears the Father and learns and does not come to me. For if everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned comes, obviously anyone does not come, he did not hear from the Father and he did not learn, for if he had heard and learned he would come. And in fact no one has heard and learned and has not come, but anyone, He tells the truth, he heard from the Father and learned comes. Very far from any physical sense is this school in which the Father is heard and teaches so that one comes to the Son. There is also the same Son there, because He is the Word through which the Father teaches thus; and does not teach the ear of the flesh, but to that of the heart. And together here is also the Spirit of the Father and the Son; He also teaches, and does not teach separately; we learned without doubt that the action of the Trinity is inseparable. And truly it is the Holy Spirit that the Apostle says about: Having the same Spirit of faith. But the teaching is attributed especially to the Father because the Only Begotten was generated from him and the Holy Spirit proceeds from him. It would take a long time to dispute more distinctly. I think now my work in fifteen books on The Trinity, who is our God, has come to you. Very far, I repeat, from every physical sense is this school in which God is heard and teaches. We see that many come to the Son because we see that many believe in Christ; but we do not see where and when they heard and learned that teaching from the Father. Too much this grace is hidden: but that is grace, who can question it? And this grace, which is secretly granted to human hearts by divine generosity, it is not rejected by the hardness of any heart. It is given precisely so that the hardness of the heart is removed first. Therefore, when the Father is inwardly heard and teaches to come to the Son, tears out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh, as he promised with the words of the Prophet. Thus he certainly forms the children of the promise and the vessels of mercy which he has prepared for glory.

Because God doesn't teach everyone to come unto Christ?

Because then the Lord does not teach everyone to come to Christ? Because to everyone he teaches, teaches out of mercy, but to those he does not teach, he does not teach for judgment. He has mercy on who he wants and who he wants hardens, but he has mercy when he attributes goods; it hardens when it corresponds to deserved penalties. But some prefer to understand these words as pronounced by the listener to whom the Apostle addresses with the expression: But you tell me; then also the steps: he has mercy on who he wants and who he wants hardens and the rest of the sentence must be attributed to the listener, that is: Which he still regrets? In fact, those who resist his will? What's the difference? The Apostle did not reply: O man, what you said is false. He replied instead: O man, who are you to answer God? Perhaps the shaped object tells those who shaped it: Why did you make me like that? Or is it not perhaps the potter who has power over the clay, from the same mass…? with what follows, that you know very well. And yet in a certain sense the Father teaches everyone to come to his Son. In fact it is not in vain written in the Prophets: Everyone will be taught by God. And after having premised this testimony, Jesus adds: Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. We express ourselves correctly when of a master of letters who is unique in a city, let's say: Here he teaches letters to everyone, not because everyone learns them, but why does anyone learn the letters in that place, she learns them only from him; and so we can well say: God teaches everyone to come unto Christ, not because everyone comes to him, but because no one comes to him otherwise. Because he doesn't teach everyone, the Apostle explains it as much as he thought he had to explain, saying: Wanting to show his anger and make his power known, he endured with great patience the vessels of wrath laid out for perdition, also to make known the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy which he prepared for glory. Here because the language of the cross is foolishness for those who perish; but for those who are saved, it is the power of God. God teaches the latter, no one excluded, to come to Christ; all these in fact he wants them to be saved and come into the knowledge of the truth. In fact, if he had wanted to teach to come to Christ also to those for whom the language of the cross is foolishness, without any doubt they would have come too. He who says is not deceived or deceived: Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. We must not even remotely think that someone, after hearing and learning, don't come.

Faith, at the beginning or at the completion, it is always a gift from God.

So who does not want to disagree with the very clear texts of Sacred Scripture, absolutely must not doubt that faith, both at the beginning and at the completion, it is a gift from God, and that this gift is given to some, others do not. But the fact that it is not granted to everyone should not shake the faithful, who believes this truth: for just one all have fallen into condemnation, and this is undoubtedly so right that there would be no possibility of blaming God even if no one was freed from him.. From this it follows that grace is great if it allows the liberation of such a large number of faithful and the latter can see in those who do not receive liberation the end that should also have touched them.. It follows that who glory, does not do it on its own merits, he sees equal to those of the condemned, but glory in the Lord. Because then He frees an individual rather than another, his judgments are inscrutable and his ways unsearchable. We'd better listen to this passage too and say: O man, who are you to answer God?, rather than dare to explain, as if we could, what he wanted hidden He who cannot want anything unjust.

Distinction between grace and predestination.

