The Tridentine Council defined against Calvin: “If any one saith that the grace of justification is attained to only by those who are predestined unto life, but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being by [pg 214] divine power predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.”[654]
Calvinism, both supra- and infra-lapsarian, is easily refuted from Revelation and Tradition.
a) It runs counter to all those texts of the Bible which assert the universality of God's saving will,[655] the bestowal of sufficient grace on all sinners,[656] and the divine attribute of holiness.[657]
Calvin endeavored to prove his blasphemous doctrine chiefly from the ninth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.[658] His disciple Beza relied mainly on 1 Pet. II, 7 sq.: “But to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner: and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of scandal, to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set,”[659] i.e., according to Beza, predestined not to believe.[660] But this interpretation is obviously wrong. For we know from Is. VIII, 14[661] and Matth. XXI, 44,[662] that those who fall on this stone [pg 215] are ground to powder as a punishment for the sin of unbelief.[663]
b) The Fathers, especially those of the East, are unanimous in upholding the orthodox teaching of the Church. The only one whom adherents of Predestinarianism have dared to claim is St. Augustine.
Yet the “Doctor of Grace” expressly teaches: “God is good, God is just. He can deliver some without merits because He is good; but He cannot damn any one without demerits, because He is just.”[664] St. Prosper re-echoes this teaching when he says of the reprobates: “Of their own will they went out; of their own will they fell; and because their fall was foreknown, they were not predestined. They would, however, be predestined if they were to return and persevere in holiness; hence God's predestination is for many the cause of perseverance, for none the cause of falling away.”[665] St. Fulgentius expresses himself in similar language.[666]
2. The Theory of “Negative Reprobation.”—Negative reprobation is defined by its defenders as an eternal decree by which God excludes [pg 216] from Heaven those not absolutely predestined, in other words, determines not to save them.
a) Gonet explains the difference between negative and positive reprobation in Scholastic terminology as follows: “... quod haec [i.e. positiva] habet non solum terminum a quo, nempe exclusionem a gloria, sed etiam terminum ad quem, scil. poenam sive damni sive sensus; illa vero [i.e. negativa] solum habet terminum a quo, nempe exclusionem a gloria ut beneficio indebito, non vero terminum ad quem, quia ex vi exclusionis ut sic praecise et ut habet rationem purae negationis, non intelligitur reprobus esse damnandus aut ulli poenae sive damni sive sensus deputandus.”[667]
The general principle laid down in this quotation is variously developed by Thomist theologians.
The rigorists (Alvarez, John a S. Thoma, Estius, Sylvius) assign as the motive of reprobation the sovereign will of God. God, they say, without taking into account possible sins and demerits, determined a priori to exclude from Heaven those who are not predestined. De Lemos, Gotti, Gonet, Gazzaniga, and others condemn this view as incompatible with the teaching of St. Thomas, and, appealing to St. Augustine's doctrine of the massa damnata, find the ultimate reason for the exclusion of the reprobates from heaven in original sin, in which God, without being unjust, could leave as many as He saw fit. Goudin, Graveson, Billuart, and others assume that the reprobates are not directly excluded from eternal glory but merely from “effective election” thereunto, God simply having decreed ante praevisa merita to leave them to their weakness.[668]