A Brief History of Predestination (1 of 4)
A Brief History of Predestination (1 of 4)
Theological Letters
A friend, “Moses,” reached out to me in search of a “pithy” explanation of how the Eastern Church fathers understand predestination. I provided an answer that was relatively brief but not quite pithy. I, then, decided to follow that reply with a more thorough treatment of the topic. In a word, I offered a brief history of the doctrine of predestination, in the Christian East and West. Below is part 1 of that history, covering the Latin views prior to Augustine and the Augustinian shift. Part 2 will cover the medieval developments in the wake of Augustine in the medieval era. Part 3 will look at the Reformation disputes. Part 4 will explore how the Christian East contrasts with this Latin history. Once I’ve posted all three, I’ll supply my not-so-pithy explanation that occasioned this history.
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Dear “Moses,”
To better answer your question on how the Eastern view of predestination compares with the West, I think it wise to first describe the Western view. Many presume they have a firm grasp on Western thinking about predestination, but the matter is more complicated than the average person realizes. Historically speaking, even the notorious Calvinist has a more nuanced position than the usual caricature — or even than the self-proclaimed lay “Calvinist,” for that matter.1
Make no mistake, the doctrine of predestination begins with the Bible. Every Bible-believing Christian believes in predestination. For the term (προορίζω) is a biblical one. The New Testament speaks of people doing things that God purposed beforehand (Acts 4:27-8), of God predestining believers in Christ to be adopted as sons (Eph 1:4-5), and of God foreknowing and predestining believers to be conformed the image of his Son (Rom 8:28-30).
The question is not if the Bible speaks of predestination. The question is when the Bible speaks of predestination, what does it mean? Is predestination a Christian recapitulation of pagan fate? Does such talk negate free choice? Do such statements mean that those who repent and believe in Christ had no choice in the matter and, conversely, those who refuse Christ were fated to do so? Does this mean that our choices, for good or for ill, have their cause in God and not in us? Why does Paul conjoin foreknowledge and predestination? And what does it mean that Christians are chosen “in Christ” and predestined “through Christ”?2 Such questions naturally arise when considering the biblical statements on predestination. So, it should be no surprise that they permeate the historical debate.
We can divide the Western discussion into three stages: the Latin patristic era before Augustine, the post-Augustine medieval era, and the post-Reformation era. This division offers a clear sense of how the debate evolves over time in the Latin West. So let’s consider each stage in turn.
Predestination Prior to Augustine
Latin writers before Augustine — that is, Mark Minucius Felix (150-260 AD), Tertullian (155-220 AD), Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 AD), Hilary of Poitiers (300-368 AD), and Ambrose of Milan (340-97 AD) — devote little time to the question of predestination. What space the topic receives reflects a largely homogeneous perspective amongst these early Christians.
First and foremost, these writers insist that the pagan doctrine of fate has no place in Christianity. The rejection is rooted in the Christian insistence that God is Good and, therefore, cannot be the cause of evil. Evil has its origins in the “free will” or “free choice” of creatures — that extraordinary capacity God has given us to identify what is good and choose for ourselves whether or not to do it.3 Evil is always a product of a creature’s misuse of freedom, never of divine design. We find the point in Tertullian, who maligns fate as pagan, as well as in Hippolytus, who rails against Gnostic fate in the doctrines of Monoimus the Arabian.
In these early statements, we find the conditions of moral culpability, ubiquitous amongst the fathers. To wit, one must know what he ought or ought not do and have the ability to do or not do it. If either condition is lacking, then so is moral culpability. For we cannot justly be held to standards of which we are unaware nor blamed for failing to keep them if doing so is beyond our ability. The relevance to fate is obvious. If our failings are engineered by the gods and we cannot resist their will, then we cannot justly be held culpable for such failings. For we do not have the ability to do otherwise, and the end result is that evil finds its origin in God not us. The latter point — that God is the cause of evil — these fathers saw as blasphemous, and the former point — that we are incapable of resisting evil — they saw contradicted by every page of holy Scripture, which calls man to do good and blames him when he fails to do so.4
But what, then, are we to make of predestination? These early Latin writers consistently draw on Paul’s conjoining of predestination with foreknowledge in Romans 8:29. They insist that God does not arbitrarily predestine, the way the pagan gods do in stories of fate. Rather, the Christian God justly orchestrates his dealings with man, dealing with each according to his worth. God foreknows whether a man will repent or resist him, and foreknowing this, God acts accordingly, choosing those who who are worthy of being chosen. And lest we read this as a new form of fate — namely, the fate of one’s innate character5 — these early writers are clear that “worth” is a matter of choice. Those who are worthy of being chosen were free to make themselves unworthy, and those who are found wanting were free to make themselves worthy. Hence, each one bears responsibility for his lot.