I said as well: The salvation of this religion never lacked anyone who was worthy of it, and what he lacked was not worthy. But if we discuss and research what it is that makes man worthy of it, there will be those who will come to say: the human will; we say instead: grace or divine predestination. Between grace and predestination this alone is the difference: that predestination is preparation for grace, grace, on the other hand, is the gift made. Therefore what the Apostle says: Not following the works, so that no one may boast; in fact we are his work, produced in Christ Jesus with a view to good works, indicates grace; and what follows: that God prepared for us to walk in them, indicates predestination, which cannot exist without foreknowledge; on the other hand, foreknowledge can exist without predestination. By predestination, God previously knew the things He would do; and therefore it is said: He did the things that will be. But He has the power to know in advance even those things He does not do himself, like all sorts of sin. E’ It is true that there are actions that are sins and at the same time also punishments of other sins. E’ was said precisely: God abandoned them to their perverse feelings to do immoral deeds. Even in this case, however, there is no sin of God, but a judgment. For all this the predestination of God that is expressed in the good is, as I said, preparation of grace; grace in its turn is the effect of predestination. God therefore made his promise based not on what our will can, but on his predestination, when he promised Abraham that the people would believe in Him who was to be born of his seed, saying these words: I made you the father of many nations, which the Apostle clarifies in this way: Therefore the promise comes from faith, so that according to grace the promise to all posterity is secure. With this he promised what He Himself had accomplished, not what men would have done. It is men who perform the good deeds that serve to worship God, but He Himself causes them to do what He has commanded, and it is not they who make Him do what He promised; otherwise God's promises to be fulfilled is not in God's power, but in the power of men, and what was promised by God they keep to Abraham themselves. Not so Abraham believed, but he believed, giving glory to Dio, that He also has the power to do what He promised. Does not say: predict; does not say: forecast; in fact, He can predict and foresee even the things that others do; but he says: it also has the power to do; and therefore what is done does not belong to others, his.

One cannot be a child of Abraham without faith; therefore God also gives faith.

Or it will happen by chance: God promised Abraham the good works that the nations would do in Him who was to be born of his seed, to promise what He Himself does; he did not promise the conversion of the nations, that men put into practice by themselves, but he foresaw the faith that men would put into practice of their own accord, so that he could promise what he himself does? Certainly the Apostle does not speak this way; God promised children to Abraham who would follow in the footsteps of his faith, and he says it very clearly. On the other hand, if God promised the works of the nations, not faith, then, since there are no good works unless they come from faith (The right indeed lives by faith; e: Anything that does not derive from faith is sin; Without faith it is impossible to please), we fall back into the concept that it is in the power of man to fulfill what God has promised. In fact, if man did not do what he is entitled to do without gifts from God, God himself would not fulfill what he gives; that is, if man does not have faith from himself, God does not fulfill his promise to give the works of righteousness. And therefore it is not in the power of God, but of man, may God fulfill his promises. But if truth and pity prevent us from believing this, we believe with Abraham that God is also capable of doing what he promised. But he promised children to Abraham; for they cannot be unless they have faith, then it is precisely he who also gives faith.

Man trust in the Lord's firm promise rather than in his weak will.

Really, if the Apostle says: Therefore the promise comes from faith, so that according to grace the promise to all posterity is secure, I am amazed that men prefer to rely on their weakness rather than on the security of the divine promise. But, it is objected, God's will for me is uncertain. And what then? E’ perhaps your will about yourself is certain for you? And you are not afraid? The one that appears to stand up, be careful not to fall. So if both wills are uncertain, because man does not entrust his faith, hope and charity to the stronger one instead of the weaker one?

How the words are to be understood: if you will believe, you will be saved.

“But when it is said: If you believe you will be safe, one of these two things”, they say, “it is required, the other offers itself. What is required is in the power of man; the one that offers itself, of God”. But why shouldn't they both be in God's power, be what He orders, be what He offers? In fact, let us pray that he will give what he commands; believers pray that their faith may be increased; they pray for non-believers, so that faith is given to them; therefore, both in its growth and in its beginnings, faith is a gift of God. But it is said: If you believe you will be safe, as well as: If you will kill the deeds of the flesh through the spirit, you will live. Therefore also here, of the two elements, one is required, the other offered. In fact he says: If you will kill the deeds of the flesh through the spirit, you will live. Therefore on the one hand it is required that through the Spirit we make the actions of the flesh die; on the other, life is offered to us. For this reason it is perhaps judged right not to consider a gift of God to mortify the actions of the flesh nor to recognize it as such, because we hear that it is demanded of us and life is offered to us as a reward, if we will obey? Whoever participates in grace and defends it should be careful not to approve such a conviction! This is the mistake that must be condemned in the Pelagians; but immediately the Apostle closes their mouths by adding: For how many are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God, lest we believe that we are the ones who kill the works of the flesh by our spirit and not by the Spirit of God. And the Apostle speaks of this Spirit of God in the following passage: All these things are accomplished by the one and the same Spirit, distributing the gifts to each as he pleases. And among all these gifts, as you know, he also named faith. Therefore, although it is a gift of God to make the actions of the flesh die, however this action is required of us, and the prize that is presented to us is life; in the same way a gift of God is also faith, although it too, when they say: If you believe you will be safe, is required of us, and the reward offered for it is salvation. Therefore these things are at the same time ordained to us and are referred to as gifts from God, so that it is understood that on the one hand we are the ones making them, on the other hand, it is God who causes us to do them, as he says very clearly through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel. What is clearer than the passage where it states: I will make you do? Reflect on this scripture and you will see that God promises to make them do those things He commands them to do.. Certainly what they deserved is not silent there, but their credit is all bad; yet He shows that he changes their merit for good which was for evil, because later it brings them into possession of good works, allowing them to put divine precepts into practice.

