Grace, Free Will, and Predestination

By Fr. Geo Horton

In writing this article, I have attempted to present as clearly as possible an
introduction to the teachings of the Catholic Church on grace, free will, and pre-
destination. Nevertheless, what I write does not in any way constitute an ocial
statement of Catholic doctrine. Where possible and helpful, I have given refer-
ences to ocial Catholic sources.
Modern Confusions
Many people, within the Catholic Church and without, do not understand the
Churchs teachings on Gods grace and human free will. In part, thats because
these teachings touch on some of the most fundamental theological questions, and
because there are points on which the Church has not yet seen t to take a rm and
denite position.
But misunderstandings of the Church's teachings also result from two related
confusions stemming from Martin Luthers original errors on grace and free will.
These confusions have become so widespread in Western thought that many Cath-
olics tacitly and unthinkingly accept them, returning without knowing it to ancient
errors in an eort to refute relatively recent Protestant errors.
These confusions are:
:. Grace is something that acts only outside the person. In other words, when
God acts on us, He does so only by pushing us around, so to speak. This
leads to ...
z. The opposition between God and manthe idea that the more God is God,
the less man is man. Pope Benedict XVI has spoken about this error repeat-
edly, such as in his zoo6 homily of the Feast of the Assumption:
It was thought and believed that by setting God aside and be-
ing autonomous, following only our own ideas and inclinations,
we would truly be free to do whatever we liked without anyone
being able to give us orders.
But when God disappears, men and women do not become
greater; indeed, they lose the divine dignity, their faces lose God's
splendor. In the end, they turn out to be merely products of a blind
:
evolution and, as such, can be used and abused. This is precisely
what the experience of our epoch has conrmed for us.
Only if God is great is humankind also great. With Mary, we
must begin to understand that this is so. We must not drift away
from God but make God present; we must ensure that he is great
in our lives. Thus, we too will become divine; all the splendor of
the divine dignity will then be ours. Let us apply this to our own
lives.
It is important that God be great among us, in public and in
private life.
In the remainder of this article, I will attempt to explain the range of Catholic
teachings on grace and free will, concluding with a re-examination of the above
confusions in light of that teaching.
z What are Grace and Free Will?
Grace in general is a supernatural gift of God for the sake of the salvation of men.
Grace is divided into habitual (sanctifying) grace and actual grace. The interaction
between grace and free will is a question of actual grace, which can be dened as:
Interior aids that God gives us to help us achieve salvation. Grace (of any sort)
is always unearned by the one who receives it.
:
The term free will can mean several things. Here, I will speak of free will as
the ability of a person to make choices without compulsion.
The term justication here means not simply the remission of sins, but also
both the sanctication and renewal of the inner man ... from which a man once
unjust becomes just, once an enemy becomes a friend [of God], so that he may
be an heir according to the hope of eternal life.
z
Broadly speaking, this means
justication is the act by which we are brought into a right relationship with God
by an inner transformation.
The term Original Sin refers to the sin of Adam in Genesis j, by which he
forfeited that holiness and justice in which he had been constituted and became
:
Habitual grace is the abiding presence of God in the human soul, which is necessary for sal-
vation. It is normally received in baptism, and if lost, it can be restored through the sacrament of
penance.
z
Cf. ND:ojz. See the References section for an explanation of abbreviations used in references.
z
subject to death.
j
The eects of this sin are inherited by all of humanity.

j Grace is Absolutely Necessary for Salvation

j. Pelagius and Pelagians
In the rst few centuries of the Church, the issue of the interaction between grace
and free will was not much discussed. Everyone, or nearly everyone, believed that
actual grace of some sort is necessary for salvation. Likewise, everyone, or nearly
everyone, believed that men are able to choose to follow God or not to follow
God, and are responsible for their choices. Not much attention was paid to the
details, perhaps because issues of Christology (what does it mean for Jesus to be
fully divine and fully human?) and Trinitarian theology (how can there be three
Persons in one God?) drew most of the attention.
