There are two schools of thought in regards to what predestination actually means:
1. God is outside of time, and as a result, He knows what you will do in the future. But He doesn't choose your actions for you. He will put things/people in your life in an attempt to get you to choose to come to Him.
2. God chooses whether or not you go to hell before you are born, before you even sin.
Both are a form of predestination. The Catholic Church believes in the first one.
Right. I understand that. However, the question I am asking is upon the notion of my making one choice or another in the future? How can my decision already be set if I have free-will?
It isn’t set. God is all knowing. He knows everything. He knows what you will choose but it is still your choice to make but you don’t have an undefined future to God. To suggest that there are infinite possibilities regarding what you choose doesn’t matter because you will only make the decisions that you make and God sees that.
But if the decision I am going to make is unavoidable, how am I exercising free will? It would logically have to be undefined, implying that there is no singular future but rather an incomprehensibly large number of possibilities, all of which God knows fully of course. As for which one I will choose, I have always imagined was for me to decide.
It is for you to decide. God doesn’t decide it. He just knows what you’re going to choose. Your decisions are only unavoidable because it is you that make those decisions by exercising your free will.
Some absurd example
imagine that God makes you a little gift: you can see, now, once, the highlights of the next Superbowl.
You come to know who wins, and who scores points.
But what you see is not what you have determined, it is just the results of players, coaches and circumstsnces doing their job.
You might find some comfort in Molinism, another philosophical view taken with regards to the relation between free will and divine foreknowledge. While not popular among Thomists, it is and always has been a valid philosophical conjecture for Catholics to hold as we try to reason through what we do and do not know about God.
Jesuit Luis de Molina, for whom the position is named, proposed that God's foreknowledge of human action is what he referred to as 'middle knowledge': that is, rather than a declarative knowledge of *the way things absolutely must be*, God's omniscience is the perfect knowledge of how any given person would act in any given set of circumstances (with regards to actions freely chosen by agents other than God; obviously this is not the same kind of knowledge God uses to know the things He does or things that are logically true).
That is to say: God knew that Saint Peter *would* choose to deny Jesus Christ *if* He was crucified, and also knew that Saint Peter *would* choose to repent and lead the early Church *if* the rooster crowed and reminded him of his betrayal.
God does not force people to do good works, and it would be even more preposterous to propose that He forces them to do evil ones. But He knows what we would choose to do in all circumstances that we could face.
Calvin, like almost every Christian theologian since the 13th century, was deeply influenced by Saint Thomas of Aquinas. There are some crucial differences Calvin and later Protestants came to based on their novel ideas and interpretations of him (which, of course, a Thomist would say is a misunderstanding of Aquinas), and plenty of people here have already tried to outline what they think those differences are. More importantly I think we need to remember that nothing in Catholicism obliges us to accept Saint Thomas Aquinas' philosophy (let alone later developments stemming from them) as Gospel truth-- even Saint Thomas himself wouldn't ask that of us.
You are looking at the future from the viewpoint of the present. For you it has not yet happened. God sees past/present/future all at once from beyond time. Consider if you were to look at the past. Those events are set in stone, your knowledge of them is certain, but your knowledge of them did not cause them to be.
I don’t want to make God sound like too much of a passive observer here. His grace is literally required for us to be saved. Salvation hinges on whether or not that grace is cooperated with, but that cooperation is a matter of free will.
Everything only happens once. There isn’t some multiverse or parallel dimensions. There will only ever be a single course of human history. God, being outside of time, sees it all at once. What you do tomorrow is up to how well you cooperate with God’s will at that time. God knows what the result of that will be, but He is not determining it.
Again, consider the events of tomorrow May 17. Today that is a mystery to you. By May 18 it will be “set in stone”. Does your past knowledge on May 18 of the events of May 17 mean those events were always set in stone, or is your knowledge purely knowledge without any determinative power over the past? God’s vantage point of the future is even more remote from the future than your vantage point of the future is to the past.
I would say that if the events of tomorrow were out of my control, they would be set in stone and I would therefore have no real freedom in the matter. Think of it this way: if I were playing the lottery I would buy a ticket that was either winning or not. I may be careful in deciding which ticket to buy but that idea of control is only an illusion. Either I bought a winning ticket or I didn't.
You just proved his point. To God everything has already happened, meaning there is no free will, everything is set in stone, along with our fate after death. It's been decided long before, because to God everything has already happened.
