The reprobation of the damnedAn unconditional and positive predestination of the reprobate not only to hell, but also to sin, was taught especially by Calvin (Instit., III, c. xxi, xxiii, xxiv). His followers in Holland split into two sects, the Supralapsarians and the Infralapsarians, the latter of whom regarded original sin as the motive of positive condemnation, while the former (with Calvin) disregarded this factor and derived the Divine decree of reprobation from God's inscrutable will alone. Infralapsarianism was also held by Jansenius (De gratia Christi, l. X, c. ii, xi sq.), who taught that God had preordained from the massa damnata of mankind one part to eternal bliss, the other to eternal pain, decreeing at the same time to deny to those positively damned the necessary graces by which they might be converted and keep the commandments; for this reason, he said, Christ died only for the predestined (cf. Denzinger, "Enchiridion", n. 1092-6). Against such blasphemous teachings the Second Synod of Orange in 529 and again the Council of Trent had pronounced the ecclesiastical anathema (cf. Denzinger, nn. 200, 827). This condemnation was perfectly justified, because the heresy of Predestinarianism, in direct opposition to the clearest texts of Scripture, denied the universality of God's salvific will as well as of redemption through Christ (cf. Wisdom 11:24 sq.; 1 Timothy 2:1 sq.), nullified God's mercy towards the hardened sinner (Ezekiel 33:11; Romans 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9), did away with the freedom of the will to do good or evil, and hence with the merit of good actions and the guilt of the bad, and finally destroyed the Divine attributes of wisdom, justice, veracity, goodness, and sanctity. The very spirit of the Bible should have sufficed to deter Calvin from a false explanation of Rom., ix, and his successor Beza from the exegetical maltreatment of 1 Peter 2:7-8. After weighing all the Biblical texts bearing on eternal reprobation, a modern Protestant exegete arrives at the conclusion: "There is no election to hell parallel to the election to grace: on the contrary, the judgment pronounced on the impenitent supposes human guilt .... It is only after Christ's salvation has been rejected that reprobation follows" ("Realencyk. für prot. Theol.", XV, 586, Leipzig, 1904). As regards the Fathers of the Church, there is only St. Augustine who might seem to cause difficulties in the proof from Tradition. As a matter of fact he has been claimed by both Calvin and Jansenius as favouring their view of the question. This is not the place to enter into an examination of his doctrine on reprobation; but that his works contain expressions which, to say the least, might be interpreted in the sense of a negative reprobation, cannot be doubted. Probably toning down the sharper words of the master, his "best pupil", St. Prosper, in his apology against Vincent of Lerin (Resp. ad 12 obj. Vincent.), thus explained the spirit of Augustine: "Voluntate exierunt, voluntate ceciderunt, et quia præsciti sunt casuri, non sunt prædestinati; essent autem prædestinati, si essent reversuri et in sanctitate remansuri, ac per hoc prædestinatio Dei multis est causa standi, nemini est causa labendi" (of their own will they went out; of their own will they fell, and because their fall was foreknown, they were not predestined; they would however be predestined if they were going to return and persevere in holiness; hence, God's predestination is for many the cause of perseverance, for none the cause of falling away). Regarding Tradition cf. Petavius, "De Deo", X, 7 sq.; Jacquin in "Revue de l'histoire ecclésiastique", 1904, 266 sq.; 1906, 269 sq.; 725 sq.
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