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Destination (from which predestination is derived) implies the direction of something to an end. For this reason, one is said to destine a messenger if he directs him to do something. And because we direct our decisions to execution as to an end, we are said to destine what we decide. For example, Eleazar (2M 6,19) is said to have "des tined" in his heart not to do "any unlawful things for the love of life."
Now, the particle pre-, when joined to a word, adds a relation to the future. Consequently, to destine refers to what is present, while to predestine can also refer to what is future. For two reasons, there fore, predestination is placed under providence as one of its parts, namely, because direction to an end, as pointed out in the preceding question, pertains to providence, and because providence—even according to Cicero a relation to the future. In fact, some define providence by saying that it is present knowledge bearing upon future event.
On the other hand, predestination differs from providence in two respects. Providence means a general ordering to an end. Consequently, it extends to all things, rational or irrational, good or bad, that have been ordained by God to an end. Predestination, however, is concerned only will that end which is possible for a rational creature, namely, his eternal glory. Consequently, it concerns only men, and only will reference to those things that are related to salvation. More over, predestination differs from providence in a second respect. In any ordering to an end, two things must be considered: the ordering itself, and the outcome or result of the ordering, for not everything that is ordered to an end reaches that end. Providence, therefore, is concerned only will the ordering to the end. Consequently, by God’s providence, all men are ordained to beatitude. But predestination is also concerned will the outcome or result of this ordering, and, there fore, it is related only to those who will attain heavenly glory. Hence, providence, is related to the initial establishment of an order, and predestination is related to its outcome or result; for the fact that some attain the end that is eternal glory is not due primarily to their own power but to the help of grace given by God.
Therefore, just as we said above that providence consists in an act of reason, like prudence, of which it is a part, because it belongs to reason alone to direct and to ordain, so now we say that predestination also consists in an act of reason, directing or ordering to an end. However, the willing of an end is required before there can be direction to an end, because no one directs anything to an end which he does not will. This is why the Philosopher says that a perfect prudential choice can be made only by a man of good moral character, because moral habits strengthen one’s affections for the end which prudence dictates. Now, the one who predestines does not consider in a general way the end to which his predestination directs him; he considers it, rather, according to the relation it has to one who attains it, and such a person must be distinct in the mind of the one predestining from those persons who will not achieve this end. Consequently, predestination presupposes a love by which God wills the salvation of a person. Hence, just as a prudent man directs to an end only in so far as he is temperate or just, so God predestines only in so far as He loves.
Another prerequisite of predestination is the choice by which he who is directed to the end infallibly is separated from others who are not ordained w it in the same manner. This separation, however, is not on account of any difference, found in the predestined, which could arouse God’s love; for, as we read in the Epistle w the Romans (9:11-13): "When the children were not yet born nor had done any good or evil... It was said... Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." Consequently, predestination presupposes election and love, and election presupposes love. Again, two things follow upon predestination: the attainment of the end, which is glory, and the granting of help to attain this end, namely, the bestowal of the grace that pertains to the call w be among the predestined. Predestination, therefore, has two effects: grace and glory.
Answers to Difficulties:
1. The acts of the soul are such that a preceding act in some way is virtually contained in the act that follows. Since predestination pre supposes love, an act of the will, the notion of predestination includes something that belongs to the will. For this reason, intention and other elements belonging to the will are sometimes put into its definition.
2. Predestination is not the same as election, but, as we said above, it presupposes election. This is why the predestined are the same as the elect.
3. Since choice belongs to the will, and direction to the intellect, direction always precedes election if both have the same object. But if they have different objects, then there is no inconsistency in election’s coming before predestination, which implies the existence of direction. As election is taken here, however, it pertains to one who is directed to an end; and the acceptance of one who is to be directed toward an end comes before the direction itself. In the case stated, therefore, election precedes predestination.
4. Even though predestination is placed under the genus of knowledge, it adds something to knowledge and foreknowledge, namely, direction or an order to an end. In this respect, it resembles prudence, which also adds something to the notion of knowledge. Consequently, just as every person who knows what to do is not thereby prudent, so also not every one who has foreknowledge thereby predestines.
5. Even though causality does not belong to the notion of knowledge as such, it belongs to that knowledge which directs and orders w an end; and direction of this kind is not proper to the will but to the intellect alone. Similarly, understanding does not belong to the nature of a rational animal in so far as it is animal but only in so far as it is rational.
6. Knowledge is related to both present and future effects, just as the will is. On this basis, therefore, it cannot be proved that predestination belongs more to one than to the other. Yet predestination, properly speaking, is related only to the future—as the prefix pre indicates, because it implies an ordering to the future. Nor is it the same to speak of having an effect in the present and of having a present effect, be cause whatever pertains to the state of this life—whether it be present, past, or future—is said to be in the present.
