The Line of The Good, Predestination, Frustratability
Here are my thoughts on predestination as they continue to develop.
Previously I said God could not be frustrated or surprised by his Creatures. I am ready to retract (or at least qualify) that statement. God cannot be really surprised by his creatures in that God’s intrinsic states be changed or affected by his creature’s actions (such contingent knowledge is grounded extrinsic to God), but it now seems plausible to me — in fact, probably correct — that God can be frustrated by them in a particular sense, if not in the ultimate sense. If this is the case, then the Thomist can indeed adopt a free will defense, which I was previously hesitant to endorse.
But here we must return to an important distinction made clearly by Maritain in his book God and the Permission of Evil, between the line of the good and the line of evil. Because God is the source of all being, and because goodness and being are convertible, God takes the first initiative in the line of the good. Any good acts we do spring first and ultimately by God, though, given dual sources, we are really the cause of our free acts, as well. So when good things happen we have only God to thank — that is true.
In the line of evil, however, the first initiative occurs, on our part, via a negatio or nihilation, specifically a non-consideration of the rule. Because this is a nihiliation, it is not really an act but a non-act, and therefore, non-being. So God is not responsible for this, because God is in no way the cause of non-being. It is truly an abuse of (or at least a defect inherent to) our being fallibly free and finite creatures. The non-consideration of the rule itself is not evil, but actions which follow from the non-consideration which ought to have considered the rule are thus properly called a privation, since those actions are missing a due good. If I desire money (itself not bad) but do not consider the rule of not harming people to acquire wealth, and then mug somebody, the act of mugging suffers from a privation, and so a sin has occurred, and the ultimate responsibility is my own, even if God grants being to all positive actions of my mugging someone. Thus is God’s permission of evil, but not causing of it.
The question now is this. Can God make it so that we all consider the rule infallibly, or can God be frustrated by his creatures in this particular sense? Clearly, in the case of our Blessed Mother, God can give what Maritain calls a from-the-very-beginning unshatterable motion toward The Good, but, Maritain argues, this is miraculous, and would be no more befitting to deal with all humans in such a manner, than it would to constantly conduct miracles in other respects: It would make nonsense (or at least pointless) of God’s creating a natural order (including fallibly free creatures) to begin with. And God works with things according to their nature; God “plays fair,” in other words. Implication? Because we are fallibly free God works with us according to our mode of being, by providing sufficient grace in the form of “shatterable motions”, which contain everything we need to freely consider the rule and conduct ourselves according to it, but which are also frustrate-able; i.e. can be nihiliated, via our created liberty. (Here, the distinction Lonergan makes between operative and co-operative grace is extremely helpful; Feingold handily summarizes the view in Thomism and Predestination.)
And so, it is out of respect to the freedom God offered his creatures that God provides sufficient grace, which, if not nihilated, if not obstructed or interrupted by the free acts of human beings, will inevitably fructify and produce holiness, sanctity, perseverance, salvation, etc; that is, become unshatterable. Otherwise, these graces can be freely refused. Again, I emphasize the shatterable motions are still sufficient and therefore always infallible for at least something (the initial desire of salvation, say) but shatterable nevertheless and thus not infallible for everything. This, Maritain argues, is how God offers superabundant help to all his creatures while respecting their mode of free being. Thus, if we are justified, sanctified, and carried into heaven, we have only God to thank, but if we refuse and are found somehow condemned, we have only ourselves to blame.
This is only a rough sketch, and deserves more in the way of defense; I can only say that Maritain, Marin-Sola, and Lonergan go to lengths to make this account seem not only plausible, but true. And, as I suggested earlier, if it is true, this would seem to offer Thomists the option of a somewhat unique free will defense, since it would deny that God could freely move any person (at any time) toward himself without performing constant miracles that would make pointless his creating a natural order of interacting, fallibly free beings in the first place.
But as with anything, there are trade-offs. The compromise “harder” Thomists make, who want to say God could move anybody freely to himself, is how precisely to deal with those who are condemned. “Harder” Thomists get flirty with double predestination, it seems to me, even if there are fine enough distinctions to still leave the creature ultimately responsible and deserving of condemnation. (Distinctions, to my mind, that do not ultimately make enough of a difference!) The problem, however, is that even if the creature is still deserving of condemnation, God still could have saved them (without any overarching offense to the natural order), and it just seems more in line with the spirit of the Gospel — more in line with the God that is love, and who died brutally and fantastically to express His love for us; and who died for all — that an all loving God would save as many He can. For these reasons, I find the “harder” Thomist position unpalatable and probably false, unless it is paired with some form of universalism, which I doubt many of the “harder” Thomists would accept.
I find the “softer” Thomism of Maritain more convincing, more beautiful, and more metaphysically interesting and nuanced. But as I said, there are trade-offs, and part of the difficulty of the “softer” Thomism is retaining meticulous providence. For example: What if God wants Person A to live but Person B refuses to consider the rule of not-murdering someone when offended by their political opinion. Could this also frustrate God’s providence, ultimately? Maritain argues it could not, because there are infinitely many ways and circumstances God could use to ensure person A isn’t murdered even if person B makes the attempt. God could cause the spring in the gun to fail, or a tremor in person B’s hand. God could cause a sudden earthquake, the bullets to miss the truly vital organs by only this-much (St. John Paul II, anyone?), or whatever else. So God need not be frustrated by his creature’s decisions ultimately, and to suggest as much, I think Maritain would argue, is simply to lack imagination and not consider how much providential control God has otherwise. All creation is but plastic in the hands of our Lord.