Previous merits cannot be found in children and in our Mediator

With all this argument we argue that God's grace through Jesus Christ our Lord is truly grace, that is, it is not given according to our merits. And although this doctrine is most evidently affirmed by the testimonies of the divine words, encounters some difficulties with adults who already use the arbitrary will and think they are frustrated in all their religious efforts if they do not attribute something to themselves that they can give first so that they are paid for it. But when it comes to children and the very Mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, every possible claim of human merit prior to God's grace fails: it cannot be argued that some children are distinguished from others by some previous merit, so as to belong to the Liberator of men, nor that He is also a man, Christ became the liberator of men by some human merit.

If children are judged according to the merits they would have had, if they had lived…

In fact, we cannot accept what they say, and that is that some children come out of this life baptized precisely in infancy thanks to their future merits, on the other hand, others die unbaptized at the same age because their future merits are also known in advance, which will however be bad. Thus God does not reward or condemn a good or bad life in them, but a life that never was. The Apostle, however, set a limit that the imprudent assumption of man, if with some indulgence we want to call it that, it must not go beyond. Dice: We will all stand before the court of Christ, so that each one may receive the reward according to what he did with his body, be good, is bad; accomplished dice; he did not add: or would have accomplished. I do not know how it could have occurred to such men that future merits are punished or rewarded in children that there will never be.. But because it is said that man must be judged according to what he did through the body, while you can also act with the soul alone, not interposing the body or any of its members? Rather, such thoughts are often so serious that a very just punishment is due to them; one of these thoughts, not to mention everything else, is what it is said the fool in his heart: There is no God. According to what he did with his body it just means that: according to what he did during the time he was in the body, and the expression with the body it must be understood: during the life of the body. But after the death of the body no one will be clothed with it again except on the last day of the resurrection; and then it will not be to procure other merits, but to receive the reward of those we have in good and to pay the penalty of those we have in evil. But during this intermediate time between the deposition and the resumption of the body the souls are either tormented or find peace according to what they did during the life of the body.. And what the Pelagians deny also belongs to the period of material life, but the Church of Christ recognizes: original sin. It can be eliminated by the grace of God or not eliminated by the judgment of God, and the children, when they die, or by virtue of regeneration they pass from evil to good, or because of the origin they pass from evil to evil. This knows the Catholic faith; in this even some heretics agree without having anything to contradict. But I am amazed and amazed and I cannot understand from where men whose ingenuity is not negligible, as your letters indicate, could have deduced that someone can be judged not according to the merits he had while he was in the body, but according to the merits he would have received had he lived longer in the body. And I wouldn't believe it, if I had the audacity not to believe you. But I hope God will assist them, and after admonishing them it will cause them to open their eyes to the matter; whether those sins that they believe will be committed can rightly be punished in the unbaptized through God's judgment, then they can also be forgiven the baptized through the grace of God. Indeed, anyone who says that future sins can only be punished by God's judgment, while they cannot be forgiven by his mercy, he must think how much wrong he does to God and his grace; as if foreknowledge were possible of a future sin, but not forgiveness! But if such a hypothesis is absurd, even more so, God should help, granting the washing that purifies sins, to children who die at an early age, but that they would become sinners if they lived longer.

…or if they are deprived of Baptism because God foresees that if they lived they would not repent.

But they might say that sins are forgiven to those who repent; therefore some dying in infancy are not baptized because God already knows that if they lived they would not repent; on the contrary, those who are baptized and leave the body as children, God already knew that if they lived they would repent. Then pay attention and realize: if so, in infants who die without baptism the original sins would not be punished, but those who would have committed if they had lived. Likewise, the baptized would not be remitted of their original sins, but those who would commit if they lived. They could not sin until adulthood, but because it was expected that some would do penance, others do not, some leave this life baptized, others without baptism. If the Pelagians dared to support this, they would no longer struggle to deny original sin and therefore seek for children a place of I don't know what happiness outside the kingdom of God, especially when we show that children cannot have eternal life because they have not eaten the flesh and drank the blood of Christ. And then, according to what they claim, in them they have absolutely no sin, baptism given for the remission of sins would be false. The Pelagians certainly have the answers ready: there is no original sin, but those who are released from the body while still infants are baptized or not according to the merits they would acquire if they lived; according to their future merits they receive or do not receive the body and blood of Christ, without which they cannot have life; they are baptized for an authentic remission of sins, although they do not draw any from Adam, for they are forgiven the sins of which God foreknowledge that they would repent. In this way they would easily defend and win their cause, founded on the denial of original sin and on the claim that God's grace is assigned solely according to our merits. But the future merits of man that are not destined to be realized are merits that do not exist and it is extremely easy to understand it. Therefore neither the Pelagians have been able to say such a thing, nor must these brothers of ours say it a fortiori. It cannot be expressed how annoying it is for me to bear that they have not been able to see what the Pelagians have recognized as extreme falsehood and absurdity.. Yet together with us they condemn the error of those heretics on the basis of Catholic authority.

