Louis Le Blanc on Predestination and Election Theses 1-11
Theses Theologicae [...] (London, 1683), pgs. 127-28
Theological Theses: Concerning the eternal election and predestination of human beings in which the use of those words in the Roman and Protestant schools is explained. Then, how in those same schools the effects and object of predestination are assigned.
1. The word “predestination” is variously used in the Roman school. For according to some of their doctors, predestination only covers that decree by which God absolutely established from eternity to confer heavenly glory to certain human beings. But for other Romanists, predestination is more limited to the decree of conferring the means conducive to infallibly bring certain human beings to heavenly glory. Finally, others argue that both these decrees pertain to predestination. This is what Eustachius a Sancto Pauli observes in Summa Theologiae, de Praedestinatione, Q. 3.
2. The first meaning is rarer [among the scholastics]. Nevertheless, some of the older scholastics, like Gabriel Biel and Ockham, seem to understand the word “predestination” in such a way that it appears to be nothing other than that eternal council of God by which he decreed to give glory to certain people. This is clear from those things which Gregory of Valencia notes, Tom. 1. Disp. 1, Quest. 23, which is about predestination, point 3.
3. But the greatest part of the scholastics take predestination in the second way, namely for the preparation of grace, so that it is distinguished from election to glory. You can find this in Martinus Becanus, In Summa Theologiae, Tom. 1, Cap 14, Q. 2., Concl. 2.
4. But many of the doctors of the Roman Church define predestination as not only the preparation of grace, but also the preparation of glory to which that grace pertains. According to these doctors, predestination is an eternal decree or purpose of God, by which God ordains and directs certain people to supernatural blessedness, by those supernatural means fit to the obtaining of it. The recently mentioned Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Peter a Sancto Joseph, Gregory of Valencia, Estius, and many others hold to this view.
5. But Jansen and his disciples, following Augustine on this point, understand predestination in a sense still more general. For they think that predestination covers not only the good but the wicked, though not of sin, but of punishment. Hence, reprobates are no less able to be said to be predestined to eternal suffering by God as the elect are predestined to glory and blessedness. From this they make predestination to be twofold—one to life, and the other to death. One can see this with Jansen De Gratia Christi Salvatoris, lib. 9., Cap. 3.
6. Election is similarly restricted by many scholastics to the decree by which God decreed to give glory to some human beings instead of others. And so, they distinguish this from what predestination means to them, that is, a decree with respect to the conferring of means fit to obtaining glory. Alphonsus Mendoza, professor at Salamanca, makes this observation in the scholastic question concerning predestination, the second section. But many others refer election, as with predestination, no less to grace than to glory. And, they want election to cover that decree regarding the giving of grace as well as a decree of conferring glory.
7. But just as predestination in the Roman schools is received and defined variously by various theologians, so they do not all in the same way assign its effects. For those who understand the word predestination as only denoting that decree by which God prepared from eternity heavenly glory for certain people, they do not assign any other effect than the imparting of glory itself. Nor do they wish that the gifts of grace be numbered as among the effects of predestination. This is the view of both William Ockham and Gabriel Biel, as can be seen in Gregory of Valencia, Tom. 1, Q. 23., Point 3.
8. But others insist the contrary, that only the means [fit] for eternal blessedness are the effects of predestination, but not the acquisition of blessedness itself. They do this because they limit the word predestination to the decree of communicating grace, and consequently they do not want the word to include the decree of granting glory. This is the opinion of Durandus, as the same Gregory of Valentia testifies in the recently cited place.
9. Today, however, the more common belief of the doctors of the Roman Church is that the effects of predestination are not only the supernatural blessedness itself, but also those particular means by which each predestinated person supernaturally obtains this blessedness. And therefore, they enumerate three general effects of predestination which the Apostle notes in Romans 8: Vocation, and certainly, justification and glorification. Indeed, by the word predestination they understand both the decree of conferring heavenly blessedness to certain human beings, and the decree concerning the means by which they are led to the enjoyment of that blessedness.
10. But there are some theologians of the Roman School who enumerate far more effects of predestination: And among other effects they include the permission of those sins into which the elect fall, and therefore the permission of the very first sin. Indeed, they even assign to the effects of predestination the very creation and preservation of those who are predestined. This is what Estius especially does in 1 Sent., Dist. 40., Paragraph 7.
11. In fact, Alphonsus Mendoza of the Augustinians (already cited above), professor at Salamanca, goes even further. For he expressly holds that the first act of all divine acts was predestination, from which all the other decrees concerning the founding of the world, creation of human beings, the permitting of sin, etc., follow. Therefore, he wants the creation and preservation of this whole world—indeed the very reprobation of the demons and of the impious, and their just damnation—to be numbered among the effects of the predestination of Christ and the elect. And, in a word, he continually insists that nothing whatsoever of any kind, whether something small, or big is brought about by God, or permitted, which is not an effect of predestination and a means ordained to bringing it about.