To drive these points, it worth quoting Maritain at length (and please keep in mind the importance/complicated matter of God’s eternity, which cannot be overlooked), “By reason of this free nihilating, the creature has a portion of first initiative in the drama. Unless the free existent has received at one stroke an unshatterable impetus to good, it depends solely upon him whether he will or will not take the initiative of nihilating or non-consideration of the rule, under the motions and activations which bear him towards good. Will he or will he not nihilate under the hand of the potter? As concerns his good or evil act, and the repercussions it may have upon what follows in the drama, it is at that instant in time, known from all eternity, that the immutable plan is simultaneously established from all eternity. Let us suppose that the free creature has not, in that instant, the initiative of the thing that is nothing. The initiative of nihilating not being seen (from all eternity) in the free existent by the ‘science of vision,’ from all eternity, the primordial will of God (which willed the good act of this creature in the direction of the particular ends toward which it ordained him) is confirmed by the definitive or circumstanced will. Thus from all eternity the accomplishment of this good act by this creature is immutably fixed in the eternal plan. Let us suppose, on the contrary, that at that instant the free creature has the initiative of the thing that is nothing. Then, this is seen from all eternity in the free existent by the ‘science of vision’; and from all eternity God’s definitive or circumstanced will (if it does not will to prevent the natural effect of this nihiliating) permits the evil act of which this creature has the first initiative; and from all eternity the permission of this evil act, ordained to a better good (itself will either determinately or indeterminately), is immutable fixed in the eternal plan. Thus we can conceive, by the aid of the moments of reason which our human mode of conceiving is forced to distinguish in the divine will, that the variegated drama of history and humanity, with its infinite interweavings, is immutably fixed fixed from all eternity by the perfectly and infinitely simple dominating act of divine knowledge and free will, account being taken of all free existents and of all the free nihilations of which these existents have or have not the initiative, throughout the whole succession of time whose every moment is present in eternity. Let no one say that man alters the eternal plan! That would be an absurdity. Man does not alter it. He enters into its very composition and its eternal fixity by his power of saying, No!” (Source: Existence and the Existent.)
But how about in the order of salvation? Because if God wills the salvation of all, might God thus be frustrated in his achieving that end? Here I think the “softer” Thomist can be open to a range of outcomes, but no matter what, God cannot be frustrated in his ultimate end of producing overall greater goods from whatever evils/frustrations occur with regard to particular circumstances; that is, even if God’s “primordial” or “uncirumstanced” will is not confirmed by God’s “definitive” or “circumstanced” will because of the rejection of saving grace by fallibly free creatures.
It might be the case that God, in his providence, does in fact manage to save all, though just by the very skin of their teeth do some people repent — does that shatterable motion finally “go through”, as it were — and perhaps their repentance requires a significant providential order of suffering, to ensure those graces eventually and fully fructify. This would then make available something like Eleonore Stump’s account for the problem of pain, which holds that God allows suffering if and only if it is the best or only available means to deliver some outweighing good primarily for the sufferer; but this would be acceptable only if God could be frustrated, in some sense, by the liberty of his creatures. Stump’s account doesn’t seem available to the “harder” Thomist who rejects Maritain’s view: that Thomist is simply back to Augustine’s general claim that everything is still greater on the whole, even if God could have saved all, but for whatever reason, doesn’t.
I finish with more questions than answers. But here is my summary: The advantage to affirming God can, in some sense, be frustrated by created liberty provides a more dynamic and interesting (and to my mind, realistic) drama. The difficulty is in safeguarding meticulous providence via divine omnipotence, which I think can be done, but is more vexing a project with the Maritain model than with Neo-Banezians. (Then again, just because an account is easier to think about doesn’t make it true: determinism is easier to think about that libertarian freedom, but I also believe we have every reason to affirm libertarian freedom and reject determinism.) The “harder” Thomist position, which claims God could move anyone at any point freely to salvation, but perhaps doesn’t, more easily accommodates God’s meticulous providence, but also smacks of double predestination, which I reject. If I were to affirm the harder Thomist position I would probably also want to affirm universalism, just to avoid neuralgia. But on the softer Thomist position, I may still be a hopeful universalist, but could better make sense of the real possibility of hell.
From both reason and intuition, then, here is what I think is probably true:
The Catholic Predestination Optimist: That Maritain’s model of metaphysics and predestination are correct (God respects his creatures fallible freedom and can therefore be frustrated by it with regard to particular ends; if only temporarily), along with Stump’s account of suffering and evil (which considers objective flourishing, closer second-person relationships, and our deepest desires of the heart), and that, in end, the total set of humans not saved is zero (and here), because God is just that omnipotent and loving and wise. All of which are not only within the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy, but seems (to me, anyway) beautiful. And when arguments cannot determine the answers, perhaps the beautify of an account which more closely corresponds to the infinite love of God can.