Regular readers of Called To Communion are familiar with Jason Stellman. In September of last year we posted an article he wrote for us titled “I Fought the Church, and the Church Won.” In November of last year, I interviewed Jason regarding his conversion from Presbyterian pastor to Catholic, and posted the podcast of that interview here. On March 9 of this year, Jason Stellman gave a talk at the Holy Family Conference at Holy Family Parish in Kirkland, Washington. Jason had been planning to talk about “The cruciform life” during that session of the conference. But in the hour before his talk was scheduled to begin, he had lunch with Scott Hahn, who convinced him to tell his conversion story instead. So he did, and thankfully the event was recorded:

Download the mp3 by right-clicking here.

Jason blogs at CreedCodeCult.com.

Eucharist (1911)
Viktor Vasnetsov

Lecture: The Grace and Power of the Sacraments

Sacraments as Instruments of Christ’s Humanity
The sacraments are signs that cause what they represent (1′)

What is an instrumental cause? (2′)
In what way are the sacraments instrumental causes? (2′)
How are the sacraments extensions of Christ’s humanity? (3′)
The difference between conjoined instruments and separated instruments (5′)

Why does the power of the sacraments not depend on the holiness of the minister? (7′)

John the Baptist shows this (10′)
The efficacy of Judas’ baptism (10′)

Sacraments Work ex Opere Operato

This is the basis for Ex Opere Operato (11′)
The fundamental elements of a sacrament: the essential words, the essential matter, the right minister, and the right subject (11′)
Explanation by St. Ambrose in his Sermons on the Sacraments (13′)

Do we always receive the same grace from each reception of the sacraments?(16′)

Everything is received according to the mode of the receiver. (17′)
On the resistibility of grace (18′)
Why the holiness of the minister is helpful. (21′)

Lawrence Feingold

The Sacraments of the Old Covenant Did Not Function ex Opere Operato

Why is the efficacy of the sacraments unique to the New Covenant? (23′)
Romans 4 and circumcision as a sign of his faith (25′)
Why the sacraments of the Old Covenant were not therefore useless. (28′)
How did the just pagans, e.g. Job, receive grace? (31′)

Protestant Rejection of the Doctrine that Sacraments Operate ex Opere Operato (32′)

Position of Calvin (34′)
Why does Calvin go wrong here? (35′)

The Three Levels of the Sacraments (36′)

The Sacramental Sign: Matter and Form of the Sacraments (42′)
Sacramental Character (46′)
Sacramental Grace (56′)

Q&A

1. Can growth in the spiritual life be occurring despite feelings to the contrary? (1′)

2. Does the marriage of two unbaptized people produce a bond? (4′)

3. Are sacramental grace and actual grace interchangeable phrases? (6′)

4. If Jews are children of God and receive sanctifying grace on the occasion of their sacramental rites, how would you describe the difference with Catholic reception of sanctifying grace? (8′)

5. The Christian faith in the documents of the Catholic Church states that the Kingdom of Heaven was closed until the sacrifice or death of Christ. My question is where were Moses and Elijah for God to send them at the Transfiguration? (19′)

6. The rituals of the Torah are eternal, the Sabbath, the circumcision, the festivals, in this sense that the Old Testament says that this will be an eternal rite. How shall we understand that? (21′)

7. Is the difference between the Old Testament sacraments and the New Testament Sacraments the difference between hope longed for and hope realized? (23′)

8. Can a lay person act in the person of Christ administering sacraments such as matrimony or baptism? (26′)

9. Did the Jews of Jesus’ day experience that variation of disposition of grace, and thus that recognized Jesus as the Messiah and some who didn’t? (27′)

10. Are there any modern Padre Pios or Curés of Ars types of people in America? (28′)

11. [How does the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost relate to the sacraments?] (29′)

In July of this year, Jason Stellman wrote a Called To Communion guest post titled “I Fought the Church and the Church Won,” in which he explained briefly why he was becoming Catholic. Last week I had an opportunity to talk with Jason about this paradigm change, and the four years of internal wrestling that preceded it.

Download the mp3 by right-clicking here.

Among the articles referred to in the interview is the one he first encountered in 2008, titled “Michael Brown on “Sola Scriptura or Scriptura Solo“.” Neal Judisch and I developed this argument in more detail in “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.” Regarding the “tu quoque” reply Jason mentions, see “The Tu Quoque.” The other article Jason mentions in the interview is “The Tradition and the Lexicon.” Also mentioned is Scott Hahn’s Kinship By Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises.