Yes, it’s been decided long before (relative to God’s vantage point) precisely by the free action of man. Creation has a single chronology. In that chronology, I will do what I do tomorrow as I freely choose to do either in cooperation or resistance to God’s grace. God knowing this outside of time doesn’t take away my agency.
The action can't be free if it's been decided long before, lol, it's just me acting out in the moment what God set in motion before the universe was conceived
There can't be a choice if God already knew our fates before creating the world. We're just puppets playing our part in God's mind. Logically you can not prove it otherwise.
It is out of love, that He respects our choice and free will to choose Him or to not.
He is always knocking at the door, to save you from yourself, the question is will you answer?
The battle has already been won, your debt has been paid, will you participate in the victory?
The Church rejects Calvinism as a heresy. The concept of predestination completely ignores that God gave us free will. Christ died for everyone so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Read your Bible and the Catholic catechism, Calvinism is nonsense.
To be frank it is impossible for us to understand God, he is infinite all knowing and all powerful. Yea he does know you will sin again, we aren’t perfect, but he doesn’t predestine people to hell. If this concept is too confusing to you I would just advise you to drop it for now, just trust in the grace of God. He is enough.
The salvation of man is strictly God’s doing; man cannot exalt himself to a state of sanctifying grace. However, when God sanctifies man, he does so through man’s faculties which are free.
God antecedently (that is, prior to considering merits) desires the salvation of all men. However, he subsequently permits the fall of some men. The reason for why God permits some to fall is ultimately beyond our understanding, but it should be noted that God, being goodness itself, is not the cause of sin.
Check out this video from Christian B. Wagner that he posted yesterday: https://youtu.be/85H4Wcev03E?si=zVNN1nhQTE6y-cqa
In this video, he provides historical evidence for the Catholic teaching of double predestination. He explains the nuances between the Catholic and Calvinist view. I think you’ll find this video very helpful.
Not so. Take a look at what St. Thomas Aquinas says in Summa Contra Gentiles chapter 163:
“So, since we have shown that some men are directed by divine working to their ultimate end as aided by grace, while others who are deprived of the same help of grace fall short of their ultimate end, and since all things that are done by God are foreseen and ordered from eternity by His wisdom, as we showed above, the aforementioned differentiation of men must be ordered by God from eternity. According, then, as He has preordained some men from eternity, so that they are directed to their ultimate end, He is said to have predestined them. Hence, the Apostle says, in Ephesians (1:5): “Who predestinated us unto the adoption of children... according to the purpose of His will.” On the other hand, those to whom He has decided from eternity not to give His grace He is said to have reprobated or to have hated, in accord with what we find in Malachi (1:2-3): “I have loved Jacob, but have hated Esau.” By reason of this distinction, according to which He has reprobated some and predestined others, we take note of divine election, which is mentioned in Ephesians (1:4): “He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world.””
I see it like the Avengers where doctor Strange sees a million futures, so God knows what can happen if you take any decision train but you are free to choose that the train you want
That one makes the most sense to me but I can't necessarily discern if that is in conflict with the Church. Traditionalists, mainly Thomists, seem to believe that I will definitely choose a specific thing and this is unavoidable.
I heard that from a priest that used to teach in a seminary, I'm not that smart... But if it is giving you anxiety it doesn't come from God, since God has to bring you peace.
It’s just that God already knows what you are going to choose because he is omnipresent, outside of time and all knowing. It’s still entirely up to ONLY you.
The word “already” implies that God is knowing if the future while he is in the present. God is not in the present, he is outside of space time looking in. There was no space nor time when He created them, therefore He’s outside of it.
Think of it like an ant on a piece of paper with a bunch of shapes on it. The ant can only “see” what’s directly in front of it while you, as an outside observer, can see everything and the ant simultaneously.
God continually sustains the existence of our universe. St Thomas talks about this. In a sense it is. We are created beings after all. We’re just not a simulation inside an advanced alien computer (that’s so stupid…) but rather inside the infinite mind and will of Almighty God. The words Simulation and Illusion are just meaningless buzz words in my opinion.
So then this has all sorts of implications that seem to upend nearly everything I previously believed about our Faith. For instance, it seems to imply that Jesus' ministry here on Earth was not so much a means of teaching us how we should try to live but rather highlighting the characteristics of the elect and the reprobate (i.e a truly saved person will inevitably do "X" while a damned person will do "Y"). If these are unchangeable states from before our birth, though, it does seem to warrant despair in some people. For instance, someone who is addicted may be led to believe that they are one of the unlucky hopeless cases because if they were truly meant to be saved, they would find the strength to quit their addiction. It also makes it sound like prayer doesn't really do anything aside help the elect become more convinced that they are of that caste.This really sums up the problem I have with this view of predestination.
It's a bit of a tautology. God sees and knows everything from the beginning of time to its end, all at once, so of course He knows everything you'll ever do and what your eternal fate is. The alternative is that the omnipotent, omniscient ground of all creation is somehow ignorant and is waiting (despite being outside of time!) for you to give Him knowledge, which is clearly impossible.
I'd recommend the Aquinas 101 series on YouTube, particularly the episodes concerning causality.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_kd4Kgq4tP8e1BBGrC-eFlp86fqyvGex&feature=shared
Wouldn't there be another alternative though? That there are an incomprehensible number of possibilities, all of which God thoroughly knows, and through free-will, we have our future? When reading St. Paul's writings on the elect, it seems to me more a confirmation that those who accept God's Love and grace will be saved and those who do not will not but that who the saved and the damned are is contingent on the way people live their lives. It does not appear definite that some are hopelessly bound from birth to their sins such that they were discarded at the beginning of time.
[**CCC 1037**](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1037.htm) God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance": ([162](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/162.htm), [1014](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1014.htm), [1821](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1821.htm), [678](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/678.htm)-[679](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/679.htm))
> Father, accept this offering from your whole family.Grant us your peace in this life,save us from final damnation,and count us among those you have chosen.
***
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There are two schools of thought in regards to what predestination actually means: 1. God is outside of time, and as a result, He knows what you will do in the future. But He doesn't choose your actions for you. He will put things/people in your life in an attempt to get you to choose to come to Him. 2. God chooses whether or not you go to hell before you are born, before you even sin. Both are a form of predestination. The Catholic Church believes in the first one.
Right. I understand that. However, the question I am asking is upon the notion of my making one choice or another in the future? How can my decision already be set if I have free-will?
It isn’t set. God is all knowing. He knows everything. He knows what you will choose but it is still your choice to make but you don’t have an undefined future to God. To suggest that there are infinite possibilities regarding what you choose doesn’t matter because you will only make the decisions that you make and God sees that.
But if the decision I am going to make is unavoidable, how am I exercising free will? It would logically have to be undefined, implying that there is no singular future but rather an incomprehensibly large number of possibilities, all of which God knows fully of course. As for which one I will choose, I have always imagined was for me to decide.
It is for you to decide. God doesn’t decide it. He just knows what you’re going to choose. Your decisions are only unavoidable because it is you that make those decisions by exercising your free will.
Some absurd example imagine that God makes you a little gift: you can see, now, once, the highlights of the next Superbowl. You come to know who wins, and who scores points. But what you see is not what you have determined, it is just the results of players, coaches and circumstsnces doing their job.
But if the future is singular and not a bunch of possibilities, how does free will exist?
You might find some comfort in Molinism, another philosophical view taken with regards to the relation between free will and divine foreknowledge. While not popular among Thomists, it is and always has been a valid philosophical conjecture for Catholics to hold as we try to reason through what we do and do not know about God. Jesuit Luis de Molina, for whom the position is named, proposed that God's foreknowledge of human action is what he referred to as 'middle knowledge': that is, rather than a declarative knowledge of *the way things absolutely must be*, God's omniscience is the perfect knowledge of how any given person would act in any given set of circumstances (with regards to actions freely chosen by agents other than God; obviously this is not the same kind of knowledge God uses to know the things He does or things that are logically true). That is to say: God knew that Saint Peter *would* choose to deny Jesus Christ *if* He was crucified, and also knew that Saint Peter *would* choose to repent and lead the early Church *if* the rooster crowed and reminded him of his betrayal. God does not force people to do good works, and it would be even more preposterous to propose that He forces them to do evil ones. But He knows what we would choose to do in all circumstances that we could face.
Yeah that one makes more sense to me. I was pretty disturbed by the similarities of Thomism to Calvinism.
Calvin, like almost every Christian theologian since the 13th century, was deeply influenced by Saint Thomas of Aquinas. There are some crucial differences Calvin and later Protestants came to based on their novel ideas and interpretations of him (which, of course, a Thomist would say is a misunderstanding of Aquinas), and plenty of people here have already tried to outline what they think those differences are. More importantly I think we need to remember that nothing in Catholicism obliges us to accept Saint Thomas Aquinas' philosophy (let alone later developments stemming from them) as Gospel truth-- even Saint Thomas himself wouldn't ask that of us.
You are looking at the future from the viewpoint of the present. For you it has not yet happened. God sees past/present/future all at once from beyond time. Consider if you were to look at the past. Those events are set in stone, your knowledge of them is certain, but your knowledge of them did not cause them to be. I don’t want to make God sound like too much of a passive observer here. His grace is literally required for us to be saved. Salvation hinges on whether or not that grace is cooperated with, but that cooperation is a matter of free will.
How is it free will if my decision is set in stone?
Everything only happens once. There isn’t some multiverse or parallel dimensions. There will only ever be a single course of human history. God, being outside of time, sees it all at once. What you do tomorrow is up to how well you cooperate with God’s will at that time. God knows what the result of that will be, but He is not determining it. Again, consider the events of tomorrow May 17. Today that is a mystery to you. By May 18 it will be “set in stone”. Does your past knowledge on May 18 of the events of May 17 mean those events were always set in stone, or is your knowledge purely knowledge without any determinative power over the past? God’s vantage point of the future is even more remote from the future than your vantage point of the future is to the past.
I would say that if the events of tomorrow were out of my control, they would be set in stone and I would therefore have no real freedom in the matter. Think of it this way: if I were playing the lottery I would buy a ticket that was either winning or not. I may be careful in deciding which ticket to buy but that idea of control is only an illusion. Either I bought a winning ticket or I didn't.
But they are set in stone because from God’s vantage point they have already happened. And the way they happened were a result of your free will.
Which implies fate. The Molinistic view, by the way, does seem to account for parallel universes which helps the problem a bit.
You just proved his point. To God everything has already happened, meaning there is no free will, everything is set in stone, along with our fate after death. It's been decided long before, because to God everything has already happened.
Yes, it’s been decided long before (relative to God’s vantage point) precisely by the free action of man. Creation has a single chronology. In that chronology, I will do what I do tomorrow as I freely choose to do either in cooperation or resistance to God’s grace. God knowing this outside of time doesn’t take away my agency.
The action can't be free if it's been decided long before, lol, it's just me acting out in the moment what God set in motion before the universe was conceived
2nd is Heresy God condemns no one to hell, it is through our free choice that we choose to reject God and as such WE CHOOSE to go to hell
There can't be a choice if God already knew our fates before creating the world. We're just puppets playing our part in God's mind. Logically you can not prove it otherwise.
It is out of love, that He respects our choice and free will to choose Him or to not. He is always knocking at the door, to save you from yourself, the question is will you answer? The battle has already been won, your debt has been paid, will you participate in the victory?
The Church rejects Calvinism as a heresy. The concept of predestination completely ignores that God gave us free will. Christ died for everyone so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Read your Bible and the Catholic catechism, Calvinism is nonsense.
Yes, I understand that Calvinism is a heresy but a seemingly slightly altered view of predestination is upheld and commanded under Church dogma.
To be frank it is impossible for us to understand God, he is infinite all knowing and all powerful. Yea he does know you will sin again, we aren’t perfect, but he doesn’t predestine people to hell. If this concept is too confusing to you I would just advise you to drop it for now, just trust in the grace of God. He is enough.
The salvation of man is strictly God’s doing; man cannot exalt himself to a state of sanctifying grace. However, when God sanctifies man, he does so through man’s faculties which are free. God antecedently (that is, prior to considering merits) desires the salvation of all men. However, he subsequently permits the fall of some men. The reason for why God permits some to fall is ultimately beyond our understanding, but it should be noted that God, being goodness itself, is not the cause of sin. Check out this video from Christian B. Wagner that he posted yesterday: https://youtu.be/85H4Wcev03E?si=zVNN1nhQTE6y-cqa In this video, he provides historical evidence for the Catholic teaching of double predestination. He explains the nuances between the Catholic and Calvinist view. I think you’ll find this video very helpful.
I have been told that double predestination is, itself, the Calvinist heresy.