The issues surrounding free will and grace came to prominence around the
beginning of the fth century ..r., in the light of the writings of a man named
Pelagius. Not much is known about him; he appears to have come from the British
Isles, though sources disagree on whether he was actually a Briton, or from Scot-
land or Ireland. Whatever his origin, he made his way to Rome, where by all
accounts he led an uprightindeed, quite morally strictlife.
Nevertheless, in the realm of theology, his reach exceeded his grasp, and he
began to teach an heretical theory that made grace unnecessary. Pelagius took a
statement that is true as far as it goesmen have free willand made it an abso-
lute, to the point of denying other true statements. Anything that impinged upon
the freedom of the will as he understood it was wrong. He wanted to emphasize
each mans responsibility for his own sins. In the process, however, he also made
each man responsible for his own salvation, denying that any divine assistance
(grace) is needed for someone to be saved.
His most prominent disciple was a man named Caeletius, who attracted atten-
tion to himself, and therefore to Pelagius, when he sought ordination in Northern
Africa. A great debate ensued, in which St. Augustine was perhaps the leader of
those who defended the orthodox faith. A series of councils met in Carthage
=
to
discuss the matter, each time deciding against Pelagius. Each time, those who
followed Pelagius refused to submit to the councils and sought another judgment.
j
Cf. ND =o8.

Cf. ND =oo.
=
In northern Africa, in what is now Libya.
j
When appealed to, the Holy See agreed with the councils, but this did not stop the
Pelagians from re-asserting their case.
The sixteenth Council of Carthage met in the year :8, and rejected as erro-
neous the following statements:
6
:. The death of Adam was not a punishment for Original Sin;
z. Infants do not suer from Original Sin and do not need to be baptized;
j. The grace of God through which man is justied through Jesus Christ our
Lord serves only for the remission of sins already committed, and is not also
a help not to commit them;
. The grace of God helps us to avoid sin only because it gives us a better
knowledge of the commandments and not because it gives us the love and
the strength to follow them;
=. Grace is given to us so that we can follow the commandments more easily,
but it is not strictly necessary;
6. When we say we sin (e.g., in the Our Father or in : John ::8), we speak only
in humility and not in truth.
Recall that the above is a list of errors.
j.z More on Extrinsic Grace
I said above that Pelagiuss basic error was to make free will an absolute, but the
consequences of his error are also important. To arrive at his conclusions, he had
to assume that all grace is extrinsic grace, always acting upon the soul from the
outside and never actually changing it. To Pelagius, grace was performative (it
does something) but not transformative (it doesnt change the recipient).
The Fathers of the Church who preceded Pelagius did not write formal treatises
on grace, but the view which informed their writings saw grace as elevating the
person who receives it. The Christian is incorporated into Christ in Baptism, and
so can be raised up in dignity with Christ as an adopted son of the Father.

This
6
ND =o:, =::, :oo::oo6.

Christ is the natural Son of the Father.

is a true change in the person who receives it, a change which the Fathers did not
hesitate to call divinization: a change by which the recipient is made like God.
8
The denial of the intrinsic activity of grace would later resurface with Martin
Luther.
St. Augustine, the Doctor of Grace
St. Augustine was Pelagiuss strongest opponent, and a fair share of his volumi-
nous writings is devoted to refuting Pelagiuss arguments. In refuting Pelagius, St.
Augustine laid out the groundwork for the modern Catholic doctrine of grace; for
this reason, he is known as the Doctor (Teacher) of Grace.
It should be noted that St. Augustines theory was not complete. In particular,
since he was concerned with refuting an excessive emphasis on free will, he does
not spend much time arming truths about it. Augustinian scholars will probably
never agree on his exact position and whether it changed over the course of his
life. Nevertheless, no one in the West who has written on grace in the past :6oo
years can escape his inuence, and that inuence is far more for good than for
ill. Whatever he might have neglected or overstated, St. Augustine explored the
question of grace and free will so thoroughly and prayerfully that the basics of his
model stand essentially unchallenged to the present day.
So what did he teach? His teaching can be broken down into seven points
(remember that the following is a list of true statements):
:. What mankind is now, is the result of Original Sin. The Fall of Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden damaged our free will (damaged, not destroyed),
so that it is no longer free in the truest sense. We are still able to make moral
choices, but we are unable to make good moral choices consistently. Our
wills are never free from the inuence of sin. We know the right thing to do,
but fail to do it. (See Rom. ::=-zo.)
z. The grace of Christ restores true human liberty. God infuses the soul with
His own charity, so that the will not only loves the good and chooses it, but
also actually does it.