St Stephen Distributing Alms (1447-49)
Fra Angelico

Lecture: The Holiness of the Church

In What Sense is the Church Holy?

Lawrence Feingold

Holiness is one of the four marks of the Church (1′)

Holiness is the very reason of being of the Church (2′)

Of the four marks, holiness is the most difficult to use, for two reasons: (2′)

(a) holiness is inward, and thus cannot be experimentally measured

(b) the holiness of the Church does not exclude sinners from her midst

Two kinds of members of the Church (3′)

This holiness is especially manifested in the saints, who are never lacking in the Church. (4′)

Is the Church immaculate, or is she stained by the sins of her members? (6′)
Ephesians 5:25-27

Why the sins of the members of the Church do not truly stain the Church. (9′)

The Church remains holy, as the source of grace by which dead members are restored.

Quotation from Creed of the People of God, promulgated by Pope Paul VI (11′)

She [the Church] is therefore holy, though she has sinners in her bosom, because she herself has no other life but that of grace: it is by removing themselves from her life that they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for these offenses, of which she has the power to heal her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Church is holy because she has the seven sacraments by which grace is given. (13′)

The Church as a universal sacrament of salvation (19′)

The Church is holy because of the communion of saints (20′)

The Works of Mercy in the Church
How do we see that the Church on earth is holy? Primarily through her corporal works of mercy. (22′)

The Holiness of the Church’s Doctrine (30′)
The spiritual works of mercy.
Example of the holiness of the law in the Old Testament
Example of the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of marriage and human life (31′)
Example from the Epistle to Diognetus (32′)

How Mary is the perfect model of the Holiness of the Church (34′)

Are There Elements of Sanctity Outside the Church? (41′)
Is the Mystical Body of Christ the Catholic Church? (42′)

Lumen Gentium

What is the meaning of “subsists in”? (43′)

Is salvation possible outside the Church? (50′)
Feeneyism (56′)

The Church and Evangelization (58′)
Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church
Redemptoris missio

Questions and Answers

1. What is the definition of ‘holy’? (1′)

2. Catholics often mix up salvation and sanctification, which means they misunderstand the role of the Mosaic covenant, which is about sanctification, not salvation. Please comment. (5′)

3. Is the Church a moving body, continually moving to the end times? What is the difference between the Church and the New Jerusalem? (15′)

4. Do you discern some error in modern society that causes many young people born and raised in the Church to leave it after citing bad or insensitive pastoral care, often a priest or scandals with priests, etc.? (17′)

5. Are there any circumstances which a cradle Catholic who has received the sacraments and formation in the faith can nevertheless be invincibly ignorant or become invincibly ignorant? (20′)

6. The number of people who are saved is known only to God. But Matthew 7:13 speaks about the narrow gate. What is the Church’s current view regarding numbers of percentage of those saved?(26′)

Jason and Cindy Stewart

Listen to the episode here:

Or download the mp3 by right clicking here and choosing ‘save target as.’

A written account of Jason and Cindy’s story is available in “An OPC Pastor Enters the Catholic Church.”

“Open Forum for Non-Catholics”
David Anders on Catholic Answers, Monday, February 13, 2012.

Listen to the program:

Or download it by right-clicking here

(16′) What about the reverence given by Catholics to the ‘wafer’ in Eucharistic Adoration?

(24′) What is the most appropriate way for a Protestant minister to enter the Catholic Church?

(33′) How does the Catholic Church understand Jesus saying “Get behind me Satan” to St. Peter in Matthew 16:23?

I explained here recently that “Reformed theology presently has no middle position between mere covenantal [i.e. extrinsic] union, and a fusion that obliterates the Creator-creature distinction.” In “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark,” I wrote:

One problem with a merely covenantal notion of union with Christ is that it reduces heaven to the equivalent of Abraham’s bosom. (Luke 16:22) A merely covenantal union with Christ is what we have now in this present life, and what the saints in Abraham’s bosom had as well. It is not the Beatific Vision. Hence if [Scott] Clark holds that in the eschatological consummation our union with Christ is only covenantal, and not ontological, then his position denies the possibility of attaining heaven, and offers to men in its place something infinitely lower. But if he admits that in the consummation our union with Christ is ontological, then he has no principled reason for claiming that grace cannot be a participation in the divine nature in addition to divine favor.