The perspective is common prior to Augustine. After noting that many are called but few are chosen, Hilary of Poitiers explains that God’s choosing is not arbitrary. Those who are chosen are chosen because they are worthy:
So the choice is not a matter of haphazard judgment, but the distinction is made on the basis of a choice of merit. Blessed then is he whom God has chosen: blessed for this reason, because he is worthy of being chosen.6
We find the same in Mark Minucius Felix, who suggests that predestination is based on God’s foreknowledge of whether one will repent or resist him.7
Tertullian points out that foreknowledge is not what brings about future events but is an advanced knowledge of future events, including the event of freely made choices. Foreknowing which of his creatures will repent and which will resist, God orders his deeds toward the salvation of those who repent. Such is the nature of predestination.8
We find the same in Ambrose, who insists that God proves his desire for all to be saved in the propagation of his laws to all. But God never deals coercively with free creatures. Hence, he predestines, not by necessity, but by foreknowledge, predestining salvation for those he knows will make a right use of will:
The Apostle says, ‘Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.’ For he did not predestine before he foreknew, but he predestined the rewards of those whose merits he foreknow.9
The Augustinian Turn
A definitive shift takes place with Augustine of Hippo (354-450 AD). The stage is set for this shift by the above talk of “merits,” which make one worthy of being chosen. Predestination, say these early writers, is based on repentance and obedience, on cooperation with God that makes one worthy of being chosen by him. The view naturally raises a series of questions: What is the relationship between divine assistance, free choice, and merit? Is the capacity to turn to God a natural one or super natural one, arising from divine aid? If the former, then in what sense is one saved by grace? For the merits that produce his salvation are wholly his own. If, however, grace is the cause of his turning, then in what sense is the one who resists at fault for resisting? And how does this reply — that his turn is of grace and not of himself — not reintroduce the fate of the pagans? Such questions occasioned the Pelagian dispute, which proved definitively formative on Augustine’s thinking.
To understand the Augustinian turn, let us begin with Augustine’s exploration of merit. Augustine developed the concept that every action reflects a hierarchy of loves.10 He recognized that every good has some level of sway over us, and when facing a singular choice, we face a confluence of competing goods. To use a rather mundane example, were I lying in bed while facing the decision about whether or not to workout, I would face a conflict of loves. My affection for comfort and rest would run afoul of my affection for health and fitness — or vanity, were that what drives me to workout. So, I would need to choose, and whatever choice I make inevitably prioritizes one good over another, either elevating fitness over ease or vice versa.
Now, this insight informs how Augustine understands the just man whose deeds have merit before God. Here, I say the “just man” because the term iustitiae (“justice”) is the Latin equivalent for “righteousness” (δικαιοσύνη) in Jerome’s Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible. Jerome’s translation of Paul’s letter to the Romans, for example, uses iustitiae thirty-six times in the first five chapters alone, and the legal connotations of the term are amplified by the conjuction of justice and “law” (legis).11 Hence, when exploring the gospel and how one is to understand the righteousness of God that comes to the Christian through faith, Augustine’s reading inevitably takes on a legal bent.12 And we can see this bent in his doctrine of the order of loves.
The term iustitiae means “to render to each its due.” When this definition is paired with the order of loves insight, we get Augustine’s understanding of the just man, an understanding that underwrites his understanding of merits (and demerits). Yet, to see the point, we must look at one further aspect of Augustine’s thought.