The Saviour, shining example of predestination and grace.

There is also that splendid light of predestination and grace which is the Savior Himself, the Mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus. But to achieve that result, what are the merits in the works or in the faith that the human nature that is in him had previously obtained? Please answer, please: that man from whom he drew the credit for being assumed by the Word coeternal with the Father in unity of person and becoming the only-begotten Son of God? What good, whatever it was, there had been in him previously? What he had done before, what he had believed, what he had asked for, to arrive at this inexpressible sublimity? It was not perhaps because the Word created him and took him on, that this man began to be the only Son of God from the very moment he began to exist? That woman full of grace did not perhaps conceive him as the only Son of God? Was it not of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary that the only Son of God was born, not out of carnal lust, but by a singular gift of God? It was perhaps to be feared that with the progress of age that man would sin through free will? Or, on the other hand, the will was not free in him? Or not rather he was the freer the less he could submit to sin? Certainly human nature, that is ours, singularly welcomed in him all these singularly admirable qualities, and how many others in absolute truth can be declared his own, without any previous merit. Here man responds to God, if you have the courage, and tip: Because it doesn't happen the same for me too? And you will hear an answer: O man, who are you to answer God?. At this point, increase the impudence instead of restraining it and add: How am I supposed to understand: Who are you, or man? If I am what I hear, that is man, and man is also He of whom I am speaking, why shouldn't I be who he is? E’ by virtue of the grace that he has so much dignity and greatness. Because grace is different, when nature is common? sure there is no partiality for people with God. Via, Such speeches would never make them, I don't say a Christian, but not even a fool.

In our Head the very source of grace. Grace and predestination of both Christ and us are free gifts from God.

Let the very source of grace be manifested to us therefore, from which according to the measure assigned to each one it spreads through all its members. From the very beginning of his faith every man becomes a Christian by the same grace, for which that man from the beginning of his existence became Christ; by the same Spirit he was reborn and He was born; by the same Spirit it happens that our sins are forgiven and that He has no sin. God certainly knew by foreknowledge that He would accomplish these things. So this is the predestination of the saints, which manifested itself to the highest degree in the Holy of Holies. And who will be able to refute it among those who rightly understand the words of truth? In fact, we have learned that the Lord of glory himself was predestined, in that being a man he became the Son of God. He proclaims the Doctor of the Gentiles at the beginning of his epistles: Paul the servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, reserved for the Gospel of God, which had already been promised through the Prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was born according to the flesh from the seed of David, who was predestined as the Son of God in his power, according to the Spirit of holiness, with the resurrection from the dead. So this was Jesus' predestination: He who was to be David's son according to the flesh, he would nevertheless have been in his power the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness, because he was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. The Word God, acting in an ineffable and singular way, assumed man; for this fact with truth and precision he was called the Son of God and the son of man together, son of man because man was hired, and Son of God because it was God the Only Begotten who assumed man; otherwise one should believe not in a trinity, but to a quaternity. And this assumption of human nature was predestined, this assumption so great, lofty and sublime that humanity could not rise to higher goals, while the divinity could not descend to greater humility, welcoming the nature of man together with the infirmity of the flesh until death on the cross. How then was the One predestined to be our leader, so we in our multitude are predestined to be his members. And then they silence the human merits that have dissolved in Adam; kingdom, as it reigns, God's grace through Jesus Christ our Lord, only Son of God, only sir. Anyone will find in our Head of the merits that preceded his singular generation, these searches also in us, its limbs, of the merits that preceded the multiplication of regeneration in us. And in fact Christ was not given as a reward but as a gift that generation that, extraneous to any bond of sin, he made him be born of the Spirit and the Virgin. In the same way, rebirth from water and the Spirit was not given to us as a reward for some merit, but granted free of charge; and if faith has led us to the washing of regeneration, not for this we must think that we were the first to give something to receive this healthy regeneration in return. Certainly it was He who made us believe in Christ who gave birth to the Christ we believe in; to create in men the principle of faith and its perfection in Jesus is the One who made man Jesus author and perfector of the faith. So He is called, as you know, nell’Epistle to the Hebrews.

Those who are named according to the decree.

IIn fact, God calls his many predestined children to make them members of his only predestined Son, but not with that vocation that even those who did not want to come to the wedding received. This second kind of call was also addressed to the Jews, for which Jesus crucified is a scandal, and to the Gentiles, for whom the crucifix is ​​foolishness; on the contrary, the call of the predestined is that which the Apostle distinguished by saying that he preached to those called, Jews and Greeks, Christ the power and wisdom of God. The word: Exactly for those called, they serve to distinguish the not called. He knew that there is a certain kind of appeal for those who have been called under the decree, because God he had foreknowledge of them and predestined them to conform to the image of his Son. Referring to this call he says: Not from the works, but by the will of Him who calls she was told: The major will serve the minor. He said maybe: Not from the works, but by those who have faith? not at all; He also took this from man to give to God. So he said: by the will of him who calls, not with any call, but with what makes believers.