In other words, the difference between the Protestant and Catholic conceptions of grace (see here) leads to different conceptions of what heaven is and what is our essential happiness in heaven. If grace is mere favor, and union with God is only covenantal, then the happiness of heaven is having Christ and the saints near us forever, and being free from sin in our souls, and free from suffering and death in our bodies forever. But if grace is a participation in the divine nature, then the essence of eternal life is union with God in the Beatific Vision, which is not everlasting existence, but is eternity itself, namely, the “simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life.”¹ Any Protestant conception of ‘heaven’ without the Beatific Vision is something like Abraham’s bosom or the Garden of Eden, and is infinitely surpassed by the supernatural happiness of the Beatific Vision, God’s own infinite happiness. But that supernatural end requires grace as a participation in the divine nature, not merely divine favor. (Cf. Scott Clark’s claim that grace is merely divine favor.)

On December 14, Professor Lawrence Feingold of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology and author of The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and his Interpreters and the three volume series The Mystery of Israel and the Church gave a lecture titled “The Beatific Vision” to the Association of Hebrew Catholics. This is the last lecture in his series on God’s gracious elevation of man to the divine life. The audio recordings of the lecture and of the following Q&A session, along with an outline of the lecture and a list of the questions asked during the Q&A are available below. The mp3s can be downloaded here.

Lecture: The Beatific Vision

Spe Salvi (1′)

Eternal life is not merely continuing to live forever
Most people don’t have the faintest idea of what eternal life is.

Lawrence Feingold

What eternal life is not (4′)

Our final end has to involve a relationship of love with someone who transcends us (14′)

What eternal life is (14′)

Why our final end can lie only in God (15′)
Objective end and subjective end (18′)

Three different ways of knowing and loving God (20′)

Knowing God perfectly requires seeing God through the Logos (26′)

The Beatific Vision is infinitely above what we can presently imagine or conceive (29′)

He enlarges the receiver, so it can receive the living God (32′)
Sanctifying grace, the seed of glory (33′)

Growing in this life in our awareness of our ignorance of heaven (35′)

The essence of heaven (36′)

Dante on heaven (38′)
1 Cor 13 (39′)
Psalm 36 (45′)

cf. Mt. 5:8; 18:10; Ps. 17:15; 1 Jn. 3:2

Perfect love — spousal love, total self-giving (46′)

St. John of the Cross (51′)

Heaven is being inserted into the Trinitarian Life (56′)

Eucharist as the image of heaven (59′)

Eternity [not time without end] (62′)

Who receives the Beatific Vision? (65′)

The Last Judgment (69′)

The New Jerusalem (74′)

Questions and Answers

1. Is sanctifying grace finite? (1′)

2. Is time in purgatory endless days? (5′)

3. In this life one of our greatest pleasures is discovery. Will discovery be part of the beatific vision? (7′)

4. On Mt. Tabor, three of the Apostles were privileged to see Jesus in His glorified state. Was that a glimpse of the beatific vision, or a glimpse of his glorified body? (9′)

5. Is there any change or growth within the beatific vision? (12′)

6. Why is it then that we need a Last Judgment if we’ve already had a particular judgment? (17′)

7. In that returning back to God what we’ve received from Him, could that be understood like a person who has been blessed by education or medicine to be a teacher or a doctor, in order to give that gift back? (18′)

8. What is a vomitorium? (19′)

9. Do the parents stand in for the child in asking for faith [at the child's baptism], because they are in the mystical body, because they have the sacrament of marriage, or something else? (20′)

10. How do we know that there is an ultimate good instead of an ultimate frustration? (21′)

11. What part will the resurrected body have in the beatific vision? If the beatific vision is our essential happiness, why do we need the resurrection of the body? (26′)

12. Is the state of heaven for those souls now in heaven less perfect or less complete because the Last Judgment has not occurred? (28′)

13. Did God change in the incarnation? If God is immutable, how could He become man? (29′)

1. Summa Theologica I. Q.10 a.1.

Lecture: Sufficient and Efficacious Grace (November 30, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

The question: What makes actual grace efficacious or inefficacious? (1′)

What is the meaning of ‘efficacious’? (1′ 50″)

What is the meaning of ‘sufficient’? (4′)

Is there an intrinsic difference between sufficient-but-inefficacious grace and sufficient-and-efficacious grace? (5′)

For Lutherans, Calvinists and Jansenists, all grace is intrinsically efficacious, and God does not give such grace to the reprobate. (6′)

The heresy of limited atonement (9′)

Does God command the impossible? (10′)

See Denzinger 2001, 2002, 2005 (here.)

The Controversy over Grace and Free Will Between the Dominican and Jesuit Schools (12′)

Molina — there is no intrinsic difference between efficacious grace and merely sufficient grace.
Báñez — there is an intrinsic difference between efficacious grace and merely sufficient grace.