In keeping with ancient thinking more generally, Augustine presumes that our world consists of a hierarchy of beings, ascending from lower to higher — from rocks to plants to animals to man to angels.13 In other words, Augustine believes that our world is comprised of ascending (or descending) goods.14 When saying that plants are above rocks, we are saying that plants possess a certain good (viz., life) that rocks lack; when saying that animals are above plants, we are saying they possess certain goods (viz., sentience and locomotion) that plants lack, and so on.15 When paired with Augustine’s insight about the order of loves, we have a basis for determining whether one’s loves are properly formed or malformed.
If our loves favor lower goods more than they ought or higher goods less than they ought, then our loves are distorted. Properly formed loves mirror the order of nature. One who has properly ordered loves is just, rendering to each good its due. One who elevates the lower over the higher or denigrates the higher as though it were lower is unjust. In short, the just man loves that which is lovely proportionate to its loveliness, and for this reason, the just man loves God above all else.
This, then, is how Augustine schematizes the notion of merits and demerits spoken of by prior Latin writers. Meritorious deeds are deeds done from a proper order of loves with love of God above all competing goods. Deeds that proceed from disordered loves are corrupt or sinful and are demeritorious before God. Notice that this means a deed’s merit is not determined solely by its lawfulness. Two people may perform the same deed from very different dispositions. For example, one may flee adultery out of love of God, as did righteous Joseph (Gen 39), or one may flee adultery out self-love and self-preservation. The former has merit while the latter does not.
Now, early Augustine understands the correction of our loves to be within our power. In his early writings, when asking, What we are to do if we look within and discover disordered loves?, his answer is simple: You will to fix it. In other words, the inner disposition that determines one’s merit and demerit is within the control of the will, according to the early Augustine. Yet, all of this would change with the Pelagian dispute.16
I will not bog down this letter by belaboring the twists and turns of the Pelagian controversy. I will only state the basics. The dispute was sparked, not by Pelagius, but by his disciple, Celestius. Celestius was seeking ordination to the priesthood when he was challenged by Deacon Paulinus of Milan. From Paulinus’ letter, we get a sense of Celestius’ teachings, which were unquestionably heretical. Six claims stand out: Adam would have died even if he had not sinned; Adam’s sin harmed only himself, not his progeny; newborns enter the world in the same condition as Adam when first created; humanity neither dies in Adam nor rises in Christ; the Mosaic Law is as good a guide to salvation as the gospel of Christ; prior to the advent of Christ, there were men who lived sinlessly. While the Latin condemnation of Pelagianism and the ratification of the Augustinianism developed in its wake does not carry ecumenical weight, the teachings of Celestius were universally condemned by all, East and West.17
Now, Pelagius made a less radical case than his disciple. In the most basic sense, Pelagius merely asserts that our salvation or damnation is within our own hands, not entirely unlike many of the patristic assertions before Augustine.18 Yet, the claim naturally raised for Augustine a question: If the capacity to turn to God and reorder our loves is a natural capacity, and this reordered set of loves is the basis for merits and thus salvation, then in what sense is salvation of grace and a gift of God? The point pressed Augustine to rethink the relationship between free choice and grace.
Augustine’s revised position suggests that man, unaided by divine grace, is incapable of producing deeds that are meritorious before God. Divine assistance (grace) is required in order for the natural man to please God. This is the so-called nature-grace divide, wherein nature is incapable of completing itself without divine aid. Augustine’s order of loves offers a clean way of schematizing the claim without completely undermining free choice. To wit, the order of loves enables Augustine to differentiate the outward character of the act from the inward character of the act. Augustine can grant that we have free choice on a superficial level — to murder or not, to commit adultery or not, to steal or not — and for such deeds we are culpable. Yet, such choices do not affect the inward disposition of the person (i.e., his order of loves). Hence, if a person chooses to perform “good works” but does so from disordered loves, then his works have no merit before God and cannot result in his salvation. Only if God supplies grace — by which Augustine means that the Spirit reorders one’s affections, so that he can do works pleasing to God — can the person perform deeds that merit salvation. In short, to act in accord with the Law is within our power, but to do so from properly ordered loves requires grace. And lest Augustine leave an exception for Pelagius to latch hold of, Augustine contends that the same was true for Adam: In Eden, Adam, too, required grace to perform good works, and such grace was granted to him upon his creation — what Augustine calls “original righteousness.”19
Now, how this scheme plays out in predestination is best understood by first looking at the temporal give-and-take between God and creatures that results in salvation or damnation.20
Within Eden, Adam was created sinless and with the grace of original righteousness that made it possible for him to obey the command of God and resist sin. Yet, of his own free choice and not due to any deficiency in the grace given him, Adam cast off this divine aid and sinned. As a result, he fell from grace. The result is that his progeny are born into the world stained by their forefather’s guilt and crippled by disordered loves. The former makes them (us) damnable before God, void of any legitimate demand for divine assistance, and the latter makes us incapable of performing meritorious deeds that might merit salvation. Such is the condition known as original sin.
