ARTICLE II

In the Second Article We Ask: IS FOREKNOWLEDGE OF MERITS THE CAUSE OF OR REASON FOR PREDESTINATION?

Difficulties:

It seems that it is, for

1. In his gloss on the verse in Romans (9:15), "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," Ambrose writes as follows: "I will give mercy to him who I know will return with his whole heart to Me after his error. This is to give mercy to him to whom it should be given, and not to give it to one to whom it should not. Consequently, He calls him who He knows will obey, not him who He knows will disobey." Now, to obey and to return to God with all one's heart are meritorious; the opposite actions are demeritorious. Foreknowledge of merit or of demerit is therefore the cause of God's intention of being merciful to some and of excluding others from His mercy. This is equivalent to predestination and reprobation.

2. Predestination includes God's will to save men. It cannot be said that it includes only His antecedent will, because, according to this will--as is said in the first Epistle to Timothy (2:4): "God wills all men to be saved"; hence, it would follow that all are predestined. It remains, therefore, that predestination includes only His consequent will. Now, "We are the cause," as Damascene says, "of God's consequent will" according as we merit salvation or deserve damnation. Our merits foreknown by God are therefore the cause of predestination.

3. Predestination means primarily God's will with respect to man's salvation. But men's merits are the cause of their salvation. Moreover, knowledge causes and specifies the act of the will, since that which moves the will is a desirable thing which is known. Consequently, foreknowledge of merits is a cause of predestination, since two of the things which foreknowledge contains cause the two things contained in predestination.

4. Reprobation and predestination signify the divine essence while connoting an effect. There is no diversity, however, in the divine essence. Consequently, the difference between predestination and reprobation comes entirely from their effects. Now, effects are considered as caused by us. It is due to us, as cause, therefore, that the predestined are segregated from the reprobate, as takes place through predestination. Hence, the same must be said as before.

5. Taken in itself, the sun is in the same relation to all bodies that can be illuminated, even though all bodies cannot share its light equally. Similarly, God is equally related to all, even though all do not participate in His divine goodness in an equal measure, as the saints and philosophers say so often. Now, since the sun is in the same relation to all bodies, it is not the cause of the differences that we find in these bodies, namely, that some of them are dark and others bright. This is due, rather, to differences in the physical constitution of the bodies which affect their reception of sunlight. Similarly, the reason for this difference, namely, that some reach salvation and others are damned, or that some are predestined while others are rejected, is to be found not in God but in us. Consequently, our original thesis stands.

6. Good communicates itself. It belongs to the highest good, therefore, to communicate itself in the highest possible degree, that is, as much as each and every thing is capable of receiving it. Consequently, if it does not communicate itself to something, this is because that thing is not capable of receiving it. Now, according to the quality of his merits, a person is capable or not capable of receiving that salvation which predestination ordains. Foreknowledge of merits, therefore, is the reason why some are predestined and others are not.

7. Concerning the passage in Numbers (3:12), "I took Levites . . . ." Origen writes: "Jacob, younger by birth, was judged to be the first-born. Because what they intended to do was in their hearts, and this was clear to God before they were born or did any good or evil, it was said of them: 'Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.'" Now, this love, the saints commonly explain, pertains to Jacob's predestination. Consequently, God's foreknowledge of the intention Jacob was going to have in his heart was the reason for his predestination. Thus, the same must be said as was said previously.

8. Predestination cannot be unjust, since the ways of the Lord are always the ways of mercy and truth. Nor can there be any form of justice between God and men other than distributive justice. There is no place for commutative justice, since God, who needs none of our good things, receives nothing from us. Now, distributive justice rewards unequally only those that are unequal. But the only cause of inequality among men is difference in merit. Therefore, the reason why God predestines one man and not another is that He foreknows their different merits.

9. As mentioned previously, predestination presupposes election. But a choice cannot be reasonable unless there is some reason why one person is to be preferred to another. Now, in the election we are speaking about, there can be no reason for the preference other than merits. Therefore, since God's choice cannot be irrational, His election and, consequently, His predestination also must be caused by His foreknowledge of merits.

10. Commenting on that verse in the Prophecy of Malachias (1:2-3), "I have loved Jacob, but have hated Esau," Augustine says that "the will of God," by which He chose one and rejected the other, "cannot be unjust, for it came from their hidden merits." But these hidden merits can enter into an intention only in so far as they are foreknown. Consequently, predestination comes from foreknowledge of merits.