Domingo Báñez

Position of Báñez (20′)
Description of the position of Báñez (20′)
Four problems with the Position of Báñez (22′)

1. Seems excessively close to Calvinism/Jansenism (22′ 38″)
2. Seems to annihilate free will, with respect to self-determination
3. Seems that ‘sufficient grace’ is not truly sufficient (24′)
4. Seeming incompatibility with God’s universal salvific will (25′)

Position of Molina and the Jesuit School (33′)

How sufficient grace is truly sufficient
How this position preserves the sovereignty of God (34′ 50″)
How this position differs from Calvinism (37′)
Role of St. Ignatius of Loyola (39′)

Luis Molina

Objections to the Jesuit position (40′)

The charge of Pelagianism (40′)
The principle of predilection (51′)

On the Concern about Boasting (58′)

Why boasting is excluded
Why, in Calvinism, the sinner could accuse God for not giving sufficient (irresistible) grace (60′)

Two Models of God’s Providence (64′)

(a) God moves all creatures with intrinsically efficacious movements.
(b) God infallibly governs free creatures by giving resistible graces, knowing infallibly our cooperation or refusal to cooperate.

Questions and Answers

1. What about vocational graces? Aren’t these specific, and are they operative or cooperative? (1′)

2. Could you comment on the enormous pressures against cooperating with grace in our very secularized culture? (10′)

3. If Christ died for us all, why does the change in the new liturgy say “died for many”? (13′ 54″)

4. God doesn’t waste anything. So why does He give graces that He knows will not be used? (16′)

5. What is it about the Báñezian position that avoided the label of heresy if it is so similar in your view to Calvinism? (21′ 47″)

6. If God knows our choices by foreknowledge, and not by decree, how does that avoid putting passivity in God, who is Pure Act? (24′ 25″)

7. What makes free will free? (30′)

8. Couldn’t God have placed the reprobate in situations in which He knows that they would freely choose Him? If so, then why didn’t He do so, since He wills all men to be saved? (33′ 13″)

9. Why did God give the devil a chance to tempt us? It seems that we have enough trouble for ourselves? (36′)

10. Perhaps we shouldn’t say that we block or annihilate grace, but that by sinking into nothingness, I become a subject in which grace has no effect. There is nothing for grace to work on. (39′ 32″)

11. Is an action that is done with mixed motives something that can block grace? (41′)

12. What do we do if we are not in St. Francis’ position of thinking we’re the worst person in the world? (43′)

The Elect
Luca Signorelli (1499-1502)

Lecture: Predestination and Perseverance (November 16, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

When we talk about predestination, we always have to keep in mind God’s universal salvific will. (1′)

What does predestination add to God’s universal salvific will? (2′)
A summary of the meaning of the word ‘predestination’ in Catholic doctrine (2′ – 5′)

Predestination includes foreknowledge, and is a part of divine providence. (6′)

Predestination has only one fundamental cause: God’s love. (7′)

Predestination is the part of God’s eternal plan by which the just reach their supernatural end through a series of graces God has prepared for them.

Predestination has two elements:

(a) God’s gracious aid directing us to an end we cannot reach ourselves, and
(b) foreknowledge of our correspondence with His grace. (9′)

St. Augustine’s definition of predestination: (11′)

St. Thomas Aquinas on predestination: (13′)

It is fitting that God should predestine men. For all things are subject to His providence, as was shown above (Question 22, Article 2). Now it belongs to providence to direct things towards their end, as was also said (Q. 22, a.1, ad 2). The end towards which created things are directed by God is twofold; one which exceeds all proportion and faculty of every created nature; and this end is life eternal, that consists in seeing God which is above the nature of every creature, as shown above (Question 12, Article 4). The other end, however, is proportionate to created nature, to which end created being can attain according to the power of its nature. Now if a thing cannot attain to something by the power of its nature, it must be directed thereto by another; thus, an arrow is directed by the archer towards a mark. Hence, properly speaking, a rational creature, capable of eternal life, is led towards it, directed, as it were, by God. The reason of that direction pre-exists in God; as in Him is the type of the order of all things towards an end, which we proved above to be providence. Now the type in the mind of the doer of something to be done, is a kind of pre-existence in him of the thing to be done. Hence the type of the aforesaid direction of a rational creature towards the end of life eternal is called predestination. For to destine, is to direct or send. Thus it is clear that predestination, as regards its objects, is a part of providence. (Summa Theologica I, a.23, a.1)