Now, let us say that God decides to show mercy and offer grace to a pair of fallen men. By way of example (of Augustine’s own example), let’s use Peter and Judas. Not due to any merit of their own (since they have none) nor due to any obligation on God’s part (since he has none), God chooses, in his mercy, to offer grace to these two men in order that they might perform meritorious deeds in his sight and escape damnation. By an act of the Spirit of God, both men receive grace, correcting their inward order of loves and making it possible for them to perform deeds pleasing to God by cooperating with the grace given them. Within this state of grace, both men now have a choice to either operate in accord with this grace, doing good deeds that earn merit before God, or to cast off grace for sin, as did their forefather, Adam. For a time, both men cooperate with this grace, earning merits before God.
However, a time comes when both Judas and Peter face temptation, one to betray Christ and the other to deny Christ. Both men sin, casting off grace. To be sure, neither sins of necessity; there was no deficiency in the grace supplied nor necessity in their wills, so both were capable of resisting this sin, but they both freely choose sin and cast off grace. They are once again in a state of need. Neither is capable of returning to a state of grace of his own accord; the choice is fully in God’s hands, as it was at the start, whether to offer further grace and restore them or offer justice, letting them reap what they have sown. Either choice, justice or mercy, is viable and in keeping with the character of God.
For no reason discernible to us, God chooses to execute justice toward Judas, resulting in his suicide and damnation, while God chooses to show mercy to Peter, resulting in his restoration, perseverance, and salvation.21 The scheme allows Augustine to say quite firmly that Judas is a reprobate of his own choosing, for there was no deficiency in the grace given him nor necessity in his choice to sin; rather, he sinned of his own accord and made himself subject to divine justice and ultimately damnation, even though he could have done otherwise. As for Peter, Augustine can equally say that his salvation is of God. Why? Because his merits, from first to last, while produced by his own free choices to cooperate with God, only bear merit because of the grace given him. Hence, God only rewards what he placed in Peter to begin with.
Now, as for how all of this plays out in predestination, Augustine begins with this very chronology and then appeals to God’s foreknowledge. Granting foreknowledge, the very chronology laid bare above has already played out in God’s mind in eternity. God, in his foreknowledge, has already determined to grant Peter and Judas grace; he has foreknown where they make a right use of his grace and where and when they cast it off, and he has likewise determined in advance to show justice to Judas and mercy to Peter; hence, he has also foreknown that Peter, in his restored state, perseveres to the end and attain salvation while Judas hangs himself, resulting in damnation. In short, the temporal drama plays out in advance in God’s mind. Such is the nature of predestination. It is nothing more than the dynamic interplay between God and creatures played out within his foreknowledge in eternity, which then plays out in space and time.
Augustine’s approach set the stage for the medieval discussion, establishing the main commitments concerning the nature-grace divide, original sin, the post-Fall capacities of will, and how free choice and grace cooperate toward one’s salvation or damnation. Moreover, the threat of Pelagianism, understood as the claim that the natural man might contribute to his own salvation apart from grace, marked the third rail that none may cross without charge of heresy. So, with that, let’s look at how the Western medieval scholastics build on Augustine’s thought.
To be continued in Part 2
I expound on the difference between the popular “Calvinism” of today and the more nuanced views of the 16th and 17th century in my letter “On Predestination, John Piper, and the ‘New Calvinists’.”