The gifts and the call of God are without second thoughts.

And the Apostle always looked to this when he said: The gifts and the call of God are without second thoughts. Borrow a little’ attention to the content of this passage. After saying: I don't want you to ignore, brothers, this mystery, lest you assume wisdom from yourselves; the blinding was caused on a part of Israel, until all nations enter, and so Israel all be saved; as written: The Liberator will come from Zion and turn wickedness away from Jacob, and this will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins, he added a sentence that needs to be thought through carefully: According to the Gospel they are enemies [of God] because of you, according to election they are loved because of the fathers. What does it mean: According to the Gospel, they are enemies because of you, except their enmity that drove them to kill Christ, as we see, it certainly benefited the Gospel? The Apostle shows that this came from a disposition of God, who knows how to use bad guys too, not so that the vessels of wrath benefit himself, but so that, since he uses them well, help the vessels of mercy. How could anyone speak more clearly than that: According to the Gospel they are enemies [of God] because of you? Therefore sinning is in the power of the wicked; but that by sinning with their malice they cause this or that effect, it is not in their power, but of God who divides the darkness and directs it to the end. It follows that while they act against God's will, only God's will is fulfilled. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that the Apostles released by the Jews returned to their brothers and told them all that the priests and the elders had told them. And they all in agreement raised their voices to the Lord and said: lord, it is you who made the sky and the earth and the sea and all the things that are in them, you who said through our father David, your holy servant: Because the nations tremble and the peoples have made up vain designs? The kings of the earth have risen up and the princes have gathered against the Lord and against his Christ. In fact they found themselves together in this city against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, Herod and Pilate and the people of Israel to do all that your hand and your counsel had predestined to be done. here, which means the phrase: According to the Gospel they are enemies [of God] because of you? Certainly God's hand and design predestined that the Jews his enemies do whatever was necessary for us in the face of the perspective of the Gospel.. But what does what follows mean: According to the election, however, they are loved because of the fathers? Perhaps those enemies who went to perdition in their enmities and who among those people still go to perdition today because they are hostile to Christ, these themselves would be the elect and the loved ones? Absurd: chi mai, even the most foolish, might say so? But both, although they are contrary to each other, that is, to be enemies and to be loved, if they do not fit the same individuals, however they are adapted to the same nation of the Jews and to the same carnal descent of Israel, because some belong to the limp, others to the blessing of Israel itself. And in fact he clarified this meaning more openly earlier, when he said: What Israel sought it did not get; instead the elected party got it, while the others were blinded. But both the former and the latter are always Israel. So when we listen: Israel did not get it, or: the others were blinded, it must be understood that these are the enemies because of you; and when we hear: Instead the elected party got it, it must be understood that these are the loved because of the fathers, those fathers to whom the promises were made. Exactly promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. And then the wild olive of the Gentiles was grafted into this olive tree. But the election of which the Apostle speaks must immediately come to mind that it is according to grace, not according to the debt; in fact a remnant was saved by election of grace ¹³¹. This is the election that got what it was looking for, while the others were blinded. E’ according to this election that the Israelites are loved because of the fathers. In fact they were not called according to that vocation of which it is said: Many are called, but according to that which is addressed to the elect. So even in that step, after saying: According to the election, however, they are loved because of the fathers, the Apostle immediately adds the words we are dealing with: The gifts and the call of God are without second thoughts, that is, fixed stably without the possibility of mutation. Those who are part of this calling all receive their teaching from God and none of them can tell: I believed you were called that way; no, it was God's mercy that prevented him; he was called to believe. In fact, all those who receive the teaching from God come to the Son, because they have heard and learned from the Father through the Son, which he says so clearly: Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. None of these are lost, because of all that the Father gave him he will lose nothing. Whoever is part of that number, absolutely not lost; and whoever gets lost was not part of it. Therefore it is said: They came out of us, but they weren't ours, because if they were ours, they would certainly have stayed with us.

The call of the elect.