Example of the arrow and archer (14′)

The idea or blueprint in the mind of God of the way by which we will be saved is predestination. (19′)

Two causes of predestination: one primary, the other secondary (20′)

Reprobation (21′)

Predestination in the Letters of St. Paul (22′)

Romans 8:28-31 (23′)

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom He predestined He also called; and those whom He called He also justified; and those whom He justified He also glorified. What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? (Rom 8:28-31)

The set of those called, is not the same set as those justified, because some reject the actual grace given to them. Example of the wedding feast (29′)

Difference between foreknowing and predestining (32′)

Calvinist interpretation of the passage (33′)

Ephesians 1:3-6 (34′)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. He predestined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (Eph 1:3-6)

Relation between predestination, the Incarnation, and the Church (37′)

Election and predestination in an ecclesiological sense (38′)

1 Corinthians 2:7-9 (39′)

We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed [predestined] before the ages for our glorification. . . Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him. (1 Cor. 2:7-9)

1 Thessalonians 5:6-10 (42′)

For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. … But, since we belong to the day, let us . . . put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with Him. (1 Thess. 5:6-10)

St. Paul’s notion of predestination was already contained in the Old Testament understanding of the election of the Jews. (45′)

Parable of the sower: election isn’t enough; there has to be perseverance. (48′)

Two senses of the term ‘election’ (49′)

God Does Not “Predestine” Anyone to Hell (50′)

Distinction between predestination and foreknowledge (51′)
God has a universal salvific will, but not all are predestined; only those who cooperate (54′)

Predestination according to Luther and Calvin (54′)
Luther and Calvin’s notion of predestination differs in two fundamental ways from the Catholic doctrine of predestination.

(1) Double predestination (54′)

Why did Luther hold this? Because he denied free will. (57′)
In his On the Bondage of the Will, Luther wrote: (58′)

Now the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation, and seems (in Erasmus’ words) “to delight in the torments of the poor wretches.”

In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin wrote: (59′)

By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined within Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.21.6)

The problem here is the notion of irresistible grace. (62′)

(2) Luther and Calvin deny our ability to cooperate with grace. (63′)

The Lutheran and Calvinist thesis of double-predestination was condemned at the Council of Trent: (64′)

If anyone says that the grace of justification is shared by those only who are predestined to life, but that all others who are called are called indeed but receive not grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil, let him be anathema. (Session VI, Canon 17)

Predestination and God’s Antecedent and Consequent Will (64′)

St. Thomas explains this in Summa Contra Gentiles III 159-161: (66′)

[S]ince one cannot be directed to the ultimate end except by means of divine grace, without which no one can possess the things needed to work toward the ultimate end, such as faith, hope, love, and perseverance, it might seem to some person that man should not be held responsible for the lack of such aids. Especially so, since he cannot merit the help of divine grace, nor turn toward God unless God convert him, for no one is held responsible for what depends on another. Now, if this is granted, many inappropriate conclusions appear. (SCG III.159.1)

To this problem St. Thomas replies:

To settle this difficulty, we ought to consider that, although one may neither merit in advance nor call forth divine grace by a movement of his free choice, he is able to prevent himself from receiving this grace: Indeed, it is said in Job(21:34): “Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Your ways”; and in Job (24:13): “They have been rebellious to the light.” And since this ability to impede or not to impede the reception of divine grace is within the scope of free choice, not undeservedly is responsibility for the fault imputed to him who offers an impediment to the reception of grace. In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all; “indeed He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4).But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsible for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun. (SCG III.159.2)

Final Perseverance (71′)

Second Council of Orange: (72′)

God’s help is always to be sought even for the regenerated and holy, that they may come to a happy end, or that they may continue in the performance of good works. (Denz. 183)

Can Final Perseverance be Merited? (73′)

St. Thomas addresses this in Summa Theologica I-II, q. 114, a.9.

Can the Faithful Have Complete Assurance of Final Perseverance? (75′)

Luther taught that faith had to include faith in one’s own justification. (76′)
Calvin taught that faith had to include faith in one’s own final perseverance to glory. (77′)

The problem with the claim that faith must include belief in one’s own final perseverance (77′)

The Council of Trent condemned this: (77′)

Canon 15. If anyone says that a man who is born again and justified is bound ex fide to believe that he is certainly in the number of the predestined, let him be anathema.

