PREDESTINATION
378
PREDESTINATION
diet had cost him dearly, to burn his writings mth his
own hand, and silenced him by imprisoning him
for life in the monastery of Hautvilliers near Reims.
At the present time, however, scholars, because of
two extant professions of faith (P. L., CXXI, 3-47
sq.), are inclined to free the eccentric and obscure
GottschaLk from the charge of heresy, and to in-
terpret in an orthodox sense his ambiguous teaching
on "double predestination" {gemina prwdeslinatio) .
It was an unhappy thought of Hincmar to ask the
pantheistic John Scotus Eriugena to write a refutation
of Gottschalk, as this only served to sharpen the con-
troversy. To the great sorrow of Charles the Bald
the whole western part of the Frankish Empire re-
sounded with the disputes of bishops, theologians,
and even of some synods. The Canons of the Pro-
vincial Synod of Valence (855) may be taken as an
expression of the then prevailing views on this sub-
ject; they emphasize the fact that God has merely
foreseen from eternity and not foreordained the sins
of the reprobate, although it remains true that in
consequence of their foreseen demerits he has de-
creed from eternity the eternal punishment of hell
(cf. Denzinger, loc. cit., nn. 320-25). It was es-
sentially on this basis that the bishops of fourteen
ecclesiastical pro\'inces finally came to an agreement
and made peace in the Synod of Tousy held in 860
(cf. Schrors, "Hinkmar von Reims", 66 sq., Freiburg,
1884). The teaching of tlie Middle Ages is generally
characterized on the one hand by the repudiation of
positive reprobation for hell and of predestination for
sin, on the other by the assertion of Divine predestina-
tion of the elect for heaven and the co-operation of
free will; this teaching was only for a short time ob-
scured by Thomas Bradwardine, and the so-called
precursors of the Reformation (Wyclif, Hus, Jerome
of Prague, John Wesel).
IV. The Refgrm.^tion. — Heretical Predestinari- anism received a new and vigorous impulse at the outbreak of the Reformation. Luther having denied the freedom of the -will in sinful man as also freedom in the use of grace, logically placed the eternal destiny of the inchvidual solelj- and entirely in the hands of God, who without any regard to merit or demerit metes out heaven or hell just as He pleases. Zwingli endeavoured to obviate the grave consequences that this principle necessarily produces in the moral order by the vain excuse that "just as God incited the robber to commit murder, so also He forces the judge to impose the penalty of death on the murderer" (De provid. Dei, in "Opera", ed. Schuler, IV, 113). Rlelanchthon taught expressly that the treason of Judas was just as much the work of God as was the vocation of St. Paul (cf. Trident., Sess. VI, can. vi, in Denzinger, n. 816). Calvin is the most logical ad- vocate of Predestinarianism pure and simple. Ab- solute and positive predestination of the elect for eternal life, as well as of the reprobate for hell and for sin, is one of the chief elements of his whole doc- trinal system and is closely connected with the all- pervading thought of "the glory of God". Strongly religious by nature and with an instinct for sys- tematizing, but also with a harsh unyielding character, Calvin was the first to weave the scattered threads which he thought he had foimd in St. Paul, St. Augustine, Wyclif, Luther, and Bucer, into a strong network which enveloped his entire system of prac- tical and theoretical Christianity. Thus he became in fact the systematizer of the dread doctrine of pre- destination. Although Calvin does not deny that man had free will in paradise, still he traces back the fall of Adam to an absolute and positive decree of God (Instit., I, 15,8; 111,23,8).
Original sin completely destroyed the freedom of will in fallen man; nevertheless, it is not the motive of the decretum horribile, as he himself calls the de- cree or reprobation. Calvin is an uncompromising
Supralapsarian. God for His own glorification, and
without any regard to original sin, has created some
as "vessels of mercy", others as "vessels of wrath".
Those created for hell He has also predestined for
sin, and whatever faith and righteousness they may
exhibit are at most only apparent, since all graces
and means of salvation are efficacious only in those
predestined for heaven. The Jansenistic doctrine on
redemption and grace in its principal features is not
essentially different from Calvinism. The unbear-
able harshness and cruelty of this system led to a
reaction among the better-minded Cah-inists, who
dreaded setting the "glory of God" above hia
sanctity. Even on so strictly Calvinistic a soil as
Holland, Infralapsarianism, i. e. the connexion of
reprobation with original sin, gained ground. Eng-
land also refused to adhere to the strictly Calvinistic
Lambeth Articles (1595), although in later years their
essential features were embodied in the famous
Westminster Confession of 1647, which was so stren-
uously defended by the English Puritans. On the
other hand the Presbyterian Church in the United
States has endeavoured to mitigate the undeniable
harshness of Calvinism in its revision of its Con-
fession in Way, 1903, in which it also emphasizes
the universality of the Divine love and even does not
deny the salvation of children who die in infancy.
Besides works already quoted, cf. Weizsacker, Das Dogma von der gottlichen Vorkerbestimmung im 9. Jahrhundert in Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theotogie (1S59), 527 sq.; Dieckhoff, Zur Lehre von der Bekehrung und von der Prddestijiation (Rostock, 1S83): Jacquin, La question de la predestination au V' et VI^ siecle in Revue de I'histoire ecc/esia^figue (1904), 265 sq., 725 sq.; (1906), 269 sq. Kostlix, Luthers Theologie (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1901): Dieckhoff, Der missourische Prdde^tinianismua und die ConcoTdienformel (Rostock, 1S85) ; Scheibe, Calvins PrddestinationslehTe (Halle, 1897); van Oppexraaij, La pre- destination de Veglise riformie des Fays-Bas (Louvain. 1906); MtJLLER, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirchen, B. V. Erwdhlung (Leipzig, 1903) ; for further references see RealencyklopSdie fur prot. TheoL, XV, 586 sq. (Leipzig, 1904); GRI8AR, Luther, I (Freiburg, 1911). 149 sq.
J. POHLE.
Predestination (Lat. pro-, deslinare), taken in its widest meaning, is every Divine decree bj' which God, owing to His infallible prescience of the future, has appointed and ordained from eternity all events occur- ring in time, especially those which directly proceed from, or at least are influenced by, man's free will. It includes all historical facts, as for instance the appear- ance of Napoleon or the foundation of the United States, and particularly the turning-points in the his- tory of supernatural salvation, as the mission of Moses and the Prophets, or the election of Mary to the Divine Motherhood. Taken in this general sense, predestina- tion clearly coincides with Divine Pro\'idence and ■with the government of the world, which do not fall within the scojje of this article (see Providexce, Divixe).
I. Notion of Predestinatiox. — Theology re- stricts the term to those Divine decrees which have reference to the supernatural end of rational beings, especially of man. Considering that not all men reach their supernatural end in heaven, but that many are eternally lost through their own fault, there must exist a twofold predestination : (a) one to heaven for all those who die in the state of grace; (b) one to the pains of hell for all those who depart in sin or under God's dis- pleasure. However, according to present usage, to which we shall adhere in the course of the article, it is better to call the latter decree the Divine "reproba- tion", so that the term predestination is reserved for the Divine decree of the happiness of the elect.
A. The notion of predestination comprises two essential elements: God's infallible foreknowledge iprcescientia), and His immutable decree (decretum) of eternal liappiness. The theologian who, following in the footsteps of the Pelagians, would limit the Divine activity to the eternal foreknowledge and exclude the Divine will, would at once fall into Deism (q. v.), which asserts that God, having created all things,