11. As the use of grace is related to the final effect of predestination, so the abuse of it is related to the effect of reprobation. Now, in the case of Judas, the abuse of grace was the reason for his reprobation, since he was made reprobate because he died without grace. Moreover, the fact that he did not have grace when he died was not due to God's unwillingness to give it but to his unwillingness to accept it--as both Anselm and Dionysius point out. Consequently, the good use of grace by Peter or anyone else is the reason why he is elected or predestined.

12. One person can merit the first grace for another. For the same reason, it seems that he could merit for that other person a continuation of grace up to the end. Now, if one gets final grace, he is predestined. Consequently, predestination can be caused by merits.

13. According to the Philosopher: "One thing is said to be prior to another when the sequence of their being cannot be reversed." But God's foreknowledge is related to predestination in this way, because God knows beforehand what He predestines, while He foreknows the evil which He does not predestine. Foreknowledge, therefore, is antecedent to predestination. But what is prior in any order is the cause of what is posterior. Consequently, foreknowledge is the cause of predestination.

14. The word predestination is derived from sending or destining. But knowledge precedes sending or destining, because no one can send a person without knowing him first. Knowledge, therefore, is prior also to predestination; hence, it seems that it is the cause of predestination. Consequently, our thesis stands.

To the Contrary:

1'. The Gloss on the following verse in the Epistle to the Romans (9:12), "Not of works, but of him that calleth was it said," reads: "He shows that the words 'I have loved Jacob, etc.,' were due neither to any previous nor to any future merits." And the Gloss on the verse, "Is there injustice with God?" (9:14), says: "Let no one say that God chooses one man and rejects another because He foresaw future works." Consequently, it does not seem that foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination.

2'. Grace is the effect of predestination but the principle of merit. Hence, foreknowledge of merits cannot possibly be the cause of predestination.

3'. In the Epistle to Titus (3:5), the Apostle says: "Not by the works of justice which we have done but according to his mercy. . . ." Predestination of one's salvation, therefore, does not arise from foreknowledge of merits.

4'. If foreknowledge of merits were the cause of predestination, then no one would be predestined who did not merit. But some predestined never merit, as is evidently the case of children. Consequently, foreknowledge of merits is not the cause of predestination.

REPLY:

There is this difference between a cause and an effect--that whatever is the cause of the cause must be the cause of the effect, but the cause of the effect is not necessarily the cause of the cause. It is evident, for example, that the first cause produces its effect through a second cause, and so the second cause, in some way, causes the effect of the first cause, although it is not the cause of the first cause.

Now, we must distinguish two aspects of predestination, the eternal predestination itself and its twofold temporal effect, grace and glory. Glory has human acts as its meritorious cause, but grace cannot have human acts as its meritorious cause; human acts can act only as a certain material disposition to grace, inasmuch as through these acts men are prepared for the acceptance of it. It does not follow from this, however, that our acts, whether they precede or follow grace, are the cause of predestination.

Now, to discover the cause of predestination we must recall what we have said previously, namely, that predestination is a certain direction to an end, and this direction is brought about by reason, moved by the will. Consequently, a thing can be the cause of predestination if it can move the will. However, a thing can move the will in two ways, first, as something due, secondly, as something not due. Now, as something due, a thing can move the will in two ways, namely, either absolutely or on the supposition of something else. The ultimate end, which is the object of the will, moves absolutely; and it moves the will in such a fashion that the will cannot turn away from it. For example, as Augustine says, no man is capable of not willing to be happy. But that without which an end cannot be had is said to move as something due "on the supposition of something else." If an end can be had, however, without a certain thing which contributes merely to the well-being of the end, then that thing does not move the will as something due. In this case, the will inclines to it freely; but when the will is already inclined to it freely, the will is thereby inclined to all the things without which it cannot be had, as to things that are due on the supposition of that which was first willed. For example, out of liberality a king makes a person a soldier; but, because one cannot be a soldier without a horse, on the supposition of the afore-mentioned liberality, giving the soldier a horse becomes due and necessary.

Now, the end-object of the divine will is God's own goodness, which does not depend on anything else. God needs nothing to help Him possess it. Consequently, His will is inclined first to make something freely, not something due, inasmuch as it is His goodness that is manifested in His works. But, supposing that God wishes to make something, it follows as something due from the supposition of His liberality that He make those things also without which those that He has first willed cannot be had. For example, if He wills to make a man, He must give him an intellect. But if there is anything which is not necessary for that which God wills, then that thing comes from God, not as something due, but simply as a result of His generosity. Now, the perfection of grace and glory are goods of this kind, because nature can exist without them inasmuch as they surpass the limits of natural powers. Consequently, the fact that God wishes to give grace and glory is due simply to His generosity. The reason for His willing these things that arise simply from His generosity is the overflowing love of His will for His end-object, in which the perfection of His goodness is found. The cause of predestination, therefore, is nothing other than God's goodness.

