Predestination and Grace in Catholic Theology

Imagine two individuals: Sarah and Suzie.  Both of them are humans, descendants of Adam and Eve, inheritors both of human nature in general and of original sin in particular.  Of themselves, therefore, considered apart from the grace of God, they are in a state of mortal sin and can only end up in hell for all eternity in the righteous justice of God, for this is the condition original sin has brought all men into.  However, God has sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to redeem it, and Christ has given the world grace through his sacrifice and merits, redeeming men from the curse of sin.  This salvation is made available and offered to all the world through the preaching of the gospel by the Church.  Sarah and Suzie, during their lives, both heard the message of salvation.  Sarah, at some point in her life, made a decision to gladly accept it and was baptized, taking Christ upon herself and washing away her sins in his blood.  She also chose to persevere to the end of her life in a state of grace, and then died and went to heaven, and she will be blessed in the presence of God for all eternity.  Suzie, however, refused to accept the gospel, and died in a state of mortal sin.  When she died, she went to hell, and she will suffer God's wrath and the privation of the blessed vision of God for all eternity.

Now I want to ask a very important question:  What, ultimately, made the difference between these two women?  Of course, the divergence of their ultimate courses came about because of the different decisions each of them made, particularly Sarah's decision to accept the gospel and continue in it until the end of her life (with all that that means and implies) and Suzie's decision to reject it.  But this is not the end of the matter.  What is it that made it so that Sarah would accept the gospel and Suzie would reject it?

SCENARIO 1

One answer might go something like this:  God in every way and sense equally willed the salvation of Sarah and Suzie, and to that end he gave them both in all relevant respects the same graces, but Sarah made a good use of her resources and Suzie made a bad use of them.  In this scenario, the ultimate source of the difference between Sarah and Suzie is within these two women themselves.  What God gave both of them was exactly the same in all relevant respects, but out of that same set of opportunities and graces Sarah produced a right response to God's grace and Suzie produced a wrong response.

SCENARIO 2

But there is another answer that could be given, and it goes like this:  Sarah and Suzie are both human and descendants of Adam and Eve, and so both are inheritors of original sin.  Both would therefore be doomed to hell apart from God's grace.  However, God has sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to redeem it, and Christ has given the world grace through his sacrifice and merits, redeeming men from the curse of sin.  This salvation is made available and offered to all the world through the preaching of the gospel by the Church.  Thus, God has provided sufficient grace to both Sarah and Suzie, and both can freely avail themselves of it if they will.  There is no hindrance to the salvation of either of them outside the potential refusal of their own free will.  From all eternity, God has ordained everything that has come or will come to pass in time, including all events both good and evil.  Good (like light) is a positive thing, produced by God's positive power and working, while evil (like darkness) is a negative thing.  God positively brings about all good but permits or allows evil, as he has determined to use both to fulfill his glorious purposes in history.  Therefore, nothing happens which defeats his ultimate goals or purposes for the creation.  Evil is a thing displeasing to God in its own nature, but its presence in history is not a defeat of his sovereignty, for it only exists at his sufferance to the extent and in the form that he has wisely and freely determined to permit in every detail.  God's free ordination of all things includes who will and who will not be saved, as it includes every other detail of history.  From all eternity, God freely decided that, in addition to making sufficient grace available to both Sarah and Suzie, he would give Sarah a special efficacious grace that would move her will to accept the gospel and persevere in that acceptance to the end of her life and so arrive at ultimate salvation, while he determined not to give that particular gift to Suzie.  In other words, God chose to give Sarah a good will but not to give that gift to Suzie.  He predestined Sarah to salvation by his grace.  He did not predestine Suzie to damnation, in the sense of forcing her to reject the gospel or infusing into her evil that caused her to reject the gospel.  He simply refrained, of his own free and wise will, for his good purposes, from moving Suzie's will to accept the gospel, allowing her to continue to reject it of her own free will until her death.