8
To fend o a potential error, I should note that God cannot make us like Himself in every
respect. For example, only He is eternal, innite, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Divinization
makes us like God insofar as it is possible for a created being to be like Him.
=
j. The works of unbelievers are sins in a very technical sense. They are not
necessarily morally wrong acts done in full knowledge and responsibility,
and they do not earn the wrath of God.
o
But even the morally good acts
of unbelievers are motivated by something other than divine charity, and
therefore are not able to please God. It is not possible to get to Heaven
simply by being good. Getting to Heaven always requires grace.
. Saving faith is a grace. In other words, we cannot take credit for the fact that
we have faith in Jesus Christ. Our very belief is a gift from God, a gift we
did not earn and do not in any way deserve on our own.
=. Baptism truly transforms the soul by introducing charity (the divine life of
God) into it.
6. Even after justication, man needs graces to persevere in grace, to excite the
love of God in the will, and to aid the will in loving God.
. The grace of nal perseverancethat is, the gift of dying in a state of grace,
able to enter Heavenis always an unmerited gift. This last point enters into
the mystery of predestination, to be covered below.
The Semi-Pelagians
Several people (including canonized saints such as St. Hilary of Arles and St. Vin-
cent of Lerins) were concerned that St. Augustine had gone too far in his doctrine
of grace, losing free will in the process. In response to this concern, they held that
the human will was able to take the rst step toward God without the aid of grace.
God may give graces to assist in the initial conversion, but they are not necessary.
St. Augustine disagreed, saying that this leads back to Pelagianism. The doctrine
that the human will can make the rst step of conversion without the assistance of
grace is known as Semi-Pelagianism.
The dispute continued to simmer into the early Sixth Century. In =zo, a local
council met at Orange, in southern France. Although this council was not an ec-
umenical council in the fullest sense, its decrees were approved by Pope Boniface
II and are regarded as denitive doctrinal statements. The positions this council
repudiated were:
:o
o
See ND :o= for Canon VII of the 6th session of the Council of Trent, where this idea is
repudiated.
:o
ND, :o:=:ozo.
6
:. Grace is conferred because of human prayer, and it is not grace that prompts
us to pray (see Rom. :o:zo and Isa. 6=::);
z. The desire to be cleansed from sin is not itself an action of the Holy Spirit;
j. The desire of faith, its beginning, and its increase, stem from our own nature
and not from a gift of grace;
. Mercy is conferred on us through our own eorts and not by the infusion of
the Holy Spirit (see : Cor. : and : Cor. :=::o);
=. It is possible to choose those things needed for salvation without the Holy
Spirit (see John :=:= and z Cor. j:=);
6. Some come to baptism by Gods mercy, but others by their own free will.
Note again that the above list is a list of errors, not a list of true statements.
Though semi-Pelagianism was condemned, the concerns of prominent teach-
ers over St. Augustines phrasing (if not his precise position) suced to keep the
importance of free will alive in Catholic thought.
6 Predestination, Round I
The absolute necessity of grace leads to an immediate and pressing question: If
the grace of God is absolutely necessary for salvation, how is it that some are
not saved?
::
The answer lies in the idea of predestination: God, in His innite
knowledge and justice, calls only some to salvation, while giving grace sucient
for salvation to all. Predestination of some sort is scriptural (see Rom. 8:jo), and
must be based upon the choice of God (see Eph. ::). But how does God choose?
St. Augustine placed the answer solely in the providence of God. God oers
enough grace to all so that no one can claim he did not receive enough to grace to
convert had he wished to do so, but God does not oer everyone enough grace (or
grace of the right sortsee below for a discussion of sucient grace and eca-
cious grace) to convert. Please note that under this model, someone who does not
convert has freely chosen not to do so and is therefore responsible for his choice.
Note also that the person who does convert does so by his own choice; the grace
of conversion (under this model) moves the will, but moves it freely. How is this
::
The doctrine of universal salvation was rejected around the time of Origen, in the Third Century
..r.