According to these principles, a solution can be found to the controversy that has been taking place between certain groups. Some have asserted that everything comes from God's simple pleasure, while others say that everything which comes from God is due. Both opinions are false. The former ignores the necessary order that exists between the things God causes, and the latter asserts that everything arises from God because of a natural necessity. A middle course must therefore be chosen so that it may be laid down that those things which are first willed by God come from His simple pleasure, but those that are required for this first class of things come as something due, although on the basis of a supposition. This "debt" does not, however, make God obliged to things but only to His own will; for what is said to come from God as something due is due simply in order that His will be fulfilled.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Divine providence ordains that grace bestowed be used as it should. Consequently, it is impossible for foreknowledge of this right use of grace to be the cause that moves God to give grace. The words of Ambrose, "I will give grace to him who I know will return to me with his whole heart," cannot be understood as meaning that a perfect change of heart inclines God's will to give grace but that His will ordains that the grace given be accepted by the person and that he be turned completely toward God.

2. Predestination includes God's consequent will, which is related in some way to that which we cause on our part, not by inclining the divine will to act, but by bringing about that effect for which His will has ordained grace or by bringing about that which, in a certain sense, disposes us for grace and merits glory.

3. While it is true that knowledge moves the will, not every kind of knowledge does this but only knowledge of an end; and an end is an object moving the will. Consequently, it is because of His knowledge of His own goodness that God loves it; and, from this love, He wishes to pour out His goodness upon others. But it does not therefore follow that knowledge of merits is the cause of His will in so far as it is included in predestination.

4. Although the different formal characters of God's attributes are drawn from the differences in their effects, it does not follow from this that these effects are the cause of His attributes. For the different formal characteristics of His attributes are not derived from our qualities as though our qualities caused them; rather, our qualities are signs that the attributes themselves are causes. Consequently, it does not follow that that which comes from us is the reason why one man is reprobated and another predestined.

5. We can consider God's relation to things in two ways. We can consider it only with respect to the first disposition of things that took place according to His divine wisdom, which established different grades of things. If only this is considered, then God is not related to all things in the same way. We can, however, consider His relation to things also according to the way in which He provides for them as already disposed. If His relation to them is considered in this manner, then He is related to all things in the same way, because He gives equally to all, according to the proportion He has made. Now, all that has been said to proceed from God, according to His will taken simply, belongs to the first disposition of things, of which preparation for grace is a part.

6. It belongs to the divine goodness as infinite to give from its perfections whatever the nature of each thing requires and is capable of receiving. But this is not required for superabundant perfections such as grace and glory. Hence, the argument proves nothing.

7. God's foreknowledge of what lay in the heart of Jacob was not the reason for His willing to give grace to him. Instead, the intention in Jacob's heart was a good for which God ordained the grace to be given to him. It is for this reason that God is said to have loved him "because his heart's intention was known by Him." For God loved him in order that he might have such an intention in his heart or because He foresaw that his heart's intention was a disposition for the acceptance of grace.

8. It would be contrary to the nature of distributive justice if things that were due to persons and were to be distributed to them were given out unequally to those that had equal rights. But things given out of liberality do not come under any form of justice. I may freely choose to give them to one person and not to another. Now, grace belongs to this class of things. Consequently, it is not contrary to the nature of distributive justice if God intends to give grace to one person and not to another, and does not consider their unequal merits.

9. The election by which God chooses one man and reprobates another is reasonable. There is no reason why merit must be the reason for His choice, however, since the reason for this is the divine goodness. As Augustine says, moreover, a justifying reason for reprobation [in the present] is the fact of original sin in man--for reprobation in the future, the fact that mere existence gives man no claim to grace. For I can reasonably deny something to a person if it is not due to him.

10. Peter Lombard says that Augustine retracted that statement in a similar passage. But, if it must be sustained, then it should be taken as referring to the effect of reprobation and of predestination, which has a meritorious or disposing cause.

11. God's foreknowledge of this abuse of grace was not the reason why Judas was reprobated, unless we are considering only the consequences of this abuse--though it is true that God denies grace to no one who is willing to accept it. Now, the very fact that we are willing to accept grace comes to us through God's predestination. Hence, our willingness cannot be a cause of predestination.

12. Although merit can be the cause of the effect of predestination, it cannot be the cause of predestination itself.

13. Although that with which the consequent cannot be interchanged is prior in some way, it does not always follow that it is prior as a cause is said to be prior; for, if this were true, then to be colored would be the cause of being a man. Consequently, it does not follow that foreknowledge is the cause of predestination.

14. The answer to this difficulty is clear from our last response.