Why would God do this?  He did not elect Sarah to salvation because she was any better than Suzie, for both were equally in need of grace due to original and actual sin.  He did not refrain from moving Suzie's will to salvation out of any malice or hatred or lack of compassion, but rather because he saw that it would be better, all things considered, to give a grace to Sarah that he did not give to Suzie.  (This issue, then, is simply part of the larger question of why God allows evil and suffering to exist in his creation.  He does not do so because he loves or approves of evil, or because he is incapable of keeping evil out of his creation, but because he sees, in his infinite wisdom, that it is ultimately better overall to allow certain evils to happen than to stop them from happening or to arrange things so they don't happen.  As Pope Leo XIII put it in his encyclical Libertas, "God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue.")  God did not do any injustice to Suzie in not granting her the same efficacious grace that he gave to Sarah, for he granted her sufficient grace for salvation which she could have availed herself of if she had wished to do so.  Nothing outside of her will was impeding her acceptance of salvation.  In rejecting it, she acted with full freedom of will--as did Sarah, who was moved and inspired but not forced to accept the gospel by God's efficacious grace.  Nor did Suzie (or Sarah) do anything to deserve or merit God's efficacious grace.  All human beings since the Fall deserve God's damnation rather than his grace, and any grace received is an unmerited gift rather than something owed to us.

Catholic doctrine accords with Scenario 2 but not with Scenario 1.  This is because Catholic doctrine teaches that God is the creator of all things and is therefore sovereign over all things, and it also teaches that all good that we have relative to salvation is a gift of God coming from his grace through the sacrifice and merits of Christ.

GOD IS SOVEREIGN

First of all, the Catholic Church teaches that God is the creator of all things and therefore sovereign over all things:

The Holy Scriptures repeatedly confess the universal power of God. He is called the "Mighty One of Jacob", the "LORD of hosts", the "strong and mighty" one. If God is almighty "in heaven and on earth", it is because he made them. Nothing is impossible with God, who disposes his works according to his will. He is the Lord of the universe, whose order he established and which remains wholly subject to him and at his disposal. He is master of history, governing hearts and events in keeping with his will: "It is always in your power to show great strength, and who can withstand the strength of your arm?  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #268-269--footnotes removed) 

The witness of Scripture is unanimous that the solicitude of divine providence is concrete and immediate; God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of the world and its history. The sacred books powerfully affirm God's absolute sovereignty over the course of events: "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases." And so it is with Christ, "who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens". As the book of Proverbs states: "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established."  (Catechism #303--footnotes removed) 

The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."  (Catechism #308) 

St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter: "Nothing can come but that that God wills. And I make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best." (Catechism #313--footnotes removed)

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on "Predestination" puts it this way:

 According to the doctrinal decisions of general and particular synods, God infallibly foresees and immutably preordains from eternity all future events (cf. Denzinger, n. 1784), all fatalistic necessity, however, being barred and human liberty remaining intact (Denz., n. 607).

Regarding moral evil:

God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it: . . . 

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself. . . . (Catechism #311--footnotes removed)

The Catechism of St. Pius X talks about God's permission of moral evil in this way (in the section on "The First Article of the Creed"):

10 Q. Does God take any interest in the world and in the things created by Him?
A. Yes, God takes an interest in the world and in all things created by Him; He preserves them, and governs them by His infinite goodness and wisdom; and nothing happens here below that He does not either will or permit. 

11 Q. Why do you say that nothing happens here below that He does not either will or permit?
A. We say that nothing happens here below that He does not either will or permit, because there are some things which God wills and commands, while there are others which He simply does not prevent, such as sin. 

12 Q. Why does not God prevent sin?
A. God does not prevent sin, because even from the very abuse man makes of the liberty with which He is endowed, God knows how to bring forth good and to make His mercy or His justice become more and more resplendent. 