Regrettably, this historical survey does not offer an opportunity to discuss the last of these questions at length — though it will be prove relevant to the Eastern patristic view. So I devote this note to a comment on the question because I think it is a notable consideration when reading St. Paul. Notice that, in Ephesians 1:4-5, Paul does not merely say that the Christian is chosen before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight or that the believer is predestined to be adopted as sons. Rather, Paul says the Christian is chosen in Christ and he is predestined through Christ. I find this noteworthy because a purely causal view of predestination, such that predestination means God unilaterally determines one’s salvation without regard for his free choices, permits one to strike “in Christ” and “through Christ” from these verses without any change to their meaning. Hence, this causal reading is inherently problematic. Equally noteworthy is that Paul does not say the believer is chosen to be in Christ or is predestined to be in Christ, but in Christ he is chosen and through Christ he is predestined. The phrasing seems to indicate the opposite of the typical assumption about predestination. Rather than predestination determining whether one will attain union with Christ, the inverse is true: union with Christ predestines one to certain ends. As for how one is united with Christ, Paul’s most explicit statements are sacramental in nature: e.g., baptism (Rom. 6:4) and Eucharist (1 Cor 6:17). In this light, several questions naturally arise: Were the Ephesians predestined to these ends before they were in Christ? Are any of those who are presently children of wrath (Eph 2:3) predestined in Christ, though they are not presently in Christ? If the children of wrath repent and are united with Christ, does this change their standing such that they are now predestined to these ends? If any cut themselves off from Christ (Gal 5:4), are they still predestined to these ends in Christ? The questions, to my mind, are rhetorical, since their answers are obvious. If one is predestined in Christ to certain ends, then one must be in Christ to be predestined. The one challenge the passage raises is that Paul speaks of the believer’s choosing before the foundations of the world. How this can be so likely falls to one of two considerations. The first is that Christ, in choosing to take on human nature and redeem humanity, joins himself with and redeems all (Rom 5:18) but the effect of this redemption requires a participation in the redemptive work. The second possibility is that Paul is again conjoining foreknowledge and predestination, as he does in Romans 8:29, speaking about God’s foreknowledge of those who will repent and be united with Christ through faith and sacrament — a view that, as we will see, is pervasive in the historical discussion. In part 3, we will see how the Eastern fathers unravel this riddle.
Readers may notice that I more often than not refer to “free choice,” not “free will.” Though the latter is common parlance, the former is more accurate to the classical discussion in Latin literature. The will (voluntas) is the faculty by which rational creatures exercise choice. The question of freedom is whether this faculty has the power of “free choice” (liberum arbitrium). Hence, my preferred term is free choice, not free will.
Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, 2.6 (PL 2:290c-292c); see also Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, 4.37.6 (PG 7:1103a-b); Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 1.17 (PG 8:796b-797c; 800a-801c); Origen, De principiis, 3.1 (PG 11:145a-147a); Justin Martyr, Apologia prima pro Christianis, 43-4 (PG 6:391c-96c); Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio catechetica magna, 31 (PG 44:77b-d); John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, 2.24 (PG 952b-6b).
Hilary Poitiers, In Ps. 64.5.
Mark Minucius Felix, Octavius, 36.
Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, 2.5-8.
Ambrose of Milan, De fide, 5.6.83.
Augustine discusses the order of loves in several places; see, e.g., see, e.g., Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, I.27-28; or De moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, XV.25.
Rom 1:17, 32; 2:5, 13, 26; 3:4, 5, 20-6, 28, 30; 4:2-6 4:4, 9, 11, 13, 22, 25; 5:1, 9, 16-9, 21. For examples of the conjoining of “justice” and “law,” see Rom 2:13, 26; 3:20, 21, 28.
While Jerome is clearly using iustitiae as the equivalent of dikaiosynē (often translated “righteousness”), not all appearances of iustitiae correspond to this supposed equivalent (e.g., Rom 2:26; 4:4).
See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of Ideas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard university Press, 2001).
Bloomfield (see note 15 below) rightly describes the Christian understanding of the Chain of Being as an ascending order of perfections, straining toward God. Contrast this with the NeoPlatonic view, which describes the chain as descending imperfections, retreating from God. The contrast reflects the difference between creationism and emanationism, the former holding that God creates matter out of nothing and draws it up from potentiality into actuality, while the latter holds that God emanates the world, and his divinity descends into lower and lower beings that become less and less like him. On this contrast, see Nathan A. Jacobs, “Contra Clayton: Toward an Augustinian Model of Organism,” Faith and Philosophy 25:4 (2008): 376-93.