Let us therefore try to understand in what consists the call that creates the elect, who are not elected because they believed, but they are elected to believe. The Lord himself reveals its nature very well with words: It is not you who have chosen me, but I chose you. In fact if they had been chosen because they had believed, evidently they would be the first to choose him by believing in him, and so they deserved to be chosen. But those who say completely exclude this hypothesis: It wasn't you who chose me, but I chose you. Undoubtedly, they too chose it, when they believed in him. When it says: It wasn't you who chose me, but I chose you, this alone is its meaning: it was not they who chose him in order to be chosen by him, but it was he who chose them in such a way as to be chosen by them. His mercy in fact prevented them, according to grace, not according to the debt. He chose them from the world when he lived in the flesh down here, but they had already been elected in himself before the creation of the world. This is the immutable truth of predestination and grace. In fact, what does what the Apostle say?: He elected us in him before the creation of the world? If it were said because God had foreknowledge they would believe, not because He himself wanted to make them believers, against this prescience the Son would speak, saying: It is not you who have chosen me, but I chose you. It would be like saying: God had foreknowledge that they themselves would choose Christ, thus deserving to be chosen by him. In reality they were chosen before the creation of the world through that predestination that God has foreknowledge of what he will do in the future., and they were chosen by the world with that call by which God fulfills what he has predestined. Indeed those he predestined, he even called them: of course, with that call which is according to the decree; therefore not others, but those he predestined, He also called; nor others, but the ones he called so, he also justified; nor others, but those he predestined, called, justified, he also glorified, with that purpose that has no end. Therefore God chose the faithful, but so that they are, not because they already were. The apostle James says: Did not God choose the poor in this world to make them rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that God has promised to those who love him?. By choosing them, therefore, he makes them rich in faith, as well as heirs of the kingdom. It can be rightly said that he chooses faith in them, because he chose them to give birth to them. Sorry, no one could hear God saying: It is not you who have chosen me, but I chose you, and have the courage to say that men believe in order to be chosen, when on the contrary they are chosen to believe. Otherwise, against the words of truth it would appear that they have chosen Christ first, while to them Christ says: It is not you who have chosen me, but I chose you.

God predestined his elect before the creation of the world.

Let's say that one listens to the words of the Apostle: Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who blessed us with every spiritual blessing from heaven in Christ, just as he elected us in him before the creation of the world, so that we might be holy and blameless in his presence in charity. He predestined us to be adopted children with the mediation of Jesus Christ, for himself, according to what pleased his will, through which he gratified us in his beloved Son. In him we have redemption thanks to his own blood, the remission of sins according to the richness of his grace, which he caused to fall upon us in abundance with all wisdom and prudence, to show us the mystery of his will, according to the goodness of his will, for which he had pre-established in him, when the fullness of time had been realized, to bring all things together in Christ, those that are in heaven and those that are on earth. In him we have also obtained the inheritance, predestined according to the division of Him who works all things according to the decree of his will, so that we may serve in praise of his glory. Could this one, I say, to hear these words carefully and intelligently and to doubt the very clear truth that we defend? God chose his members in Christ before the creation of the world; and how could he have chosen those who did not yet exist except by predestining them? Therefore he chose us through predestination. Perhaps he would have chosen the wicked and the unclean? If this question arose: He chooses similar beings or rather the holy and immaculate ones? Who would pause to look for an answer instead of immediately expressing themselves in favor of the saints and the immaculate?

God chose us not because we would be holy, but why we were.

“Therefore he had foreknowledge – says the follower of Pelagius – of those who would have been holy and immaculate through the will of free will; for this he chose them before the creation of the world in his prescience for which he already knew that they would be such. He therefore chose them – he says – before they existed, predestining to be children those he foresaw that they would be holy and spotless; then it was not he who made them such, nor did he foresee that he would make them such, but that they would be”. So let's examine the Apostle's words and see if He elected us before the creation of the world because we would have been holy and immaculate, or for us to become one. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing from heaven above in Christ, just as he elected us in himself before the creation of the world, to be holy and spotless. So he chose us not because we would have been, but because it were. Yup, sure; Yup, it is manifest: we would have been such because He had chosen us, predestining us to be holy and blameless by his grace. So then he blessed us with every spiritual blessing from heaven in Christ Jesus, just as he elected us in himself before the creation of the world, so that we were holy and blameless in his presence for charity, predestining us to be adopted children through the mediation of Jesus Christ for himself. Pay close attention to what it adds: according to what pleased his will: so that in the immense benefit of grace we would not glory as if it pleased our will. In which he gratified us, dice, in his beloved Son: therefore it is in his will that he has gratified us. “He gratified” it is a word that comes from grace, as well as “he justified” it comes from justice. In him we have, dice, redemption thanks to his own blood, the remission of sins according to the richness of his grace, which he caused to fall upon us in abundance with all wisdom and prudence, to show us the mystery of his will, according to the design of his good will. In this mystery of his will he placed the richness of his grace, according to his good will, not according to ours, that couldn't be good, if he, according to his good will, did not help her to make her so. And after saying: According to the design of his good will, adds: that He had established in him, that is, in his beloved Son, and for which he had decided, to the realization of the fullness of times, to bring all things together in Christ, those that are in heaven and those that are on earth. In him we have also obtained the inheritance, predestined according to the decree of Him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we may serve in praise of his glory.

Error of the Pelagians who precede grace from human merit.

