670 PREDESTINATION was the appeal for aid which Hincmar made to John Scotus Erigena ; for in the tract on predestination which Erigena wrote in response to this appeal he introduced the terms and methods of philosophy and sought a solu tion for the problem in the nature of God. He argued that, God being eternal, foreknowledge and predestination, which are temporal relations, could only improperly be predicated of Him. He argued also that sin and its con sequences in death and misery are nonentities, the mere corruption, defect, or privation of their opposite realities, and that therefore they can neither be caused by God nor be known by Him. Reprobation is therefore impossible. Still further, he argued that evil is only a stage in the development of good, and that the ultimate issue of the development is universal return to God. This orthodoxy was considered more dangerous than the heresy it was called in to resist. Prudentius, Ratramnus, Lupus, and Florus denounced the introduction of this style of discus sion, for which indeed the mind of the church was not at that time prepared. Not only did interested individuals resist the teaching of Erigena, but two councils condemned his treatise as containing " haereses plurimas, ineptas quaes- tiunculas, et aniles paene fabellas, pluribus syllogismis conclusas, Scotorumque pultcs puritati fidei nauseam in- ferentes." Accordingly no additional light on the problem was received by the church at this time. This controversy, however, was merely the prelude to a discussion which was maintained throughout the scholastic period, and in which the Thomists adopted the more rigid Augustinian view, while the Scotists leaned to Semi- pelagianism. Anselra and Peter Lombard were moderately and guardedly Augustinian. Thomas Bradwardine (arch bishop of Canterbury, d. 1349) complained that almost the whole world had fallen into Pelagianism, and strenu ously opposed this tendency. But it is in Aquinas (Suninui, 1, Q. xxiii.) that we find the clearest and most compact treatment of the subject. His doctrine is sub stantially that of Augustine. In express terms he teaches that predestination is an essential part of the divine providence, and that, as some, and these a fixed number, are ordained to life eternal, so by the same divine providence others are allowed to fail of this end ("et hoc dicitur reprobare"). He teaches further that this pre destination does not depend upon any foreseen difference of character ("praescientia meritorum non est causa vel ratio pnedestinationis "). Aquinas derives his doctrine of predestination directly from his doctrine of God (not from his anthropology, as Augustine had done). His idea of God was the Aristotelian "first mover, itself unmoved." That God is in all things by His power, presence, and essence he explicitly maintains against three forms of error regarding the connexion of God and the world. The divine will is the cause of all things past, present, and to come. But the contribution made by Aquinas consists in his theory of the divine concurrence, by which he seeks to provide a philosophical basis for Augustinianism. The divine providence governs all tilings by means of two great classes of secondary causes, the necessary or natural and the contingent or voluntary. The mediate or proxi mate causes of all that takes place in the natural world are necessary ; the proximate causes of human action are the voluntary motions of the will. But both are set in motion by God, the First Cause : as the actings of natural causes remain natural, though they are moved by God, so do the actings of voluntary causes remain voluntary though moved by God. 1 But obviously this theory leaves only an appearance of free will. " Free will is here reconciled "Sicut nnturalibus causis, niovemlo eas, non aufert quin actus earam sint natu rales, ita movendo causas voluntarias, non aufert quin
- ictiones earum sint voluntaiiae, sed potius hoc in tis facit."
and made consistent with the divine power, brought into the same scheme and theory. But it is of itself a sufficient test that a system is necessitarian, that it maintains the divine power in harmony with free will. The will as air original spring of action is irreconcilable with the divine power " at least with the scholastic idea of the divine power" a second first cause in nature being inconsistent with there being only one First Cause." Besides, every theory of predestination which bases itself on the idea that God is the sole originating and true cause must give an account of the origin of evil. Aquinas recognizes this and endeavours to meet the requirement by showing (1) that to a complete universe all kinds of creatures are requisite, not only the highest but the lowest ; (2) that there cannot be a perfect universe without the existence of free will, but that this involves the risk of evil ; and (3) that evil is a negation. Of these arguments there are hints in the writings of Augustine and Erigena, and none of them is satisfactory, although they certainly point in the right direction. At the Reformation the discussion was drawn back from the endeavour initiated by the schoolmen to find for the doctrine of predestination a scientific basis in the nature of God and His connexion with the world. The more circumscribed method of Augustine was reverted to, and it was deemed sufficient to show that predestination was indispensable to the ideas of grace which found a response in the devout Christian consciousness, and that it was in harmony with Scripture. Not only Calvin, but much more unguardedly Luther, and even Melanchthon in the earliest (1521) edition of his Loci Communes, taught the most rigid Augustinian doctrine. In the later editions (1535, 1543) Melanchthon greatly modified his opinions and inclined more to the synergistic view, though even in this he was not thoroughgoing. But the attempt to terminate the synergistic controversy saddled the Lutherans with a symbol the formula concordix which, awkwardly enough, rejected both the Semipelagian theory of co-opera tion and the Augustinian doctrine of predestination. The consequence has been that later Lutheran theologians, in their efforts to purge their church of this inconsistency, have devised the theory that man, unable as he is to will any good thing, can yet use the means of grace, and that these means of grace, carrying in themselves a divine power, produce a saving effect on all who do not volun tarily oppose their influence. Baptism, e.y., confers grace which, if not resisted, is saving. And God, foreseeing who will and who will not resist the grace offered, pre destinates to life all who are foreseen as believers. The theory of Calvin (List., i. 15-18; iii. 21-24) need not be detailed, because it is Augustinian not only in its substance but in the methods and grounds by which it is sustained. 2 Hagenbach (Hist, of Dodrines, iii. 103) and others have indeed asserted that Calvin held the snpra- lapsarian theory, and in so far differed from Augustine. But in order to prove Calvin or any one else a supra- lapsarian it is not enough to show that he believed that the fall was decreed, for this is admitted by Augustine and all sublapsarians ; it must be shown that the fall was decreed as a means towards carrying out a previous decree to save some and leave others to perish, a view which Calvin turns from as an otiom curiositas. The supra- lapsarian view was, however, adopted by Beza and other Calvinists, as it had been held by some of the Augustinian schoolmen ; and indirectly this led to the reopening of the controversy in the beginning of the 17th century. For it is said to have been the extreme supralapsarianism of Perkins which repelled Arminius from Calvinism and - Compare Burnet, On the XXXIX. Articles, and Mozley s A ugustin.
Doct., where this agreement is affirmed.