God, being omniscient, knows not only the abstract number of the elect, but every individual predestined to Heaven. To us the number of the elect is wrapped in impenetrable mystery. St. Thomas justly observes: “Some say that as many men will be saved as angels fell; some, so many as there were angels left; others, in fine, so many as the number of angels who fell, added to that of all the angels created by God. It is, however, better to say that ‘God alone knows the number for whom is reserved eternal happiness,’ as the prayer for the living and the dead expresses it.”[592] Whether God will round out the number of the elect by suddenly precipitating the end of the world or by a sort of “natural selection,” is an open question. To assume the latter could hardly be reconciled with the dogma of the universality of His saving will. St. Augustine seems to favor the former.[593]
As regards the relative number of the elect, some writers (e.g. Massillon) represent it as so infinitesimally [pg 195] small that it would almost drive a saint to despair,—“as if the Church had been established for the express purpose of populating hell.”[594] Even St. Thomas held that relatively few are saved.[595] But the arguments adduced in support of this contention are by no means convincing.[596] Recently, the Jesuit Father Castelein[597] impugned the rigorist theory with weighty arguments. He was sharply attacked by the Redemptorist Godts,[598] who marshalled a great number of authorities in favor of the sterner view. The controversy cannot be decided either on Scriptural or traditional grounds. In our pessimistic age it is more grateful and consoling to assume that the majority of Christians, especially Catholics, will be saved.[599] If we add to this number not a few Jews, Mohammedans, and heathens, it is probably safe to estimate the number of the elect as at least equal to that of the reprobates. Were it smaller, “it could be said to the shame and offense of the divine majesty and mercy, that the [future] kingdom of Satan is larger than the kingdom of Christ.”[600]
3. The Motive of Predestination.—The efficient cause of predestination is God; its instrumental [pg 196] cause, grace; its final cause, the divine glory; its primary meritorious cause, the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. On these points all theologians are agreed. Not so as to the motive that induced God to predestine certain individuals to the exclusion of others. The question narrows itself down to this: What influence, if any, do the merits of a man exert on the eternal decree of predestination?—and may be formulated in three different ways.
a) What influence do the merits of a man exert on his predestination to the initial grace of vocation? Recalling the dogma of the absolute gratuity of grace, our answer must be: None. For whatever merits one may have acquired before he receives the initial grace of vocation, must be purely natural, and consequently worthless in the eyes of God for supernatural predestination. “To assume,” says St. Thomas, “that there is on our part some merit, the foreknowledge of which [on the part of God] would be the cause [motive] of our predestination, would be to assume that grace is given to us [as a reward] of our [natural] merits.”[601]
b) What influence do the merits of a man exert on his predestination to grace and glory? [pg 197] Catholic theologians are unanimous in holding that, since grace is absolutely gratuitous and inseparably connected with glory as its effect, the union of both can no more be based upon natural merit than the initial grace of vocation itself, which transmits the quality of gratuitousness to each and every one of the graces that follow in its wake, up to and including justification and eternal beatitude. Those among the Fathers who defended the gratuity of predestination against the Pelagians and Semipelagians, really aimed at safeguarding the gratuity of initial grace, in order not to be constrained to say with Pelagius that “the grace of God is given as a reward of merit.”[602] “What compelled me in this work of mine [De Dono Perseverantiae] to defend more abundantly and clearly those passages of Scripture in which predestination is commended,” says St. Augustine, “if not the Pelagian assertion that God's grace is given according to our [natural] merits?”[603] Obviously these Fathers did not have in view the praedestinatio ad gloriam tantum, as the champions of the praedestinatio ante praevisa merita mistakenly assert, but what they meant was that complete predestination [pg 198] which comprises grace and glory as one whole. Similarly, the early Schoolmen, when they speak of the “gratuity of predestination,” usually mean complete predestination.[604] D'Argentré's researches show how necessary it is to draw sharp distinctions and carefully to establish the real state of the question before claiming the common teaching of the Scholastics in favor of any particular theory of predestination.
c) What influence do the supernatural merits of a man exert on his predestination to glory as such? Here the controversy begins. Predestination may be considered either as the cause of supernatural merit or as its effect. If it is considered as the cause, the problem takes this shape: Did God, by an absolute decree, and without any regard to their future supernatural merits, eternally predestine certain men to the glory of heaven, and only subsequently decide to give them the efficacious graces necessary to reach that end, particularly final perseverance? If, on the other hand, predestination be considered as an effect of supernatural merit, the question will be: Did God predestine certain men to the glory of Heaven by a merely hypothetical decree, making His will [pg 199] to save them dependent on His infallible foreknowledge of their supernatural merits? The lack of decisive Scriptural and Patristic texts on this subject has led to a division of Catholic opinion, some theologians favoring absolute predestination ante praevisa merita, others hypothetical predestination post praevisa merita. Without concealing our conviction that absolute predestination is untenable, we shall set forth both theories impartially and examine the arguments on which they rely.
4. Orthodox Predestinationism, or the Theory of Predestination ante Praevisa Merita.—Some theologians conceive the divine scheme of salvation in this wise: (a) In ordine intentionis, God, by an absolute decree, first predestines certain men to eternal salvation, and then, in consequence of this decree, decides to give them all the graces necessary to be saved; (b) in time, however, or in ordine executionis, He observes the reverse order, that is to say, He first bestows the pre-appointed graces and subsequently the glory of heaven as a reward of supernatural merit acquired by the aid of those graces.
This theory reverses the relation of grace and glory. While it correctly[605] represents glory as the fruit and reward of supernatural merit in the order of execution, it wrongly represents it in the order of intention as [pg 200] the cause of supernatural merit, whereas it is merely an effect. This opinion is championed by most Thomists,[606] some Augustinians,[607] and a few Molinists.[608] Their arguments may be sketched as follows:
a) In innumerable passages of Sacred Scripture predestination to eternal happiness is represented as a work of pure mercy, nay, even as an arbitrary act of God. Take, e.g., Matth. XXIV, 22 sqq.: “And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.... For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect.”[609] Here, it is claimed, the elect are represented as so thoroughly confirmed in faith and in good works as to be proof against error.
This conclusion is unwarranted. The phrase “those days” manifestly refers either to the destruction of Jerusalem or to the end of the world. If it refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, the “elect,” according to Biblical usage,[610] are the faithful Christian inhabitants of the Holy City, for whose sake God promises to shorten the terrible siege. If it referred to the end of the world, electi would indeed stand for praedestinati, but the context would not [pg 201] forbid us to interpret their predestination hypothetically, as merely indicating the immutability of the divine decree, which is not denied by the opponents of the theory.