Louis Le Blanc on Predestination and Election Theses 12-20
Theses Theologicae [...] (London, 1683), pgs. 128-29
12. For in his [Mendoza’s] Theological Controversies (cf. the already cited first scholastic question about predestination, section six), this is his second conclusion. “The mind of God presupposes the foreknowledge of nothing future for predestination, but everything follows from it. And therefore, God decrees from eternity to do absolutely nothing, nor in time does he make or permit anything, either natural or supernatural, whether it is a thing of great importance or of little importance. And practically everything which comes into existence is an effect and means of the predestination of the elect and Christ. And, so, everything is subordinate to divine predestination as means ordained for the glory of Christ and the saints.”
13. So, this is his third conclusion. “There is not any other providence of God antecedent to predestination, from which natural and some other supernatural effects come into being. But providence is no less unique and is itself a predestination, from which everything in the universe must follow with absolutely no exception. And therefore, according to this conclusion, the whole world—including the natural and supernatural, good and evil, substances and accidents, and all modes of being and acting in the world, not only in general, but specifically, and individually—should be considered as one complete object of divine predestination. Thus, just as absolutely nothing evades the extent of that object, so there is nothing which does not fall under that act of predestination.”
15. But from this it is possible to deduce in what way those two doctors think that a person is the object of predestination by God, namely, in the divine foreknowledge, neither as fallen nor created, but rather simply as possible or creatable. For given that the permission of the fall of the first man, and even the creation of man himself is enumerated by them as among the effects of predestination, it is necessary that, from their perspective, foreknowledge of the fall and creation did not precede the decree of predestination in God, according to our mode of understanding, but rather followed it. And so, God was not able in predestinating mankind to consider them as fallen or created, but only as creatable by him. Which Estius with Mendoza acknowledges: “We thus do not call it ‘the predestination of fallen man’ as if the foreknowledge of the fall of the first man and in him the whole human race preceded in God (according to our mode of understanding) the predestination of some from the whole race of mankind to eternal life.” (Distinction 40 of book 1 of the Sentences, paragraph 6).
16. But Alphonsus Mendoza shows that not a few of the scholastics—both the older and more recent scholastics—think the same thing as he does regarding this point. Cf. the already mentioned question, section four. There, he cites for himself Jacob Naclantus, Bishop of Clugium, Albert Pighius, Peter Galatinus, Ambrosius Catharinus, and the man whom he prefers above all the others, Duns Scotus, whom he quotes many times, from which quotes it is clear that according to the subtle doctor, God predestined the elect, and willed the gifts of grace for them before he had willed this sensible world, which God willed from eternity for the sake of predestined man, on account of whom he established to create all of visible nature.
17. But the more common opinion in the Roman Schools is that when God predestined from eternity certain people, he considered them as fallen in Adam, and corrupt in their sin. For commonly, their theologians believe that that decree by which God predestined certain people to salvation, according to our mode of conception, followed the foreknowledge of the fall of the first man, and from that, the attendant original sin, by which the whole race of mankind has been infected.
18. But when one turns to look at those who are called with the singular name “Reformed” among the Protestants, many of them define the word predestination as that whole part of divine providence, by which God decreed and established with himself before the foundation of the world that which has in view either the eternal salvation or the death and destruction of every human being. And hence, they distinguish the eternal predestination of God between that which is to life and salvation, and that which is to death and destruction. And the former they commonly call election; the latter is commonly called reprobation in the schools. This is how Zanchi, Beza, Ursinus, Perkins, Polanus, Bucanus, and many others, and even the Synod of Dordt, use the term predestination.
19. Nevertheless, not a few of the Reformed doctors think that the term predestination, according to its use in Scripture, should only denote the pleasant side. And hence, by predestination they mean only those acts of the divine will and mind, by which God has immutably established with himself to lead certain human beings to heavenly life and glory, and those means afforded to them which are necessary to achieve this end. For they do not restrict predestination only to the preparation of grace, as many of the scholastics do. Instead, they understand the word predestination to include both the decree about the end, as well as the decree about the means; that is, a decree about giving glory to certain people as well as a decree about the grace which is to be communicated to them.
20. And they use the word election in the same sense. Since by election they understand that decree by which God from eternity selects some people from among others in order that he might make them participants of the grace of Christ in the life, and crown them with glory in the life to come, therefore both election and predestination are understood by them to be synonyms.