Canon 16. If anyone says that he will for certain, with an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance even to the end, unless he shall have learned this by a special revelation, let him be anathema. (Session VI)

St. Francis de Sales on God’s Universal Salvific Will (79′)

First He willed, with a genuine will, that even after the sin of Adam all men should be saved, but in a way and with means suited to the condition of our nature, which is endowed with free-will; that is to say He willed the salvation of all those who would contribute their consent to the graces and favours which He would prepare, offer and distribute for this purpose. Now, among these favours, He willed that the call be first, and that it should be so accommodated to our freedom that we might at our good pleasure accept or reject it. And to those whom He foresaw would receive it, He willed to give the sacred movements of repentance; and to those who would follow those movements He determined to give holy charity, those again who were in charity, He purposed to supply with the helps necessary to persevere, and to such as should make use of these divine helps He resolved to impart final perseverance, and the glorious felicity of his eternal love. … Without doubt, God prepared heaven only for those whom He foresaw would be His. … But it is in our power to be His: for although the gift of being God’s belongs to God, yet this is a gift which God denies no one, but offers to all, and gives to those who freely consent to receive it. (Treatise on the Love of God, 3.5)

Questions and Answers

1. In light of all you have said, then why do we pray for anyone else? (1′)

2. The gospel readings of last Sunday and this morning dealt with the servants receiving talents from their master. How does that relate to predestination? (3′)

3. God knowing from the beginning who and how many would be saved, why didn’t He set the bar lower, to save more? (7′)

4. How did Luther and Calvin ever give the early Protestants incentive to love God more or live moral lives if it didn’t matter or change predestination? (10′)

5. Paul himself seemed to know that he himself was saved. How is that possible? (13′)

6. Because the Church allows many views on this subject, can you distinguish the view of the Dominican Bañez from that of Calvin? (14′)

7. I understand that God gives sufficient grace for all to be saved, but it seems unfair that God gives more grace to some than to others. It seems the ones that He gave more grace to would have a better chance at salvation than someone to whom He gave less grace. (17′)

8. Shouldn’t Jesus have said more accurately “All are called and some are chosen”? (21′)

9. What does it mean that Herod and Pilate were predestined to do what God had planned to take place (Acts 4:28)? (23′)

10. What about Jude 4, which speaks of present persons long ago “designated” for condemnation? (25′)

11. Why does St. Paul say regarding Jacob and Esau that God chose Jacob over Esau before either had done anything good or bad (Rom 9:11)? (27′)

12. Why doesn’t the notion that men can successfully resist God’s grace detract from His omnipotence? If He really wants all men to be saved, why doesn’t He overwhelm all men with irresistible grace? (33′)

13. If God’s knowledge is the cause of what happens, rather than the other way around, how can man’s response to grace be the cause of God’s foreknowledge of who is predestined? (37′)

14. What about Limbo? (39′)

The Preaching of Paul at Ephesus
Eustache Le Sueur (1649)

Lecture: God’s Universal Salvific Will (November 9, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

God’s universal salvific will, and predestination, must always be considered together. (1′)
“God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4)
God desires all to be saved, because He loves all men, and wants us all to enter into His own life.¹ (1′)

God truly wills the salvation of all men: Scripture

1 Tim 2:1-4 (2′)
Christ gave Himself “as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6) (3′)
John 3:16 (5′)
How do we reconcile the universal salvific will of God with the fact that some are lost? (6′)
2 Peter 3:9 “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (7′)
1 John 2:2 “expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (8′)
Sermon on the Mount (8′)
Parable of the Sower (9′)
Parable of the Wedding Feast (Mt. 22:1-14) (11′)
Parable of the Sheep: “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (Mt. 18:14) (15′)

Universal Means of Salvation

To say that God wills all men to be saved would be empty if it did not include some kind of universal means so that all can be saved. (16′)

Christ through His Church and sacraments is the universal means (17′)

Four steps (18′)
(1) Christ’s incarnation and passion for all men²
(2) Grace merited by Christ
(3) Universal Church
(4) Sacraments in His Church, by which men can receive His grace.

All men who attain the age of reason are given operative grace, sufficient for salvation if men cooperate (20′)
Cooperative grace is given only to those who cooperate with operative grace. (21′)

The Old Covenant not yet Catholic, and not yet a universal means of salvation, but hints at it (23′)

The Book of Jonah (25′)

The Fathers and Doctors on the Universal Salvific Will³ (26′)
All are agreed that God wills all men to be saved in a manner fitting for free creatures.

