Louis Le Blanc On Predestination in the Roman Catholic and Reformed Schools (Theses 6-10)
On the term "election" and the effects of predestination among the medieval scholastics and Roman Catholics
1-5.
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 they mean by predestination, that is, a decree with respect to the conferring of means fit to obtaining glory. Alphonsus Mendoza, professor at Salamanca, makes this observation in his scholastic question concerning predestination, the second section. But many others refer election, as with predestination, no less to grace than to glory. Indeed, 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 assign its effects in the same way. For those, who understand the word predestination as only denoting that decree by which God prepared from eternity heavenly glory for certain people, 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 supernatural blessedness itself, but also those particular means by which each predestinated person supernaturally obtains this blessedness. And therefore, they enumerate the three general effects of predestination which the Apostle notes in Romans 8, namely: Vocation, justification, and glorification. Indeed, by the word predestination they understand both the decree of conferring heavenly blessedness upon 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.