possible? St. Augustine wrote of the delectatio victrix, the conquering delight of
the will. God presents some souls with the knowledge of such goodness that they
will freely but certainly choose the good, just as a child (at least most children)
will reliably accept an oer of a piece of candy unless hes just eaten his absolute
ll.
St. Augustines answer remained the standard for the better part of a millen-
nium. St. Thomas Aquinas adopted most of it in the Thirteenth Century in his great
Summa Theologica (First part, Question zj). St. Thomas did reject the conquer-
ing delight theory; his own theory is too complex to discuss here. Interested (and
motivated) readers can refer to him for a fuller treatment of the question.
The Rise of Protestantism
The reasons for the birth and growth of Protestantism in the Sixteenth Century
are many and varied. The reason pertinent to the present discussion is the percep-
tion that Catholicism was teaching works-based salvation: a believer can earn his
salvation through the performance of good works without relying on grace.
The Council of Orange and its aftermath had made it clear that Catholicism
rmly rejects Pelagianism. To what extent the practices of the Church, or some of
her members, were not in line with the ocial teaching is outside the scope of this
work. Suce to say that it seemed plausible to some that the Church was Pelagian
after all.
When the would-be reformers searched the Churchs history for a refutation of
Pelagianism, they of course found St. Augustines writings, and took the teachings
they found there to an extreme. Pelagians made the mistake of arming freedom
of the will in a way that destroyed the necessity of grace; the new opponents of
Catholicism would arm the primacy of grace in a way that destroyed free will.
For Luther, Original Sin meant that the human will could never be free. Either
the devil would drive the will, or Christ would drive it. Since the will could never
freely choose Christ, it must be the action of grace alone that brings about conver-
sion, without engaging the will at all. John Calvin
:z
followed this train of thought
to a conclusion known as double predestination: God actively predestines the
Elect to Heaven and the non-elect to Hell. In other words, God wills directly that
some go to Hell and causes them to do so. Some Calvinists went so far as to say
that God willed people to sin.
:z
Or his followersdiscussions over what Calvin meant are almost as endless as discussions
over what St. Augustine meant.
8
8 The Council of Trent
The Council of Trent met o and on from :== to :=6.
:j
Its chief goal was to
clarify the teachings of the Catholic Church in response to Protestant challenges.
The Council took great care not to end open arguments within the Catholic Church.
Where multiple schools of thought, each clearly intending to followthe mind of the
Church, held dierent or opposing views on a point under discussion, the Council
conned itself to stating those propositions to which all parties could agree. Since
the questions of grace and free will had never quite gone away, the Council was at
pains not to pin the Church down to a position that overstated what was known to
be part of the faith.
In its fth session, the Council again repudiated the Pelagian position on Orig-
inal Sin, condemning the propositions:
:. That death was not the punishment for Adams sin;
z. That Original Sin is not transmitted to all descendants of Adam;
j. That Original Sin can be taken away by means other than the merit of Jesus
Christ;
. That infants ought not to be baptized.
At the same session, the Council condemned the Protestant proposition that
baptism does not remove the guilt of Original Sin, but only ceases to have it im-
puted.
In its sixth session, the Council then turned its attention to the role of grace
and free will in bringing about salvation.
:
Canons IIII all deal with Pelagianism, rearming the Churchs repudiation
of the idea that grace is unnecessary for justication. Canons IVV deal with the
reverse error, an error that was becoming prevalent in Protestant circles, the idea
that free will was destroyed in the Fall and has no role to play in justication. Canon
IX refutes the error that cooperation with grace is not required for justication.
Canon XI deserves more discussion, striking as it does at the heart of the dif-
ference between Luthers position and that of the Church:
:j
The city of Trent is in northern Italy. The council met at times in a few other places, but the
bulk of its work was done in Trent.
:
The canons on dealing with grace and free will can be found in ND, :o=::o==, :o=o, :o6:,
:o6=:o6.
o
If anyone should say that men are justied either solely by the im-
putation of the justice of Christ or by the remission of sins alone, to
the exclusion of grace and charity poured into their hearts by the Holy
Spirit and remaining in them, or that the grace by which we are justi-
ed is only the favor of God, anathema sit.