If God ordains all that comes to pass, and if all good comes from him and all evil is permitted willingly by him, and if all saving moral goodness that we humans can possess is a gift of grace through Christ (as we will see more later), and if some end up saved and others end up damned, it follows that those who are saved are saved by the election and mercy of God and as a gift of his grace, and that those who are damned are permitted to be damned by God, who decided not to give them the same gift of salvation he gave to his elect.  Ludwig Ott, in his well-respected and widely-used book on Catholic doctrine, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1974 {orig. 1952}, 242-245), explains (capitalization removed) that it is Catholic dogma that "God, by his eternal resolve of will, has predetermined certain men to eternal blessedness."  Ott goes on:

This doctrine is proposed by the Ordinary and General Teaching of the Church as a truth of Revelation. The doctrinal definitions of the Council of Trent presuppose it . . . The reality of Predestination is clearly attested to in Rom 8:29 et seq: . . . cf. Mt 25:34, Jn 10:27 et seq., Acts 13:48, Eph 1:4 et seq. . . . Predestination is a part of the Eternal Divine Plan of Providence. (found here--ellipsis in original)

While Catholic theologians do not entirely agree with regard to all aspects of how to articulate the doctrine of predestination, they agree on certain things.  They agree on the utterly gratuitous nature of predestination, in that we have nothing good which is not a gift of God.  Ott puts it this way:

Only incomplete Predestination to grace is independent of every merit (ante praevisa merita), as the first grace cannot be merited. In the same way, complete Predestination to grace and glory conjointly is independent of every merit, as the first grace cannot be merited, and the consequent graces, as well as the merits acquired with these graces and their reward, depend like the links of a chain, on the first grace . . . [ellipses in original]

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book Predestination [(Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2013), p. 10], which is pretty universally regarded as a modern classic reference on Catholic theology regarding predestination, makes the same point:

But in any case, from this minimum admitted by all we get three propositions to which all Catholic theologians subscribe. They are: (1) Predestination to the first grace is not because God foresaw our naturally good works, nor is the beginning of salutary acts due to natural causes; (2) predestination to glory is not because God foresaw we would continue in the performance of supernaturally meritorious acts apart from the special gift of final perseverance; (3) complete predestination, in so far as it comprises the whole series of graces from the first up to glorification, is gratuitous or previous to foreseen merits. These three propositions are admitted by all Catholic theologians.

St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest Doctors of the Catholic Church, talks about how some have been predestined by God to grace and to eternal life, while others have been "reprobated" by God--that is, passed over by God and permitted by his providence to remain in sin:

God does reprobate some. For it was said above (Article 1) that predestination is a part of providence. To providence, however, it belongs to permit certain defects in those things which are subject to providence, as was said above (I:22:2). Thus, as men are ordained to eternal life through the providence of God, it likewise is part of that providence to permit some to fall away from that end; this is called reprobation. Thus, as predestination is a part of providence, in regard to those ordained to eternal salvation, so reprobation is a part of providence in regard to those who turn aside from that end. Hence reprobation implies not only foreknowledge, but also something more, as does providence, as was said above (I:22:1). Therefore, as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory; so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.  (Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 23, Article 3--from the New Advent website, embedded links removed)

In the early medieval Church, the doctrine of predestination was dealt with in a number of councils which have informed the development of Catholic thinking on this subject.  Two of these councils were the Council of Quiercy (853) and the Council of Valence (855).  Here is a selection from the canons of Quiercy [Guido Stucco, God's Eternal Gift: A History of the Catholic Doctrine of Predestination from Augustine to the Renaissance (Xlibris, 2009), 350-351--footnotes removed]:

     Almighty God created man without sin, righteous and endowed with free will.  He placed man in paradise, and wanted him to dwell in the sanctity of justice.  Man, by making bad use of his free will, sinned and fell (from this state of justice), becoming the 'mass of perdition' of the entire humankind.  However, the good and righteous God, according to his foreknowledge (secundum praescientiam suam), chose out of this mass of perdition those whom he predestined through grace (Rom 8:29 ff; Eph 1:11) to eternal life, and likewise, he predestined eternal life for them.  He foreknew that everybody else, whom he abandoned in the mass of perdition according to his just decree, was going to perish, though he did not predestine them to perish; rather, being just, he predestined eternal punishment for them.  Because of this, we speak of only one divine predestination, which pertains to either the gift of grace or to the retribution of justice. . . . 