In medieval thought, these goods are known as “perfections.” For a detailed exploration of the notion, see Morton W. Bloomfield, “Some Reflections on the Medieval Idea of Perfection,” Franciscan Studies 17:2/3 (1957): 213-37.
See, e.g., Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, I. In the wake of the Pelagian dispute, Augustine would retract his claim that such inner change is within our power. For Pelagius himself began to appeal to Augustine’s own claims. (On Pelagius’ appeal to Augustine’s own writings, see J. H. S. Burleigh.) Augustine’s retraction on the point was that he was speaking about Adam: Adam had the power to order his inner affections. The retroactive revision hardly glosses over the claim. For Adam did not have distorted loves, according to Augustine, because he had original righteousness, a pre-Fall form of grace, and once pride took hold and he turned away from God with disordered loves, this grace was cast off and it was no longer in his power to do meritorious deeds. Hence, it’s rather evident that Augustine did in fact change positions on the matter due to the Pelagian dispute.
Celestius is condemned by the ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. (canon 4). The condemnation of Pelagius, by contrast, is relegated to the Latin West. The best case for the ecumenical rejection of Pelagianism in favor of Augustinianism is an appeal to the seventh ecumenical council, Nicea II (787 A.D.). Nicea II ratifies the local council of Trullo. One could make a chain argument that Trullo received the African codes, which presume the canons of Carthage. The difficulty with this argument is threefold. First, the links in this chain become increasingly weak the further one moves away from Trullo. The claim that the African codes presume Carthage and that this presumption would have been recognized by Nicea II is unlikely. In other words, Nicea II probably does not understand its ratification of Trullo to also ratify Carthage. Second, the Eastern fathers offer clear statements in support of several positions rejected by Carthage: (a) man is subject to corruption but not guilt through Adam (e.g., Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, PG 74:788-89; cf. Irenaeus, Contra haereses, 3.23.6; 4; 5.27.2; Basil, Homily on Why God is not the Cause of Evils, PG 31:345); (b) fallen man has the freedom to respond to the gospel (e.g., Origen, De oration, 6; De princ. 3.1; Irenaeus, Contra haereses, 4.37.4-6; Justin Martyr, Apologia Prima, 43-44; Gregory of Nyssa, De Virginitate, 12; Oratio cat. 30-31; John Chrysostom, Homiliae XXIV in Epistolam ad Ephesios; John Damascene, Expositio fid. 2.24-27); and (c) infants, having no guilt of their own, are not subject to damnation (e.g., Gregory of Nyssa, De infantibus qui praemature abripiunt). All three of these affirmations are contrary to the canons of Carthage. So the idea that the Eastern fathers intended to ratify Carthage by means of their ratification of Trullo is dubious. Third, we find a general silence on Pelagianism in the Christian East, and in the rare instances when Pelagius is spoken of, he is viewed favorably. For example, Pelagius is not mentioned by Ephesus, Nicea II, or John of Damascus’ extensive catalog of heresies in the 8th century. By contrast, in the 9th century, we find Photios, the Ecumenical Patriarche of Constantinople, commending certain writings of Pelagius. In this light, the most plausible reading of this history is that there was ecumenical agreement that Celestius’ teachings were heretical and worthy of condemnation (hence, Ephesus), but the condemnation of Pelagius and affirmation of the Augustinian alternative was not embraced by the Christian East.
For a collection of Pelagius’ writings, see The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers, ed. and trans. B.R. Rees (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, 1991). In particular, I recommend Pelagius’ 413 letter to Demetrias, which offers the most complete account of his position.
E.g., Augustine, Enchiridion, 27.
The following summary is essentially a synopsis of Augustine’s treatise on perseverance: see Augustine, De Dono Perseverantiae, passim.
Augustine does not presume the choice is arbitrary. He considers possibilities such as Peter may have prayed for perseverance while in a state of grace, and God is now answering that prayer in his restoration.