:=
Recall the discussion above of Pelagiuss error that saw grace simply as per-
formative (causing things to happen) and not as transformative (changing the re-
cipient). Luther seems to have shared this error. He taught that justication was
simply the remission of sins and the imputation of the justice of Christimagine
a blanket (the justice of Christ) covering our sinful nature so that God does not see
it. The canon above says that this is not what happens. God pours His very life
(grace and charity) into the hearts of the justied, and it remains there unless it
is lost through mortal sin.
:6
We are not justied simply because God looks at us
favorably, but because Gods grace produces a change in us that really makes us
pleasing to Him.
This implies that the transformation of a justied man includes the transforma-
tion of his free will. He is able to will and to do things that are pleasing to God
because they proceed from the supernatural grace and charity that has been poured
into his soul rather than from merely human motives.
The Council did not address questions concerning the hows and whys of pre-
destination. It contented itself with repudiating the idea that a person can know
for certain that he is among the elect by any means other than a special revelation
from God. In other words, simply having been baptized and therefore justied
:
is
not sucient to assure a person of salvation, nor is any subjective experience of
felt assurance.
u Predestination, Round II
Trent marked o the limits in which any further discussion of grace and free will
must take place: The primacy and necessity of grace cannot be denied, nor can the
existence and action of free will.
:=
The term anathema sit indicates a formal repudiation of a proposition.
:6
Should that happen, it can be restored through the sacrament of Penance.
:
Assuming the sacrament was received with true repentance and intention of amendment, if it
was received by an adult.
:o
Perhaps in response to Protestant denials of free will, some Catholic theolo-
gians began to revisit the question of the role of free will, asking whether the solu-
tion proposed by St. Thomas gave it sucient importance. The Jesuits in particular
took the lead in developing a theory which gave free will a greater role. The man
most prominent in developing this theory was named Luis de Molina, from whose
name the system took its own name, Molinism.
Both the Thomistic theory and the Molinist theory are complex, but their chief
dierences can be summarized by looking at two areas: the treatment of sucient
grace as opposed to ecacious grace, and whether Gods election (selection) of
those to be saved is based strictly on the divine will or on some form of knowledge
of the future choices of each person who receives grace.
Both systems agree (against the fourth condemned Jansenist proposition listed
below) that God desires the salvation of all and therefore gives grace to all to
achieve salvation.
:8
They also agree that not all who are oered grace for sal-
vation are in fact saved. This means that some grace is ecacious, bringing about
its desired end; and some is merely sucient so that the desired end could have
been achieved had its recipient so chosen.
Thomists hold that ecacious grace and sucient grace are two dierent types
of grace. Gods election is not based on any foreknowledge of the merits of the ones
who receive grace; a real distinction between the two kinds of grace follows from
this, as those who are elected for salvation all receive ecacious grace, and those
not elected for salvationwho, note well, freely choose not to be savedreceive
only sucient grace.
Molinists hold that the dierence between ecacious grace and sucient grace
is in name only, depending on the response of the one who receives it. They pos-
tulate a middle knowledge by which God knows in advance (so to speak; God's
knowledge transcends time) how each person will respond to the grace oered
to him. Those who respond positively are elected for salvation, and for them the
grace was ecacious. Those who respond negatively are not elected for salva-
tion (freely choosing the acts that lead to their condemnation); they were oered
the same kind of grace as those who are saved, but to no eect, making the grace
merely sucient.
As the Molinist theory came to prominence, the Dominican Order (defending
the teaching of St. Thomas, himself a Dominican) claimed that Molinism was just
Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism under a new name. The Molinists claimed that
the Thomistic teaching was essentially Calvinist. The debate grew so heated that
:8
See Ott zj8zz for further discussion.
::
representatives of both parties were summoned to Rome to present their respective
cases.
The commission assembled to study the issue was known as the Congregatio de
Auxiliis, the Congregation (or Committee, as we might now put it) on Assistances,
the assistances in question being the help given by grace to the justied in bringing
about their justication. The Congregation met at intervals over the span of twenty
years without being able to reach a conclusion. Finally, Pope Paul Vruled that both
theories are within the realm of orthodox teaching and ordered that proponents of
each theory stop calling the opposing side heretical. For good measure, and to
put a stop to the arguing for a time, the Holy See forbade the publication of books
dealing with the topic of ecacious grace.