     We lost the freedom of will in the first man, but got it back through Christ our Lord.  We have free will to do what is good, which is preceded and helped by God's grace; we have free will to do what is evil, as it is abandoned by God's grace.  We [can say] we have free will because it is freed and healed from corruption by grace. . . . 

     Almighty God wants "all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4) without exception (sine exceptione), even though not all will be saved.  The fact that some are saved, is the gift of the saving God; the fact that some perish, is their own fault.

Here is part of Canon 3 from the Council of Valence (Stucco, 363-364):

     In regard to God's predestination, we wished in the past and still faithfully wish to claim in the present, on the basis of the apostolic authority, that: "Does not the potter have a right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for an ignoble one?" (Rom 9:21), and also according to what immediately comes next: "What if God, wishing to show his wrath and make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction?  This was to make known the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared previously for glory" (Rom 9:22).  With confidence, we profess the predestination of the elect to life and the predestination of the impious to death: in the election of those who are to be saved, the mercy of God anticipates their good merit; in the damnation of those who will perish, their guilt anticipates just judgment.  "By means of predestination, God has only established what he is going to do either out of gratuitous mercy, or out of just judgment," as we read in the Scriptures:  "He has done what will be," (Is 45:11 LXX).  In the case of evil people, he has foreknown their malice, which originates from themselves, but has not predestined it, because it does not stem from him . . . [as the] Second Council of Orange said: "That some people have been predestined by the divine power," meaning that they could not be otherwise, "not only we do not believe, but if there are some who wish to believe something so evil, we anathemize and detest them."

In the year 785, Pope Hadrian I articulated briefly and succinctly the Catholic teaching on predestination in a letter to the bishops of Spain, where there was apparently some confusion on the topic.  Some were asking what the point of doing anything is if everything is predestined, and others were asking what the point of asking God for help is if we can make our own choices.

    As for that, however, which some of these say, that predestination to life or to death is in the power of God and not in ours; they say: "Why do we try to live, because it is in the power of God?"; again others say: "Why do we ask God, that we may not be overcome by temptation, since it is in our power, as in the freedom of will?"  For truly they are able to render or to accept no plan, being ignorant . . . [of the words] of blessed Fulgentius [against a certain Pelagius]:  "Therefore, God in the eternity of His changelessness has prepared works of mercy and justice . . . but for men who are to be justified He has prepared merits; He has prepared rewards for those who are to be glorified; but for the wicked He has not prepared evil wills or evil works, but He has prepared for them just and eternal punishments.  This is the eternal predestination of the future works of God, which as we have always acknowledged to be taught to us by apostolic doctrine, so also faithfully we proclaim. . . ."  (Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, tr. Roy J. Deferrari [Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2002], a translation of "the thirtieth edition of Enchiridion Symbolorum by Henry Denzinger, revised by Karl Rahner, S.J., published in 1954, by Herder & Co., Freiburg", p. 120, #300--ellipses and brackets in original)

In short, God is the source of the good works of the saints as well as of their eternal reward, but he is not the positive source of the evil works of the damned, though he ordains their eternal punishment.

1 Timothy 2:4 says that God "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."  How does this square with the fact that God has only predestined some, not all, to salvation, choosing to grant the efficacious grace that creates the good will and perseverance in good only to his elect?  God wills all men to be saved by what Catholic theology calls his "antecedent" will, but not by his "consequent" will.  Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in Predestination, pp. 74-75 (footnotes retained in square brackets), in the context of describing the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas on these matters, articulates this distinction:

     What metaphysical definition shall we give, then, of the consequent and antecedent wills?  St. Thomas gives us in substance the answer to this question.  He points out that good is the object of the will; now goodness, unlike truth, is formally not in the mind but in things as they actually are.  Hence we will, truly and simply, what we will as having to be at once realized, and this is called the consequent will, which in God is always efficacious.  As St. Thomas says:  "The will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications.  Hence we will a thing simply, inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. . . .  Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills, takes place." [Ibid., Ia, q.19, a.6 ad 1um]  As we shall see later on, this principle concerning the will is of supreme importance for St. Thomas as constituting the foundation for the distinction between efficacious and sufficient graces.
     If, on the other hand, the will is drawn to what is good in itself regardless of the circumstances, not to a thing as it actually is, then this is called the antecedent will, which of itself and as such is not efficacious, since good, whether natural or supernatural, easy or difficult to acquire, is realized only with its accompanying circumstances.  As St. Thomas says:  "A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary.  Thus that a man should live is good, . . . but if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer . . . to kill him is good." [Ibid., q.19, a.6 ad 1um]  Thus the merchant during a storm would will (conditionally) to retain his merchandise, but he wills to cast it into the sea so as to save his life. [Ibid., Ia IIae, q.6, a.6, c.]  Thus again, God wills antecedently that all the fruits of the earth become ripe, although for the sake of a greater good he permits this not to happen in all cases.  He also wills antecedently that all men should be saved, although, in view of a greater good, of which He alone is the judge, He permits that some commit sin and are lost.

In short, in itself considered, God loves the salvation of all men and hates their damnation, but in his wise providence, all things considered, he sees that it is better not to predestine all to receive the grace that efficaciously leads to salvation.  With regard to Christ having died for all men, of course his atonement was of infinite value and so was sufficient for all men and is truly offered and available to all (thus providing sufficient grace to all), and yet only those who, moved by grace, receive it have its benefits actually applied to them in such a way as to move them from a state of sin into a state of grace (and, with the elect, moving them to persevere in a state of grace to the end of their lives).

SALVATION IS ENTIRELY OF GRACE

This has already been spelled out above quite clearly in the context of what we have said about God's sovereignty and predestination, but it bears emphasizing in its own right.  Catholic doctrine is crystal clear that all good that we have relative to salvation is a gift of God coming from his grace through the sacrifice and merits of Christ.  It is not only the completion of good actions that comes from God, but also the very beginning of our good actions all the way down to the basic good will itself.  If we have a good will, it is entirely a gift of God's grace.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it (#2001--footnotes removed):

The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"

Then follows a quotation from St. Augustine of Hippo, another of the Church's greatest Doctors, called the Doctor of Grace:

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.

This was a major point emphasized by the Church in its opposition to the heresy of Semipelagianism, which affirmed the necessity of God's grace for salvation (unlike pure Pelagianism) but which wanted to attribute some part of salvation--such as the very beginnings of a good will--to ourselves apart from the grace of God.  The Church made its response to this back in the year 529 at the Second Council of Orange, the canons of which were confirmed by Pope Boniface II.  As the Catechism says (#406--footnotes removed), "[t]he Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529) and at the Council of Trent (1546)."  Here is Canon 5 from the Canons of Orange:

If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism — if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers. 

Canon 22 puts it this way:

No man has anything of his own but untruth and sin. But if a man has any truth or righteousness, it is from that fountain for which we must thirst in this desert, so that we may be refreshed from it as by drops of water and not faint on the way.

St. Augustine elaborates upon the point:

Men, however, are laboring to find in our own will some good thing of our own, -- not given to us by God; but how it is to be found I cannot imagine.  The apostle says, when speaking of men's good works, "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?  now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?"  But, besides this, even reason itself, which may be estimated in such things by such as we are, sharply restrains every one of us in our investigations so as that we may not so defend grace as to seem to take away free will, or, on the other hand, so assert free will as to be judged ungrateful to the grace of God, in our arrogant impiety. . . . 

Unless, therefore, we obtain not simply determination of will, which is freely turned in this direction and that, and has its place amongst those natural goods which a bad man may use badly; but also a good will, which has its place among those goods of which it is impossible to make a bad use:—unless the impossibility is given to us from God, I know not how to defend what is said: “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?”  For if we have from God a certain free will, which may still be either good or bad; but the good will comes from ourselves; then that which comes from ourselves is better than that which comes from Him.  But inasmuch as it is the height of absurdity to say this, they ought to acknowledge that we attain from God even a good will.  It would indeed be a strange thing if the will could so stand in some mean as to be neither good nor bad; for we either love righteousness, and it is good, and if we love it more, more good,—if less, it is less good; or if we do not love it at all, it is not good.  And who can hesitate to affirm that, when the will loves not righteousness in any way at all, it is not only a bad, but even a wholly depraved will?  Since therefore the will is either good or bad, and since of course we have not the bad will from God, it remains that we have of God a good will; else, I am ignorant, since our justification is from it, in what other gift from Him we ought to rejoice.  Hence, I suppose, it is written, “The will is prepared of the Lord;” and in the Psalms, “The steps of a man will be rightly ordered by the Lord, and His way will be the choice of his will;” and that which the apostle says, “For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of His own good pleasure.”  ("On the Merits and Remission of Sins, and On the Baptism of Infants," found in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 1st Series, Vol. V: Saint Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings, ed. Philip Schaff [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, (1887); Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, reprinted 1987], 56 [footnotes removed])

St. Thomas Aquinas makes the same point, affirming that our good will is a gift of God's grace.  He divides grace into two categories: operative and cooperative.  Operative grace is grace working by itself in us without our cooperation.  Cooperative grace is grace working with our active cooperation.  By operative grace, God changes our bad will (inherited from Adam) into a good will, causing us to turn to him in love.  This grace is operative because before it has finished its task, there is no good will in the person to cooperate with it.  But once the good will is created by grace, that good will cooperates with grace by not resisting grace, turning to God, and in the doing of good works and the furthering of sanctification (and of course the continuation of the good will in us is owing to the continuation of God's grace).  There is a logical sequence here (logical rather than temporal).  God arouses our collaboration, and, once thus aroused, we collaborate.  Thus all our goodness is fully a product of divine grace from beginning to end.

Now . . . grace is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating. For the operation of an effect is not attributed to the thing moved but to the mover. Hence in that effect in which our mind is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole mover, the operation is attributed to God, and it is with reference to this that we speak of "operating grace." But in that effect in which our mind both moves and is moved, the operation is not only attributed to God, but also to the soul; and it is with reference to this that we speak of "cooperating grace." Now there is a double act in us. First, there is the interior act of the will, and with regard to this act the will is a thing moved, and God is the mover; and especially when the will, which hitherto willed evil, begins to will good. And hence, inasmuch as God moves the human mind to this act, we speak of operating grace. But there is another, exterior act; and since it is commanded by the will, as was shown above (I-II:17:9) the operation of this act is attributed to the will. And because God assists us in this act, both by strengthening our will interiorly so as to attain to the act, and by granting outwardly the capability of operating, it is with respect to this that we speak of cooperating grace. Hence after the aforesaid words Augustine subjoins: "He operates that we may will; and when we will, He cooperates that we may perfect." (Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Question 111, Article 2--from the New Advent website, embedded links removed)

God efficaciously draws his people to Christ.  Because he does so, they will certainly come.  But they also come completely freely.  Grace does not subvert or destroy their will or intellect but rather works by persuading them effectively to do the right thing.

But can they do otherwise, or are they drawn by irresistible power against their will?  The Council of Trent (Sixth Session, Chapter V) says that the sinner who is the subject of the inspiration of divine grace is not "utterly without doing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it."  The Catholic view holds that when God converts us, we are not converted as blocks or stones but as human beings with free will, and so our will must cooperate with grace.  Grace does not destroy or subvert human will but rather perfects it by bringing it to function properly.  But it is imperative that it not be forgotten that man's cooperation with divine grace is itself a fruit of divine grace.  There is no idea here of any independent contribution from man.  The idea that man makes an independent contribution to salvation is precisely the idea of the Semipelagianism that the Catholic Church has condemned so thoroughly time and time again.  No, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2011) says, "[t]he saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace."  And because even our good will is in its entirety a gift of divine grace, grace must be efficacious.  If God gives a person the gift of a good will, that person will have a good will.  God's grace does not need to be met with some independent contribution from the will, without which grace remains ineffective.  Grace itself provides the very assent of the will that cooperates with it.

Fr. John Hardon, in his Course on Grace: Part IIA - Grace Considered Intensively, Chapter XV, comments on Catholic dogma regarding efficacious grace:

It is a dogma of the Catholic faith that there exists a truly sufficient but inefficacious grace, and also that there exists a truly efficacious grace which, however, is not necessitating. 

A truly sufficient grace is sufficient for placing a salutary act. It carries with it the power of producing such an act. . . .

By a truly efficacious grace is meant one that will be (is) infallibly followed by the act to which it tends, e.g. contrition. If you receive such a grace, even before your will consents to it, that grace is infallibly “sure of success;” it will infallibly procure your consent, produce that act – of contrition. But although it infallibly procures your consent, it does not necessitate you to consent: it leaves you free to dissent. Your will will infallibly say "yes" to it, but it is free to say "no.”

God gives sufficient grace to all, so that there is no obstacle to a person coming to Christ outside his own free refusal to avail himself of the opportunity presented to him by the offer of salvation through Christ.  God commands us to return to him in reliance on his grace.  In order for us to be able to fulfill this command, God must make divine grace available to us upon condition that we will choose to make good use of it.  This is why Catholic doctrine insists that God has provided "sufficient grace" to all men.  All obstacles external to the will have been removed.  However, no one will choose to avail himself of the opportunity to return to God unless God gives him the gift not only of the ability to come to Christ if he will, but also the willingness itself, and it is efficacious grace which provides this willingness to those whom God has chosen.

WHY NOT SCENARIO 1?

With all of this in mind, look back at Scenario 1 at the very beginning of this article, which we rejected in favor of Scenario 2.  It is evident now why Scenario 1 is contrary to Catholic doctrine.

First, it contradicts the Catholic doctrine that God is the creator of all things and is therefore sovereign over all things.  If God's contributions to both Sarah and Suzie are truly exactly the same in all relevant respects, then Sarah, in producing her good will to embrace the gospel, has brought about the existence of something out of nothing.  She has produced something which does not in any way have its root in God.  She has exhibited a First Causal power not ultimately traceable to God, the one First Cause.  "But God gave her the ability to choose," one might say, "and so her choice did come from God."  Yes, that would explain Sarah's general ability to make choices; but it would not explain why she made the particular choice she did.  It would explain Sarah's general will, but not her good will.  A good will (that accepts the gospel) and a bad will (that rejects it) are two significantly different things--so different as to result in exactly opposite eternal consequences.  If God's contribution explains why Sarah had a will but not why she had a good will rather than a bad one, then all the aspects of Sarah's will that differentiate it from Suzie's would not be in any way traceable back to God, but would be created ex nihilo by Sarah herself apart from God.

Also, if God in every way and sense wills salvation equally to Sarah and to Suzie, then God's will is defeated when Suzie rejects the gospel and ends up in hell.  On the whole, the universe will not turn out exactly as God wants it to be.  We must picture God, observing the whole of space and time, and concluding, "I got some of what I wanted, but not everything.  My ideal and what actually happened are not the same.  They are different in some very significant ways, in that some people have gone to hell when I wanted everyone to go to heaven."  But if the universe is not ultimately completely in accordance with God's will, then God is not the creator of all of reality.  There are aspects of reality, laws governing it, causes at work in it, that aren't traceable to God and which defy him and win.  Instead of the idea of one supreme God who is the creator of all things and rules over all in accordance with his sovereign will, we end up with the idea of a universe partly uncreated by God, ruled partly by God and partly by forces beyond his control which can thwart his desires and ideals.  We have abandoned monotheism for a polytheism in which God is merely one god in the midst of other ultimate realities that are at the root of existence.

Secondly, Scenario 1 contradicts the Catholic doctrine that all good that we have relative to salvation is a gift of God coming from his grace through the sacrifice and merits of Christ.  In Scenario 1, as I noted above, since God's contributions to Sarah and Suzie are exactly the same, Sarah's good will (at least the particularly good aspects of that will) is not ultimately traceable to God, and therefore cannot be conceived of as a gift of God's grace.  Rather, it is something Sarah has produced from herself, and the difference between her and Suzie is that Sarah did produce from herself and Suzie didn't produce from herself a good will.  But, as St. Augustine indicated in our quotation earlier, our very justification is ultimately rooted in our good will.  It is our good will which allows us to be reconciled to God and therefore makes the difference between heaven and hell.  To say, then, that the part of a good will that distinguishes it from a bad will is not ultimately attributable to God's grace but fully and ultimately to ourselves is to blaspheme God by taking to ourselves the highest credit for our salvation.  This is the heresy of justification by works that St. Paul so strenuously argued against in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians and which the Church so strenuously resisted in its battles with Pelagianism and Semipelagianism.

