Affirmations of eternal, non-retributive DRA. An early expression of eternal, non-retributive DRA within Christian theology comes from the writings of Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430). Augustine’s articulation of double predestination evinces his views on DRA.
99Some of his statements seem to acknowledge a passive
98 Eternal, non-retributive DRA is closely related to the doctrine of reprobation or negative predestination. For the most comprehensive treatment of reprobation up until the 1600s, see Donald W.
Sinnema, “The Issue of Reprobation at the Synod of Dort (1618–19) in Light of the History of This Doctrine” (PhD diss., Toronto School of Theology, 1985). Because of his excellent treatment, I do not endeavor to provide an exhaustive overview of premodern views.
99 “Double predestination” refers to the position of those who posit that God made separate decrees with respect to the elect and the reprobate; “single predestination” then refers to the belief that God only decreed the salvation of the elect (though He willingly passed over those who were not predestined). J.
V. Fesko has argued that Augustine was an advocate of single predestination because he generally defined eternal rejection in terms of preterition rather than predestination. See J. V. Fesko, introduction to Diversity within the Reformed Tradition: Supra- and Infralapsarianism in Calvin, Dort, and Westminster
(Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 2001), xxiii–xxiv; see also Fesko, 19. Fesko’s argument fails however, since he does not account for the places where Augustine speaks of God’s predestination of the reprobate. For instance, Augustine contrasts the reprobate Tyrians and Sidonians with elect infants when he says, “And those who are older, even those whom he foresaw would believe in his miracles if they were performed among them, whom he does not wish to help, he does not help, since in his predestination [emphasis added] he has, secretly indeed, but justly, determined otherwise concerning them.” Augustine,
“On the Gift of Perseverance,” in St. Augustine: Four Anti-Pelagian Writings, trans. John A. Mourant and William J. Collinge, FC, vol. 86 (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 291–92.
form of DRA. In response to the position of the Semi-Pelagians, Augustine notes that faith, “both in its beginning and in its completion,” is a gift of God.
100But faith is not given to all; in an act of divine judgment, God leaves some “in the mass of perdition” by withholding from them the means to believe.
101God then abandons those who are
“vessels of wrath” to their own sinful desires, while He graciously works a good will in those who are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son.
102However, other evidence exists that Augustine also posited an active form of DRA. As he states,
God works in human hearts to incline their wills to whatever He wills, either to good due to His mercy or to evil due to their deserts. . . . When you read in the texts of Truth that people are led astray by God, or that their hearts are dulled or
hardened, have no doubt that their evil deserts came first, so that they suffered these things justly.
103The activities predicated of God in this case seem to go beyond mere abandonment and should therefore be understood as active DRA. Additionally, despite Augustine’s statements to the effect that a person’s evil merits come before hardening,
104there are three reasons to believe that his predestinarian theology includes non-retributive DRA.
105For others who understand Augustine to be a double predestinarian, see Sinnema, “Issue of Reprobation,”
13–14; Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (1938; repr., East Peoria, IL: Banner of Truth, 2012), 109–10;
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 297–98.
100 Augustine, “On the Predestination of the Saints,” in St. Augustine, 237–38.
101 Augustine provides Tyre and Sidon as examples of those from whom miracles were withheld despite the fact that they would have believed had they seen a display of Christ’s power. See Augustine, “On the Gift of Perseverance,” 303.
102 Augustine, “On the Proceedings of Pelagius,” in St. Augustine, 117–18.
103 Augustine, “On Grace and Free Choice,” in On The Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings, trans. Peter King, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 180–81.
104 See also Augustine, “On the Predestination of Saints,” 241.
105 I should clarify once more that in speaking of non-retributive DRA, I do not mean that God influenced the innocent to become wicked in order that they may be condemned. I am merely observing that DRA is not always said to be God’s judicial response to particular sins committed willfully. Thus, to make use of categories from systematic theology, I would argue that the objects of non-retributive DRA are
First, Augustine believed that both the elect and the reprobate deserve the same judgment;
thus, God cannot be said to have distinguished between the two groups on the basis of their deserts.
106Second, though Augustine maintains that those who are hardened by God receive a judgment which they rightly deserve, he also emphasizes that original sin by itself renders fallen humanity worthy of such treatment. In fact, Augustine posits that some are reprobated and condemned solely for their sin in Adam, which both the elect and the reprobate share.