St. John Chrysostom (28′)
St. Ambrose (28′)
St. Augustine (29′)
St. John Damascene (31′)

Two senses of God’s salvific will: antecedent and consequent

Also one must bear in mind that God antecedently wishes all to be saved and come to His Kingdom. (1 Timothy 2:4) For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in His goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God. But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer punishment. The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us. (De Fide Orth 2.29) (34′)

St. Thomas Aquinas (36′)

Objection: It seems that the will of God is not always fulfilled. For the Apostle says (1 Timothy 2:4): “God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” But this does not happen. Therefore the will of God is not always fulfilled.

Response: According to Damascene (De Fide Orth. 2.29), they are understood of the antecedent will of God; not of the consequent will. This distinction must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed. To understand this we must consider that everything, in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary. Thus that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live; but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. In the same way God antecedently wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts. Nor do we will simply, what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it may be said that a just judge wills simply the hanging of a murderer, but in a qualified manner he would will him to live, to wit, inasmuch as he is a man. Such a qualified will may be called a willingness rather than an absolute will. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place. (Summa Theologica I Q.19, a.6.)

God wills all men to be saved, and prepares for them a series of graces sufficient (and in fact, superabundant) to bring them to salvation. But we have to correspond to them. God leaves us free will, by which we either cooperate with His grace, or freely impede it, and His consequent will takes into account our cooperation and resistance. (37′)

Denial of the Universal Salvific Will at the Reformation (38′)

Luther and Calvin denied our ability to cooperate with grace.⁴ (39′)
That denial eliminates the distinction between antecedent and consequent will (40′)⁵
This entails that God’s salvific will is not universal (41′)

Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will: (41′)

In a word: if we are under the god of this world, strangers to the work of God’s Spirit, we are led captive by him at his will, as Paul said to Timothy (2 Tim. 2.26), so that we cannot will anything but what he wills. For he is a ‘strong man armed,’ who keeps his palace to such good effect that those he holds are at peace, and raise no stir or feeling against him — otherwise, Satan’s kingdom would be divided against itself, and could not stand; but Christ says it does stand. And we acquiesce in his rule willingly and readily, according to the nature of willingness, which, if constrained, is not ‘willingness’; for constraint means rather, as one would say, ‘unwillingness’. But if a stronger appears, and overcomes Satan, we are once more servants and captives, but now desiring and willingly doing what He wills — which is royal freedom (cf. Luke 11.18-22). So man’s will is like a beast standing between two riders. If God rides, it wills and goes where God wills: as the Psalm says, ‘I am become as a beast before thee, and I am ever with thee’ (Ps. 73.22-3). If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run, or which it will seek; but the riders themselves fight to decide who shall have and hold it.’ (On the Bondage of the Will, 103-104)

Luther applies this to Cain (43′)

This leads to the notion of double-predestination (45′)

John Calvin (46′)

Claimed that Christ did not die for all, but only for the elect. “Limited atonement”
Leads to the notion that some are predesined by God to hell.

Denial of the Universal Salvific Will by Jansenism (47′)

The following five Jansenist positions were infallibly condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653: (48′)

1. Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting.

2. In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.

3. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient.

4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey.

5. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception. (Denzinger 1092-1096)

Real Possibility of Salvation for All (53′)
Sufficient grace to be saved is given to everyone who reaches the age of reason. Christ died for all men. God wills all men to cooperate with that grace, and thus God predestines no one to hell.

What about those who never hear the gospel? (53′)
What about “outside the Church there is no salvation”?

Lumen Gentium: (55′)

Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved. (Lumen Gentium, 14)

Vincible ignorance and invincible ignorance (57′)
Bl. Pope Pius IX on invincible ignorance (59′)

Lumen Gentium: (60′)

Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. (Lumen Gentium, 16)

Creed of the People of God (Pope Paul VI) (61′)

We believe that the Church is necessary for salvation, because Christ, who is the sole mediator and way of salvation, renders Himself present for us in His body which is the Church. But the divine design of salvation embraces all men, and those who without fault on their part do not know the Gospel of Christ, but seek sincerely, and under the influence of grace endeavor to do His will as recognized through the promptings of their conscience, they, in a number known only to God, can obtain salvation. (Creed of the People of God)

Catechism of the Catholic Church (62′)

“Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.” Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity. (CCC 1260)

Explicit desire and implicit desire (65′)

Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, August 8th, 1949 regarding Feeneyism. (67′)

However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. (Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston)

Salvation outside the visible Church requires perfect contrition (69′)
God gives the grace to everyone to make an act of perfect contrition (69′)

Some faith is necessary for salvation (70′)
Hence missionary activity of the Church is not rendered useless by the fact that it is possible for those to be saved who have never heard the gospel.