It would take too long to discuss individual expressions. But you can undoubtedly distinguish how clearly the words of the Apostle support this grace against which they want to exalt human merits, as if it were the man who was the first to give something to be given something as a reward. God elected us in Christ before the creation of the world, predestining us to be adopted children, not because we would be holy and blameless for ourselves, but he chose us and predestined us to be. And he did this according to what pleased his will, so that no one glory in his own, but of the will of God towards him. He did that according to the wealth of the your grazia, according to the design of his good will, which He had established in his beloved Son, in which we got the inheritance, predestined according to the decree, not ours, ma suo, of Him who operates all things to the point that He also works the will in us. And it operates according to the advice of his will, so that we may serve in praise of his glory. This is the reason we proclaim: Nobody boast in man, and therefore not even in itself; but who glory, glory in the Lord, so that we may serve in praise of his glory. sure, He works according to his decree, so that we may serve in praise of his glory with our holiness and purity, and that's why he called us, predestinating us before the creation of the world. From this decree derives the proper call of the elect, for which He cooperate in everything for good, since they were called according to the decree, e the gifts and the call of God are without second thoughts.

Refutation of the Pelagian thesis according to which God only had foreknowledge of our faith and on the basis of this he predestined us.

But perhaps these brothers of ours about whom and for whom we are now discussing, they say the Pelagians are refuted by this apostolic testimony, where it is said that we were elected in Christ and predestined before the creation of the world to be holy and immaculate before him for charity. They in fact think: “Accepted the commandments through the will of free will, we become holy and immaculate in his presence through charity; and because God had foreknowledge that this would happen, he elected us before the creation of the world and predestined us in Christ”. But not so the Apostle says: God chose us not because he had foreknowledge that we would be such, but because we were such through election of his grace, in which he gratified us in his beloved Son. So when he predestined us, he had foreknowledge of his work with which he makes us holy and immaculate. So this testimony rightly accuses the error of the Pelagians. “But we say – continue to replicate – that God had no foreknowledge if not of our faith, with which we begin to believe, and therefore he chose us before the creation of the world and predestined us to be also holy and immaculate by his grace and work”. But let them listen to this testimony in turn, where it says: We got the inheritance, predestined according to the decree of the One who works all things. Therefore it is he who works so that we begin to believe, his who works all things. In fact, not even faith precedes the call of which it is said: Without second thoughts are the gifts and the call of God; and also: Not from the works, but from him who calls, where he could have said: From the one who believes. Similarly, faith does not precede the choice that the Lord has indicated with words: It is not you who have chosen me, but I chose you. In fact, he did not choose us because we believed, but so that we believe; and don't say that we chose it first, otherwise it becomes false, and this never is, the assertion: You didn't choose me, but I chose you. We are not called because we believed, but so that we believe: that call which is without second thoughts arouses and completes our faith. And there is no need to repeat the many arguments that we have already developed on this subject.

If the Apostle's thanks is not judged false, God gives the beginning of faith.

Also in the following passages of this testimony, the Apostle gives thanks to God for those who believed; his thanks is not directed to the fact that the Gospel has been announced to them, but the fact that they believed it. In fact he says: In him you too by hearing the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and credendovi, you have been marked with the seal of the Spirit of the promise, the Holy Spirit who is the pledge of our inheritance, for the redemption of the people who bought themselves to praise his glory; that's why I too, hearing your faith in Christ Jesus e [your charity] towards all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you. Their faith was new and recent after they had heard the preaching of the gospel, but having learned of this faith, the Apostle gives thanks to God for them. If you were to thank a person for something that you think or know that he has not done, one should speak of flattery or mockery more properly than of thanks. Don't be fooled: God cannot be mocked; the beginning of faith is also his gift, unless one wishes to judge the Apostle's thanksgiving as false or deceptive. It's still, perhaps it is not clear that even for the Thessalonians it is the beginning of faith? And also for this the Apostle gives thanks to God, saying: We give thanks to God without interruption, for having heard the word of God from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but how it really is, word of God working in you who have believed in it. What reason is there in all this to give thanks to God? E’ absolutely vain and useless, if he who is thanked has done nothing. But since thanksgiving is neither in vain nor useless, it was certainly God, to whom he gives thanks for this work, to make sure that, having heard the word of God from the Apostle, accepted it not as the word of men, but how it really is, God's word. God therefore works in the hearts of men with that call according to his decree, of which we talked a lot; and his calling keeps them from hearing the Gospel in vain, but after hearing it, let them convert and believe, receiving it not as the word of men, but, as it really is, God's word.

E’ God who opens the door of the heart to faith.

The Apostle reminds us that the beginning of faith in men is also a gift from God, making it understood with the words of the’Epistle to the Colossians: Insist on prayer, vigilant in it and in thanksgiving, praying for us at the same time, so that God may open the door of his word to us to announce the mystery of Christ, for which I was chained, so that I show it as my duty. When the door of the word can be opened, except when the intellect of the hearer opens up to believe and to welcome after the beginning of faith the preaching and clarification of the things that serve to build the doctrine of salvation? The hearer must not disapprove and reject what is said, clenching the heart for the lack of faith. Therefore the Apostle also addresses the Corinthians in this way: I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost; in fact a great and promising door has opened for me, and the opponents are many. What else can it mean here if not after having preached the Gospel for the first time in that place, many believed, but many opponents of the faith also arose, according to the sentence of the Lord: No one comes to me unless it has been granted to him by my Father; and the other: You have been granted to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven; but they were not granted? So the door has opened for those to whom it has been granted; but many of those to whom it was not granted have become enemies.