7. Even though knowledge as knowledge is not related to things in so far as they are to be made, practical knowledge is related to things under this aspect, and predestination is reduced to this type of knowledge.
8. In its proper sense, preparation implies a disposing of a potency for act. There are, however, two kinds of potencies: active and passive; consequently, there are two kinds of preparations. There is a preparation of the recipient, which we speak of when we say that matter is prepared for a form. Then there is a preparation of the agent, which we speak of when we say that someone is preparing himself in order to do something. It is this latter kind of preparation that pre destination implies; for it asserts simply this, that in God there exists the ordering of some person to an end. Now, the proximate principle of ordering is reason, and, as is clear from above, its remote principle is will. Consequently, for the reason given in the difficulty, predestination is attributed more to reason than to will.
9. A similar answer should be given to the ninth difficulty.
10. Evil things are ascribed as proper w foreknowledge, not because they are more proper objects of foreknowledge than good things, but because good things in God imply something more than mere fore knowledge, while evil things have no such added implication. Similarly, a convertible term which does not signify an essence appropriates to itself the name of property, which belongs just as properly to the definition, because the definition adds a certain priority.
11. A gloss does not always mean that a word has not been used in its proper sense. Sometimes a gloss is necessary merely to make specific what has been stated in a general way. This is why the gloss explains knowledge as meaning knowledge of approval.
12. To prepare or direct belongs only w powers that move. But to move is not peculiar to the will. As is clear from The Soul,16 this is also a property of the practical intellect.
13. In so far as preparation made even in a human reason implies an ordering or directing to an end, it is an act proper to the intellect, not to the will.
14. When treating a divine attribute, we should not consider only its effect but also its relation to the effect; for, while the effects of knowledge, power, and will are the same, still, as the names of these attributes imply, their relations to them are not. Now, in so far as pre destination is directive, the relation implied by predestination to its effect is more logically said to be a relation of knowledge than a relation of power or will. Consequently, predestination is reduced to a type of knowledge.
Answers to Contrary Difficulties:
1'-2'. We concede the other arguments presented here. One might reply to the second, however, by pointing out that not every thing that is found in more things is thereby a genus, for it might be predicated of them as an accident.
3'. Even though the granting of grace does not always accompany predestination, the will to grant grace always does.
4'. Reprobation is directly opposed, not to predestination, but to election, for He who chooses accepts one and rejects another and this is called reprobation. Consequently, as the word itself shows, reprobation pertains more to the will. For to reprobate is, as it were, to reject—except that it might be said that to reprobate means the same as to judge unworthy of admittance. However, reprobation is said to belong to God’s foreknowledge for this reason, that there is nothing positive on the part of His will that has any relation to sin. He does not will sin as He wills grace. Yet reprobation is said to be a preparation of the punishment which God wills consequent to sin—not antecedent to it.
Parallel readings: Summa Theol., I, i g; 23, aa. 2,4—5; I Sentences o, 1, I; 4’, 3 Contra Gentiles III, 163; In Ephes., c. I, lects. 1, (P. i 4 In Evang. Joannis, c. 1 lectura 3 (P. io:g68b); In Rom., c. 1, lectura e. 8, lectura 6; C. 9, lectura (P. 13:8a, 86b, 96a, 97a).
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 will his whole heart to He 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 Mm who He knows will obey, not him who He knows will disobey." Now, to obey and to return to God will 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, "W 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, there fore, 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 re wards 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 fore knowledge 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. More over, the f act 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 pre destined. 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 lie 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 pre destination.
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 will God?" (9:14), says: "Let no one say that God chooses one man and rejects another because lie 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 pre destination.
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..." Pre destination of one’s salvation, therefore, does not arise from fore knowledge of merits.
4'. If foreknowledge of merits were the cause of predestination, then no one would be predestined who did not merit. But some pre destined never merit, as is evidently the case of children. Consequently, foreknowledge of merits is not the cause of predestination.
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There is this difference between a cause and an effect—that what ever 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 some thing 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, aI though 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 Mm who I know will return to me will 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 repro bated and another predestined.
5. We can consider God’s relation to things in two ways. We can consider it only will 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 an other is reasonable. There is no reason why merit must be the reason for His choice, however, since the reason for this is the divine good ness. As Augustine says, moreover, a justifying reason for reprobation [ 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 will which the consequent cannot be inter changed 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.
Parallel readings: Summa Theol., I, 23, aa. 6-7; I Sentences 40, 3; Quolibet X, 3; XII, 3, 3; De rationibus fidei, c. 10 (P. 1 Contra Gentiles III, cc. 94, 162-63. See also readings given for q. 5, a. 5.