107Third, while Augustine insists that all God’s actions are completely just, he confesses that only God knows why one person is predestined for life while another is predestined for condemnation.
108Such evidence therefore suggests that Augustine did not understand God’s reprobating activity to be a response to willful sin.
Since the condemnation Augustine has in mind is clearly eternal, one can detect the existence of non-retributive, eternal DRA in his thought.
109Augustinian views on predestination continued to be embraced after his death.
For instance, Fulgentius of Ruspe (AD 468–533) stood as a proponent of double predestination during this period,
110and his writings on the topic reveal his views on
still fallen, corrupt individuals who deserve condemnation because they are in Adam. It is for this reason that I believe non-retributive DRA is consistent with Augustine’s views on reprobation. See Augustine,
“On the Gift of Perseverance,” 291–92.
106 Augustine, “On the Gift of Perseverance,” 292.
107 Since I limit retributive DRA to instances where God judges individuals or groups for particular sins they have willfully committed, Augustine may be said to be a proponent of what I call non- retributive DRA. See Augustine, “On the Gift of Perseverance,” 291–92.
108 Augustine, “On the Predestination of Saints,” 238.
109 For example, Augustine’s discussion of reprobate infants demonstrates clearly that he has eternal condemnation in mind, as he discusses the punishments they will face after death. See Augustine,
“On the Predestination of Saints,” 244–48.
110 Even within his early thought (wherein he asserted God’s universal saving will), Fulgentius still affirmed that God predestined certain ones to punishment. See Fulgentius, “Fragments to Eugippius,”
in Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God: Development of a Sixth-Century African Bishop’s Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:4 during the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, trans. Francis X. Gumerlock (Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 2009), 149–52; Fulgentius, “The Truth about Predestination and Grace,”
DRA.
111Like Augustine, Fulgentius also posited a passive, eternal form of DRA. On the one hand, those predestined for salvation are granted faith and perseverance, not on the basis of any “preceding meritorious deeds of the human will,” but on the basis of God’s will alone.
112On the other hand, though God does provide some revelation of himself to all men, He does not give saving grace or special revelation to those who are “vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.”
113Instead, He hardens them, not by compelling them to sin, but by refusing to snatch them away from their iniquity.
114Though Fulgentius
undoubtedly affirmed that reprobation was just, he also seems to maintain non-retributive DRA. First of all, Fulgentius denounced the semi-Pelagian claim that election and
reprobation are based on the divine foreknowledge of future works.
115He understood Romans 9:10–13 to mean that “salvation is not thus bestowed on the former group [i.e., the elect] because of works, just as condemnation is not rendered to the latter [i.e., the
in Fulgentius of Ruspe and the Scythian Monks: Correspondence on Christology and Grace, trans. Rob Roy McGregor and Donald Fairbairn, FC, vol. 126 (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 205; Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe, 44–47. Later in his career, Fulgentius adopted a more stringent view, wherein God wills to save some and wills not to save others. He in fact states that those who are “vessels of wrath” were “created for dishonor” and were predestined for judgment. Fulgentius,
“Predestination and Grace,” 126, 205.
111 It is worth noting as well that one of Fulgentius’ correspondents, Monimus, appears to have held to a more extreme form of double predestination than Fulgentius. On the one hand, Monimus seems to affirm symmetrical double predestination, arguing that God predestined both good and evil in like manner.
On the other hand, Fulgentius affirmed that God predestined the good, but denied that people were
predestined to commit evil. Interestingly, despite Monimus’ strict predestinarian views, Fulgentius seems to have regarded him as a friend in the faith. See Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe, 30–35.
112 Fulgentius, “First Letter to the Scythian Monks,” in McGregor and Fairbairn, Fulgentius of Ruspe and Scythian Monks, 105–6; Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe, 63–65.
113 Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe, 111–13.
114 Fulgentius argues strongly that predestination to life and to death are asymmetrical. Unlike with the elect, whose good works are freely given by God, God does not prepare evil works for the reprobate, nor does He plant evil wills in them. See Fulgentius, “Predestination and Grace,” 130;
Fulgentius, “Second Letter to the Scythian Monks,” in McGregor and Fairbairn, Fulgentius of Ruspe and Scythian Monks, 115.
115 Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe, 109.
reprobate] because of works.”