:o
o Jansenism
Jansenismarose fromthe writings of a Catholic Dutch theologian named Cornelius
Jansen (Jansenius, in its Latin form), who spent the later years of his life working on
a book which would, he hoped, explain St. Augustines theological system. Jansen
died in :6j8, and his book, entitled Augustinus, was published posthumously.
The publication of Augustinus set o a storm of controversy. To follow that
controversy in any depth would be far beyond the realm of this article. Here, it is
sucient to note that after much study and debate, Pope Innocent X condemned
the following propositions attributed to followers of the Jansenist movement:
zo
:. Even the just cannot observe some of Gods commandments because they
do not have enough grace;
z. Interior grace can never be resisted by fallen nature (that is to say, the will
can never refuse God);
j. That the error of the Semi-Pelagians was not the denial of the need for grace
even for initial conversion, but that they held it was possible to resist this
grace.
:o
This provision later lapsed. Even while it was in force, it was often circumvented, but it did
have its desired eect of toning down the level of inammatory rhetoric.
zo
ND :o8o/:, z, , =.
:z
. That it is Semi-Pelagian to say that Christ died for all men without excep-
tion.
z:
The controversy continued as the Jansenists attempted to shift their ground,
getting into details that again are not pertinent to this article. The Jansenist theories
are radically opposed to Molinism, so the Jansenists and Jesuits were bitter enemies
for much of the eective lifetime of Jansenism.
The Current State of the Question
Various attempts have been made to modify the Thomistic theory and the Molinist
theory to address the objections made to each; the Congruist theory in particular
is prominent in attempting to give to Molinism a greater appreciation of the force
of the divine will and grace. Cogent objections can be raised against each of these
systems, and the Holy See has not deemed it prudent to end the discussion.
Nevertheless, and despite the continuing discussions, it is clear that the
Catholic doctrine of grace is opposed to the two points listed in the introduction
of this article.
:. While some graces are indeed extrinsic to the person, there is also such a
thing as a transformative grace. St. Thomas Aquinas put it thus: Grace
does not destroy nature, but perfects it. By perfecting our fallen nature,
God truly transforms us and gives us the ability to please Him through His
grace dwelling within us.
z. Since the divine action perfects our human nature, God does not make us
less human with His gifts of grace. Quite the oppositewe are able to reach
a level of human perfection far beyond anything we could reach on our own.
z Acknowledgments
Thanks to my friends at Defenders of the Catholic Faith and Fr. Bryan Jerabek for
reviewing various versions of this article. Needless to say, any mistakes remaining
are my responsibility, not theirs.
z:
As noted above, God oers grace for salvation to everyone; if this were not so, some people
would be condemned to Hell without ever having had a chance to choose otherwise.
:j
For the sake of full disclosure, let me state that I am more and more convinced
that St. Thomas and his followers are correct. I hope this has not made my presen-
tation of other points of view inadequate or unfair.
j References and Further Reading
References to ND with a number are references to The Christian Faith in the
Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, th ed., Josef Neuner S.J. and
Jacques Dupuis S.J., ed. Jacques Dupuis; New York: Alba House, zoo:.
References to Ott are references to Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Lud-
wig Ott, tr. James Canon Bastible, D.D; Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers,
Inc., :o.
Readers who are interested in a deeper discussion of these issues and are pre-
pared to grapple with more technical language might wish to read:
Predestination, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. This book presents the
Thomist view.
Grace: Habitual and Actual, Fr. Joseph Pohle, tr. and ed. Arthur Preuss. This
book is not for the faint of heart, as the authors expected their readers to know
a substantial amount of Latin, a fair amount of Greek, and a touch of Hebrew.
The book can be read with prot without knowing any of those languages, but the
reader may have to skip some of the ner details. The authors attempted to be fair
in their discussion of predestination and related topics, but they admitted to nding
the Thomistic theory inadequate, preferring Congruism instead.
: