RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Predestination
519) could place side by side " the autonomy of man and the counsel of God who constraineth not." None of the Greek Fathers conceived a revelation by the Spirit to the individual soul transcending a historical and intellectual presentment of the truth ; and though there are vague allusions to the " synergism " of God in the mysteries, with the man of moral endeavor the human will always selects from those operations. God gives the power, man must furnish the will (Clement, Quis dives, xxi.; Strom., VI., xii. 37, VII., vii. 82; Chrysostom on Phil. ii. 13; Origen, De principiis, III., ii. 3; Eng. transl., ANF, iv. 331; and on Rom. hi. 19). There gradually arose, however, a concept of divine foreknowledge which prepared the way for the formal recognition, but also actual rejection, of the doctrine of predestination, based on such passages as II Tim. ii. 25 (cf. Justin, Apol., I, xxviii. 56; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 172; 'Trypho, xlii. 78; Eng. transl., i. 216; Irenseus, Hcer., IV., xxix. 2; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 502); and similar meanings were attributed even to Biblical passages of directly opposite tendency. According to Justin (I Apol, lxi. 71 ; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 183) birth differs from regeneration in that the former is a thing done to man, while the latter he voluntarily chooses. John of Damascus, first formulating the doctrine of predestination (Defide orthodoxa, II., xxix. 95; MPG, xciv. 968-969), distinguished the divine " will preceding," which conditionally aims at the salvation of all men, from the " will following," which restricts the number of the elect in particular to those whom foreknowledge perceives to be worthy. This is yet the orthodox doctrine of the Eastern Church. The Russian Catechism (i. 3) accordingly declares: " Since God foresaw that some would choose the good and others the evil, he predestined the former to glory and rejected the latter."
In the Western Church, up to the time of Augustine, the fixed principles of free will (Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem, ii. 6; Eng. transl., ANF, iii. 301- 303; Ambrose, De Jacobo, i. 1) and of divine foreknowledge (Tertullian, ut sup., ii. 23; 2. The West- Eng. transl., iii. 315; Ambrosiaster on era Church. Rom. viii. 29) underwent no essential revision, though so deep was the feeling of the working of grace on the individual that the statements of the Latin Fathers are far more in harmony with the Bible than those of the Greek Fathers. The development of the doctrine of original sin after Tertullian, and the emphasis which Cyprian laid on the Church and her means of grace deepened the concept of the operations of grace, transcending mere illumination of intellect. • Cyprian ascribes all good to God (Epist., i. 4; Eng. transl., ANF, v. 276; De oratione Domini, xiv.; Eng. transl., ANF, v. 451) ; Tertullian, on the other hand, teaches a power of grace which modifies free will (De anima, xxi. 39; Eng. transl., ANF, iii. 202); and Ambrose in passages expresses himself synergistically (In Lucam, i. 10, ii. 84), and also almost in terms of predestination (vii. 27).
The deeper Western doctrine of grace was carried to its logical conclusions by Augustine (see Augustine, Saint, of Hippo), both as a result of personal experience and in consequence of his study of the IX.— 13
Bible, especially of the writings of Paul. At first he wavered between the conviction that feeling and experience yielded to the working of grace but
that reason clung to free will (cf . Soli- 3. Augustine, loquia, I., i. 5) . Even then his religious
interest led him to distinguish clearly faith as the root from works as the fruit, thinking to have found the point, in the origin of faith, where free will is alone operative; election was based on the foreseeing of faith (Rom. ix. 11). In 397, however, he came to the conviction that faith itself is a divine gift, and henceforth this belief in a grace that is the source of all good in man underlies Augustine's entire theological system. This attitude of Augustine evoked the opposition of Pelagius (see Pelagius, Pelagianism), who sought to lead souls to a better life by reminding them of their innate, inalienable power. Man shall acknowledge to himself powers of will and " spiritual riches," " which he shall then be able to employ well when he shall have learned that he has them." The motive force in Augustine's development of the doctrine was not the theory or the practise of the Church, but his personal experience of sin and grace. According to his system, the decisive and inalienable characteristic of man is not abstract freedom of choice but loving union with God (Expositio Psalmorum, v.; Eng. transl., NPNF, 1 ser., viii. 11-15; Conf., I., i. 1, VII., x. 16; Eng. transl., viii. 45, 109-110). Without divine aid (enabling power, adjutorium), transcending natural moral powers, even Adam could not remain good, though this aid gives only the possibility, not the realization, of fellowship with God (De natura et gratia, xlviii. 56; Eng. transl., v. 140; De correptione et gratia, xi. 32; cf. x. 27; xii. 34, 38; Eng. transl., v. 482-487). God gave first a good will to man, in which, however, he could not continue without the gift of enabling power; and that man should be willing to continue God left to his free will. This free will is inherent in human personality, nor can man, from the point of view of love, be considered as acting under compulsion, so that the guilt of sin falls on him alone (De gratia et libero arbitrio, ii. 4, xviii. 37; Eng. transl., v. 445, 459). This delivers his idea of free will from pantheistic naturalism; on the other hand, his religious interest will not permit him to emancipate free will from God. Hence, initial will is rather a divine content for its further development, by which it wins its freedom in a higher sense as an autonomous agent in the sphere of life. The lower form of freedom was but a transition point to true freedom (xi. 32, xii. 33; cf. x. 28; Eng. transl., v. 484-485; De prcedestinatione sanctorum, xv. 30; Eng. transl., v. 505-506). From the sin of Adam, in virtue of the unity of the human race, arose the necessity for the condemnation of all mankind ("mass of perdition "), salvation being possible only through the second Adam, Christ, for all united with him (Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum, IV., iv. 7; Eng. transl., v. 419; De correptione et gratia, x. 26, 28; Eng. transl., v. 183; De natura et gratia, v. 5; Eng. transl., v. 123). This historic dispensation of salvation is carried out so rigidly that even the patriarchs were saved only by the sight of the risen Christ on whom they believed (De peccato originali, xxvi. 30-31; Eng. transl., v.
Predestination