116Furthermore, he observes that Mal 1:2–3a makes no mention of Esau’s works and instead emphasizes his fraternity with Jacob. Given that both are born in sin, the brothers should be understood to have been born “bound into the lump of condemnation.” Therefore, the difference in God’s attitude and actions towards the two (and towards the elect and the reprobate) cannot be explained by appealing to their respective merits.
117Secondly, Fulgentius uses the example of children who die without baptism before reaching the age of reason to demonstrate that God predestines some to the eternal fires apart from any consideration of willful evil.
118Thus, Fulgentius did not view God’s reprobating work as being a form of retribution for personal sin. All of this demonstrates that Fulgentius’s rich predestinarian theology included within it an affirmation of passive, eternal, non-retributive DRA. Interestingly enough, Fulgentius’s works on predestination and grace were commissioned by Christians seeking his help in defending Augustinianism against Semi-Pelagian doctrines; this then may suggest that he was not alone in holding these views.
119Isidore of Seville (AD 560–636) was familiar with both Augustine’s and Fulgentius’s works, and they may have played a role in his adoption of double predestination.
120Isidore makes his views plain in the following:
116 Fulgentius, “Predestination and Grace,” 130; see also 125.
117 Fulgentius, “Predestination and Grace,” 127–28. According to Fulgentius, God nevertheless acts justly in reprobation because original sin renders both the elect and the reprobate worthy of
condemnation (130–31).
118 Fulgentius, “First Letter,” 99–100; Fulgentius, “Predestination and Grace,” 142–43, 145–
46.
119 See Rob Roy McGregor and Donald Fairbairn, trans., “Letter from the Scythian Monks to the Bishops,” in Fulgentius of Ruspe and Scythian Monks, 25–42; Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe, 84–92, 107–10.
120 So for instance, Isidore mentions in a letter that Fulgentius’s book On the Truth of
Predestination “demonstrated that the grace of God comes before the human will in good actions, and that God chose some beforehand, justifying them by the gift of his predestination, but by a certain hidden judgment left others in their wicked ways.” Isidore of Seville, “On Illustrious Men,” in Gumerlock,
In a wonderful way the Creator who is just to all, predestines some to life, others He abandons in their wicked ways to their rightful judgment . . . for some are
predestined to His most gracious mercy . . . and made vessels of mercy; others however who are considered reprobate are predestined to punishment, condemned, and are made vessels of His wrath.
121Those predestined to life are provided by God with faith, spiritual growth, meritorious works, and perseverance.
122Meanwhile, those who are predestined to death are not granted any of these graces; instead, “[God] permits the damned, by abandoning him, to take delight always in lower and exterior things.”
123By forsaking the reprobate, God also permits demons and unclean spirits to further ensnare them so that they are unable to repent.
124The Lord also gives the damned power to accomplish their evil desires so that He might discipline His elect while He prepares eternal punishment for the wicked.
125These sorts of statements suggest that God accomplishes His predestination of the wicked through non-retributive, passive, mediate DRA. However, Isidore also believes that God punishes sins with even more sins by blinding and hardening.
126Putting it all together, Isidore seems to hold that those predestined to death are abandoned by God to their wicked passions so that they live sinfully; they are then punished for their personal sins by further hardening, so that they acquire for themselves more dreadful punishments in
Fulgentius of Ruspe, 148. For others who note Augustine’s influence on Isidore, see Thomas L. Knoebel, introduction to Sententiae, by Isidore of Seville, ACW 73 (New York: Newman, 2018), 26–30; Fesko, Diversity within Reformed Tradition, 22–24.
121 Isidore of Seville, “Differentiarum,” in Fesko, Diversity within Reformed Tradition, 23.
122 Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, 88–90.
123 Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, 90.
124 Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, 103–4.
125 Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, 209–10.
126 As he states, “It is not that there are any who are just who are driven away from God so that they become evil; rather, those who are already evil are hardened so that they exist in an even worse state . . . God makes those people to sin, but only in those people where such kinds of sins have preceded, that by his just judgment they might merit to go to a worse place.” Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, 108.
the next life. This would then suggest that non-retributive and retributive forms of DRA work together in Isidore’s double predestinarian theology.
Controversy surrounding predestination blazed during the ninth century, due in part to the preaching and writings of Gottschalk (AD 808–867).