I will close this article with one of my favorite summary statements of the doctrines of grace and predestination, from St. Isidore of Seville, a 7th century Doctor of the Church.  I like this statement because he puts all the pieces of the puzzle together so clearly--God's sovereignty over all things, salvation by God's grace alone, God's permission of evil according to his eternal plan, the freedom of the will, etc.:

Between the infusion of divine grace and the faculty of the human will there is the following element: the decision stemming from a human choice, which is capable of spontaneously desiring good or bad things. Grace is the free gift of divine mercy, through which we evidence the beginning of a good will and its fruits. Divine grace anticipates man, so that he may do what is good; human free will does not anticipate God's grace, but grace itself anticipates an unwilling person, so that he may want what is good. Because of the burden of the 'flesh,' man finds it easy to sin, though he is slow to repent. Man has within himself the seeds of corruption but not of spiritual growth, unless the Creator, in order to raise him up, stretched his merciful hand to man, who is prostrated as a result of the Fall. Thus, through God's grace human free will is restored, which the first man had lost; in fact, Adam had free will to do what is good, even though he did it with God's help. We obtain our will to do what is good and embrace God perfecting us, thanks to divine grace. We receive the power to begin and to perfect what is good from God, who gave us the gift of grace; as a result of that, our free will is restored in us. Whatever good we do, it is God's, thanks to his prevenient and subsequent grace; but it is also ours, thanks to the [God-made] obedient power of our wills. But if it isn't God's, why do we give him thanks? And if it isn't ours, why do we look forward to the reward of good works? Insofar as we are anticipated by God's grace, it is God's; insofar as we follow prevenient grace to do what is good, it is ours. Nobody anticipates God's grace with his merits, thus making him almost indebted to us. The just Creator chose in advance some people by predestining them, but justly abandoned the others to their evil ways. Thus, the truest gift of grace does not proceed from human nature, nor is the outcome of our free will, but is bestowed only in virtue of the goodness of God's mercy. In fact, some people are saved by a gift of God's mercy which anticipates them, and thus are made "vessels of mercy;" but the reprobates are damned, having been predestined and made "vessels of wrath." The example of Jacob and Esau comes to mind, who, before been [sic] born, and again, after being born as twins, shared the bond of original sin. The prevenient goodness of divine mercy drew one of them to itself through sheer grace, but condemned the other through the severity of divine justice. The latter was abandoned in the mass of perdition, being 'hated' by God; this is what the Lord says through the prophet: "I loved Jacob but hated Esau" (Mal 1:3). From this we learn that grace is not conferred on account of any pre-existing merits, but only because of divine calling; and that no one is either saved or damned, chosen or reprobated other than by decision of God's predestination, who is just towards the reprobates and merciful towards the elect ("All the paths of the Lord are faithful love" Ps 25:10).  [The quotation is from St. Isidore of Seville, Libri Duo Differentiarum, chapter XXII, found in God's Eternal Gift: A History of the Catholic Doctrine of Predestination from Augustine to the Renaissance, by Guido Stucco (Xlibris, 2009), pp. 317-319--first set of brackets in original.]

For another article which is similar to this one but which is arranged differently (it is a chapter from a book), see here.  For a more basic overview of the Catholic doctrine of salvation in general, see here.  For those who are wondering how the Catholic school of thought known as Molinism fits into all of this, see here and here.  For a look at the heresy of Jansenism and the Catholic Church's response to it, which sheds further light on the issues discussed here, see here.  And finally, for those who are interested in how all of this relates to Calvinism, see here.

Published on the feast of St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Gertrude