Very clear demonstration of this truth.

And in the second Epistle to the Corinthians says the Apostle again: Came to Troas to preach the Gospel of Christ, even though a door in the Lord has opened to me, I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find Titus there, my brother; so I greeted them and went to Macedonia. Who are the ones he greeted if not those who believed, at the heart of which a door to evangelization had evidently opened? And watch what it adds: Thanks be to God who always makes us triumph in Christ, and everywhere he spreads the fragrance of his knowledge through us; because we are for God the sweet odor of Christ, both in those who are saved, both in those who are lost; for some odor that leads from death to death, but for some odor it leads from life to life. This is the reason why that most fervent fighter and invincible defender of grace gives thanks; this is the reason why he gives thanks, because the Apostles are for God the good smell of Christ, both in those who are saved by his grace, both in those who are lost by his judgment. But not to cause too much resentment in those who do not understand these words well, he adds the warning: And who is up to such a task?. But let's go back to opening the door, image with which the Apostle wants to signify the beginning of faith in those who hear. Indeed such a sentence: Praying for us at the same time, so that God may open the door of his word to us, what else is it if not the very clear demonstration that even the very beginning of faith is a gift of God? In fact, in the prayers that request would not be addressed to him if one did not believe that the concession comes from him. This gift of heavenly grace had descended into that purple vendor to whom, as the Scripture says in Acts of the Apostles: God had opened the heart, and he paid attention to what Paul said. In fact, she was called with that appeal that makes us believers. God does what he wants in the hearts of men, both helping, be judging, so that also through them may be accomplished what his hand and his counsel has predestined.

Whether or not God bends the will of men concerns the present question?

We tried, drawing from Books of the Kings and come on Paralipomeni the scriptural testimonies, that when God wants to make happen what necessarily does not happen except with the participation of the human will, men's hearts bend to want it. But of course he is always the one to bend them, he who also works in us in an admirable and ineffable way the will. They objected in vain that this does not belong to the question of interest here. What is this if not wanting to contradict while having nothing to say? Unless they have given you the reasons for their conviction and you have preferred to keep them silent in your letters. But I don't know what they can be. Perhaps it is because we have shown that God has influenced the hearts of men and moved the will of those he liked to move., to be elected King Saul or David. They therefore think that these examples do not fit the argument because reigning temporally in this world is not the same as reigning forever with God; and therefore they think that God reserves the right to bend the will of whomever He wills to create the earthly kingdoms, but he does not do so when the celestial kingdom is to be obtained. But I think they are said for the kingdom of heaven, not for the earthly kingdom all the expressions that follow: Bend my heart towards your precepts; The steps of man are directed by the Lord and his ways will be approved by him; The will is prepared by the Lord; Our Lord be with us, as it was with our fathers; you do not abandon us or distance us from yourself; may you bend our hearts to yourself so that we may advance in all his ways; I will give them a heart to know me and ears to understand; I will give them a different heart and a new spirit I will give to them. And listen to this other passage too: I will put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my righteous precepts and observe and apply my decisions; and this again: Man's steps are directed by the Lord; how a mortal can understand his ways?; it's still: Every man seems right to himself, but it is the Lord who directs the hearts; it's still: All those who were foreordained for eternal life believed. Pay attention to these testimonies and to all the others that I did not want to mention, which show that God prepares and directs the will of men even when the end is the kingdom of heaven and eternal life. And think what nonsense that would be, if we believed that God works the will of men to establish earthly kingdoms, while to conquer the kingdom of heaven it would be men themselves to carry out their will.

Conclusion.

We have presented many arguments and perhaps for some time now we have managed to persuade our brothers of what we wanted; yet we insist on speaking to such quick wits as if they were obtuse intellects for which even what is too much is not enough. But be forgiving: it is the novelty of the problem that has pushed us this far. In our previous pamphlets we have expounded with fairly adequate testimonies that faith is also a gift from God, but we have come up with an objection: that those testimonies are valid to demonstrate that the growth of faith is a gift from God, but the beginning of faith, with which in the beginning we believe in Christ, it starts with man himself; it is therefore not a gift from God, indeed God demands it; when the beginning was there, all other assets, which are actually gifts from God, they follow according to them for this merit; and none of them are given freely. Yet among these adversaries grace continues to be upheld, which can only be free. You see how absurd this is; for this reason we have taken the party to demonstrate, as much as we could, that even the beginning of faith is a gift from God. Perhaps we have done it more verbally than these brothers to whom we have dedicated our work would have liked; and on this point we are ready to receive their reproaches, on one condition though: although we have gone on much longer than they would have liked, although we have inflicted annoyance and boredom on those who understand easily, we have achieved our goal. They admit it. In other words, we have shown that the beginning of faith is also a gift from God, like continence, the patience, Justice, piety and all the other virtues concerning which we have no dispute with them. And here this volume ends, because even a single book ends up bumping if it is excessively long.