127The Saxon monk’s views were highly controversial, and his convictions eventually led to imprisonment, public flogging, and deposition from the priesthood.
128Gottschalk’s affirmation of a twofold predestination stood as the primary reason for his condemnation.
129He states his view when he says,
I believe and confess that the omnipotent and immutable God has gratuitously foreknown and predestined the holy angels and elect human beings to eternal life, and that he equally predestined the devil himself, the head of all the demons, with all of his apostate angels and also with all reprobate human beings, namely, his members, to rightly eternal death, on account of their own future, most certainly foreknown evil merits, through his most righteous judgment.
130Does Gottschalk’s statement mean that negative predestination is an act of retribution based on God’s foreknowledge of evil works? There are good reasons to think otherwise.
127 Evidence suggests that twofold predestination continued to be affirmed during the seventh and eighth centuries as well. For example, during the Spanish predestination controversy of the late eighth century, Pope Hadrian (who reigned from AD 772–795) adopted and commended Fulgentius’s
predestinarian views as the solution to the ongoing debate. For a full exploration of this issue, see Francis X. Gumerlock, “Predestination in the Century before Gottschalk (pt. 2),” EvQ 81, no. 4 (2009): 319–37.
128 For an overview of this period of Gottschalk’s life, see Victor Genke, “Introduction:
Gottschalk and the Controversy over His Teaching,” in Gottschalk and a Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated from the Latin, ed. and trans. Victor Genke and Francis X. Gumerlock, vol.
47, Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2010), 38–
45. It is noteworthy that just the century before, Pope Hadrian embraced the predestinarian views of Fulgentius and claimed that it was the duty of all the faithful to do so as well. See Gumerlock,
“Predestination in Century before Gottschalk,” 322.
129 Gottschalk posits a single act of predestination that is nevertheless twofold. For his explanation, see Gottschalk, “Another Treatise on Predestination,” in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk and Medieval Predestination Controversy, 161–62.
130 Gottschalk, “Shorter Confession,” in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk and Medieval Predestination Controversy, 71. See also Gottschalk, “Answers to Various Questions,” in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk and Medieval Predestination Controversy, 103–4. According to Genke, these are the only two places in the extant literature where Gottschalk seems to ground predestination in divine foreknowledge. See Genke, “Introduction,” 56–58.
First, Gottschalk’s opponents understood him to be propounding non-retributive DRA.
131So for instance, Amolo of Lyons (d. AD 852) seems to distance his own predestinarian views from Gottschalk’s by appealing to God’s foreknowledge of the evil merits of the reprobate.
132Furthermore, if Gottschalk believed that predestination was based on foreseen merit, it would be difficult to explain why his predestinarian views were so controversial. Second, Gottschalk explicitly denies that predestination is on the basis of human works when he says, “Likewise you say: Behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to render to each according to his works (Rv 22:12) . . . except in
predestination [emphasis added] which you have unchangeably ordered by an irrevocable foreordination.”
133Third, Gottschalk appeals to God’s will as the ultimately reason for any distinction between the elect and the reprobate. Like Augustine, Gottschalk argued that all humanity is fallen and “held captive under the devil.”
134Some however are given saving help while others are not.
135The reason some receive saving help and others are hardened rests in God’s predestinating will rather than in human merits.
136Fourth, the statement in question may in fact mean that the act of predamnation rather than the act of
131 For the predestinarian views of Gottschalk’s opponents, see the discussion to follow.
132 Amolo of Lyons, “Letter to Gottschalk,” in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk and Medieval Predestination Controversy, 191–94.
133 Gottschalk, “Longer Confession,” in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk and Medieval Predestination Controversy, 80.
134 Gottschalk, “Tome to Gislemar,” in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk and Medieval Predestination Controversy, 69. See also Gottschalk, “On Predestination,” in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk and Medieval Predestination Controversy, 115.
135 As he states, “Anyone who has been chosen vivifies his soul and sanctifies himself only when God helps him, when he inspires his will, when he gives him the ability, and when he makes him do so. For unless he always gratuitously helps us, a person can do nothing but become more and more guilty.”
Gottschalk, “On Predestination,” 155.
136 In fact, Gottschalk says that those who ground the distinction between the elect and the reprobate on human willing nullify both God’s grace and His power. See Gottschalk, “On Predestination,”
120, 144–46.