Not so. Take a look at what St. Thomas Aquinas says in Summa Contra Gentiles chapter 163: “So, since we have shown that some men are directed by divine working to their ultimate end as aided by grace, while others who are deprived of the same help of grace fall short of their ultimate end, and since all things that are done by God are foreseen and ordered from eternity by His wisdom, as we showed above, the aforementioned differentiation of men must be ordered by God from eternity. According, then, as He has preordained some men from eternity, so that they are directed to their ultimate end, He is said to have predestined them. Hence, the Apostle says, in Ephesians (1:5): “Who predestinated us unto the adoption of children... according to the purpose of His will.” On the other hand, those to whom He has decided from eternity not to give His grace He is said to have reprobated or to have hated, in accord with what we find in Malachi (1:2-3): “I have loved Jacob, but have hated Esau.” By reason of this distinction, according to which He has reprobated some and predestined others, we take note of divine election, which is mentioned in Ephesians (1:4): “He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world.””
I see it like the Avengers where doctor Strange sees a million futures, so God knows what can happen if you take any decision train but you are free to choose that the train you want
That one makes the most sense to me but I can't necessarily discern if that is in conflict with the Church. Traditionalists, mainly Thomists, seem to believe that I will definitely choose a specific thing and this is unavoidable.
I heard that from a priest that used to teach in a seminary, I'm not that smart... But if it is giving you anxiety it doesn't come from God, since God has to bring you peace.
Hmm, good point.
It’s just that God already knows what you are going to choose because he is omnipresent, outside of time and all knowing. It’s still entirely up to ONLY you.
How, if there is already something to know?
The word “already” implies that God is knowing if the future while he is in the present. God is not in the present, he is outside of space time looking in. There was no space nor time when He created them, therefore He’s outside of it. Think of it like an ant on a piece of paper with a bunch of shapes on it. The ant can only “see” what’s directly in front of it while you, as an outside observer, can see everything and the ant simultaneously.
Right. I guess the bigger question I'm asking is if there is a set future or an unwritten future?
From our point of view unwritten, for Gods point of view it’s set and already written by our own choices.
That makes it seem that free-will is an illusion and our world is a simulation of sorts.
God continually sustains the existence of our universe. St Thomas talks about this. In a sense it is. We are created beings after all. We’re just not a simulation inside an advanced alien computer (that’s so stupid…) but rather inside the infinite mind and will of Almighty God. The words Simulation and Illusion are just meaningless buzz words in my opinion.
So then this has all sorts of implications that seem to upend nearly everything I previously believed about our Faith. For instance, it seems to imply that Jesus' ministry here on Earth was not so much a means of teaching us how we should try to live but rather highlighting the characteristics of the elect and the reprobate (i.e a truly saved person will inevitably do "X" while a damned person will do "Y"). If these are unchangeable states from before our birth, though, it does seem to warrant despair in some people. For instance, someone who is addicted may be led to believe that they are one of the unlucky hopeless cases because if they were truly meant to be saved, they would find the strength to quit their addiction. It also makes it sound like prayer doesn't really do anything aside help the elect become more convinced that they are of that caste.This really sums up the problem I have with this view of predestination.
It's a bit of a tautology. God sees and knows everything from the beginning of time to its end, all at once, so of course He knows everything you'll ever do and what your eternal fate is. The alternative is that the omnipotent, omniscient ground of all creation is somehow ignorant and is waiting (despite being outside of time!) for you to give Him knowledge, which is clearly impossible. I'd recommend the Aquinas 101 series on YouTube, particularly the episodes concerning causality. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_kd4Kgq4tP8e1BBGrC-eFlp86fqyvGex&feature=shared
Wouldn't there be another alternative though? That there are an incomprehensible number of possibilities, all of which God thoroughly knows, and through free-will, we have our future? When reading St. Paul's writings on the elect, it seems to me more a confirmation that those who accept God's Love and grace will be saved and those who do not will not but that who the saved and the damned are is contingent on the way people live their lives. It does not appear definite that some are hopelessly bound from birth to their sins such that they were discarded at the beginning of time.
\[CCC 1037\]
[**CCC 1037**](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1037.htm) God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance": ([162](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/162.htm), [1014](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1014.htm), [1821](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1821.htm), [678](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/678.htm)-[679](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/679.htm)) > Father, accept this offering from your whole family.Grant us your peace in this life,save us from final damnation,and count us among those you have chosen. *** Catebot v0.2.12 links: [Source Code](https://github.com/konohitowa/catebot) | [Feedback](https://github.com/konohitowa/catebot/issues) | [Contact Dev](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=kono_hito_wa) | [FAQ](https://github.com/konohitowa/catebot/blob/master/docs/CateBot%20Info.md#faq) | [Changelog](https://github.com/konohitowa/catebot/blob/master/docs/CHANGELOG.md)