Difficulties:
It seems that it has no certitude, for
1. No cause whose effects can vary can be certain of its effects. But the effects of predestination can vary, for one who is predestined may not attain the effect of his predestination. This is clear from the commentary of Augustine on the words of the Apocalypse (3:11), "Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take...," in which he says: "If one person will not receive glory unless another loses it, then the number of the elect is certain." Now, from this it seems that one could lose and another receive the crown of glory, which is the effect of predestination.
2. Human affairs fall under God’s providence as things in nature do. But, according to the ordering of God’s providence, only those natural effects that are produced necessarily by their causes proceed from them will certainty. Now, since the effect of predestination, man’s salvation, arises not necessarily but contingently from its proximate causes, it seems that the ordering of predestination is not certain.
3. If a cause has certitude will respect to some effect, that effect will necessarily follow unless there is something that can resist the power of the agent. For example, dispositions in bodies here below are sometimes found to resist the action of celestial bodies; and, as a con sequence, these celestial bodies do not produce their characteristic effects, which they would produce were there not something resisting them. But nothing can resist divine predestination, because, as we read in the Epistle to the Romans (9:19): "Who resisted his will?" There fore, if divine predestination is ordered will certitude to its effect, its effect will necessarily be produced.
4. The answer was given that the certitude which predestination has of its effect presupposes the second cause.—On the contrary, any certitude based on the supposition of something is not absolute but conditional certitude. For example, it is not certain that the sun will cause plant to bear fruit unless the generative power of the plant is in a favorable condition; and, because of this, the certitude of the sun’s producing this effect presupposes the power of the plant as though the latter were a second cause. Consequently, if the certitude of divine predestination includes the presupposition of a second cause, that certitude will not be absolute but merely conditional—like the certitude I have that Socrates is moving if he runs, and that he will be saved if he prepares himself. Therefore, God will have no more certitude about those who are to be saved than I have. But this is absurd.
5. We read in Job (34:24): "He shall break in pieces many and in numerable, and shall make others to stand in their stead." In explanation of this passage, Gregory writes: "Some fail from the place of life while others are given it." Now, the place of life is that place to which men are ordained by predestination. Hence, one who is predestined can fail short of the effect of predestination; therefore, predestination is not certain.
6. According to Anselm, predestination has the same kind of truth that a proposition about the future has. But a proposition about the future does not have certain and determinate truth. Such a proposition is open to correction—as is clear from that passage in Aristotle where he says: "One about to walk may not walk." Similarly, therefore, the truth that predestination has does not possess certitude.
7. Sometimes one who is predestined is in mortal sin. This was clearly true of Paul when he was persecuting the Church. Now, he can stay in mortal sin until death or be killed immediately. If either happens, predestination will not obtain its effect. Therefore, it is possible for predestination not to obtain its effect.
8. But it was said that, when it is stated that one predestined may possibly die in the state of sin, the proposition is taken compositely and so is false; for its subject is taken as simultaneously having the determination predestined. But if its subject is taken without this de termination, then the proposition is taken in a divided sense and is true. —On the contrary, will those forms which cannot be removed from the subject, it does not matter whether a thing is attributed to the subject will those qualifying determinations or without them. For example, taken either way, the following proposition is false: "A black crow can be white." Now, predestination is the kind of form that can not be removed from the one predestined. In the matter at hand, there fore, there is no room for the afore-mentioned distinction.
9. If what is eternal be joined to what is temporal and contingent, then the whole is temporal and contingent. Thus, it is clear that creation is temporal, even though its notion includes God’s eternal essence as well as a temporal effect. The same is true of a divine mission, which implies an eternal procession and a temporal effect. Now, even though predestination implies something eternal, it also implies a temporal effect. Therefore, predestination as a whole is temporal and contingent and, consequently, does not seem to have certitude.
10. What can be or not be cannot have any certitude. But the fact that God predestines to salvation can be or not be. For just as He can, from all eternity, predestine and not predestine, so even now He can predestine and not predestine, since present, past, and future do not differ in eternity. Consequently, predestination cannot have any certitude.
To the Contrary:
1'. In explanation of that verse in the Epistle to the Romans (8:29), "Whom he foreknew, he also predestined," the Gloss says: "Predestination is the foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits of God by which whoever are freed are most certainly freed."
2’. If the truth of a thing is unshakable, it must be certain. But, as Augustine says: "The truth of predestination is unshakable." There fore, predestination is certain.
3’. Whoever is predestined has this predestination from all eternity. But what exists from all eternity cannot be changed. Predestination, therefore, is unchangeable and, consequently, certain.
4’. As is clear from the Gloss mentioned above, predestination includes foreknowledge. But, as Boethius has proved, foreknowledge is certain. Therefore, predestination is also certain.
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