It is much more difficult to be saved when not in full communion with the Catholic Church, and therefore without the fullness of the truth and the means of grace Christ has established in His Church.

Mystici Corporis Christi (71′)

They who do not belong to the visible Body of the Catholic Church, … We ask each and every one of them to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation. For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church. (Mystici Corporis Christi, 103)

Questions and Answers

1. How does the Catholic understanding of the universal salvific will compare to that of the Orthodox Jewish or Islamic view? (1′)

2. Is inculpable ignorance holding views contrary to the Church because you run out of time before you can investigate the reasons for the truth on all the issues, or is it necessary to hold the principles of the Church by faith before you dismiss them by investigation that confirms your conscience? (3′ 19″)

3. Luther said that in Genesis God was simply telling Cain what he ought to do. But if as Luther believed, Cain had no choice in the matter, why would God bother telling him at all? (4’42″)

4. In many places in Scripture we see God hardening people’s hearts. In Deuteronomy 2:30 He hardens the heart of Sihon King of Heshbon. In Joshua 11:20 He hardens the hearts of the Canaanites. In 1 Sam. 2:25 He hardens the hearts of Hophni and Phineas, so that they would not listen to Eli. Jesus thanks the Father for hiding things from the wise and prudent (Matt. 11:25,26), and quotes Isaiah saying that God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted. (John 12:37-40) St. Paul says the same in Romans 11:8, and in 2 Thess 2:11 he says that God sends them a strong delusion to make them believe what is false. How is all this compatible with a universal salvific will? (6’30″)

5. In John 10:26 Jesus says, “but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” If God wants all men to be saved, why doesn’t Jesus say, “you are not of my sheep because you do not believe”? (17′)

6. If God wants all men to be saved, then why does St. Paul say (Rom. 9:22) that there are “vessels of wrath made for destruction” and why does St. Peter say “for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do”? (1 Pet. 2:8) (19′)

7. If our being saved or being lost depends fundamentally on whether we cooperate or do not cooperate with grace, then why does St. Paul say that “it is not of him that wills or runs, but of God that shows mercy” (Rom 9:16) Why does St. Paul in Romans 9 seem to make election depend not on human choice but on God’s sovereign and inscrutable will? (24′)

8. Does the possession of sanctifying grace require conscious explicit faith in Jesus as the Son of God? If not, how is the Council’s teaching different from Rahner’s “anonymous Christian”? If it requires faith, then how can the Catechism speak of atheists possibly attaining salvation? [Note: the Catechism does not speak of atheists as such possibly attaining salvation. The questioner was referring to Lumen Gentium 16] (26′)

1. The doctrine of God’s universal salvific will is not to be confused with universalism, the claim that all men are saved, or with what is called ‘hopeful universalism,’ which I have addressed here.
2. The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.” [Council of Quiercy (853)]. (CCC 605)
3. For more excerpts from the Church Fathers on this subject see section 54 of Fr. Mosts’s book Grace, Predestination, and the Universal Salvific Will of God.
4. This denial was in turn based on their notion of original sin, explained here, and their not distinguishing between actual grace and sanctifying grace, explained here.
5. The distinction between antecedent and consequent will should not be confused with the Reformed distinction between preceptive will and decretive will. The former distinction allows for it to be true without contradiction that God desires all men to be saved and yet not all men are saved; but without the former distinction the latter distinction undermines the possibility of an authentic universal salvific will in God. If God commands that a person repent, but then, not on the basis of foreseen rejection of grace by that person, refuses to give sufficient grace for that person to repent, not only does God not truly desire that person’s salvation, but God has fallen into a performative contradiction, saying one thing, but doing something contrary to what He says. Either He does not mean what He says, in which case He is not the Truth, or He rebels against Himself, in which case He is in need of salvation. The notion that there are two actual contrary wills in God (in which neither will involves an abstraction from what God knows about human choices) is not only a theological schizophrenia, it is also a form of Manichean dualism. Calvinists use Scriptural examples of the difference between what is in fact divine antecedent will and divine consequent will, as though this supports a decretive-preceptive distinction not based on an antecedent-consequent distinction. John Piper does that, for example, in his “Are There Two Wills in God?,” and so do Luther, Calvin, Turretin, etc. — see here. But while an antecedent-consequent distinction avoids theological schizophrenia, because the former is an abstraction, the decretive-preceptive distinction without the antecedent-consequent distinction does not avoid theological schizophrenia, because neither the decretive nor preceptive will is an abstraction.