This is a great conversation, thanks for having it. Just a little quibble. I think someone could theoretically argue that Augustine's position on predestination is compatible with the Catechism's teaching that Hell is one's "definitive self-exclusion from communion with God." What I mean is, what Augustine and those who follow his line of thinking would say is that it's our shared guilt for Adam's sin and our guilt for our personal sins that is really the cause of our damnation. God punishes the unrepentant for their sin, or if you want to avoid the language of God directly punishing, you could say the unrepentant separate themselves from communion with God.
However, for Augustine (and Aquinas), it *is* true that God withholds the grace necessary for overcoming sin from those who end up being damned. But from an Augustinian perspective, that is simply God in His justice allowing some of humankind to suffer the consequences of the mess we ourselves have created.
To me, the more interesting magisterial teaching comes from Chapter 13 of the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification: "For God, unless men themselves fail in His grace, as he has begun a good work, so will he perfect it, working to will and to accomplish." As I read it, the implication here is that there aren't any limits on God's generosity, any failure is going to be on our part in failing to respond to God's grace (that point is even clearer in earlier drafts of the decree). In the post-Tridentine period, Thomist and Augustinian theologians tied themselves in knots trying to harmonize that with their teachings, I think unsuccessfully. At my own newsletter, I've written about how St. Francis de Sales interprets it in a more straightforward way:
"He willed that thus he should make himself the companion of our miseries to make us afterwards companions of his glory, showing thereby the riches of his goodness, by this copious, abundant, superabundant, magnificent and excessive redemption, which has gained for us, and as it were reconquered for us, all the means necessary to attain glory, so that no man can ever complain as though the divine mercy were wanting to anyone." (Treatise on the Love of God, Book II, Chapter 4)
I don't think Augustine can be harmonized with the Catechism in the way you suggest, for two reasons.
First, Augustine explicitly considers "the more usual explanation" of someone being damned--that human will has resisted God's grace--and he rejects it repeatedly. I think he's consistent to do so. Otherwise, we'd lock ourselves into the notion that while God has a will for the "ideal creation" that never comes about, he wouldn't apparently have a will for the actual creation--fallen creation--once it becomes less than ideal. "It is not as if human freedom has defeated God's," as he puts it.
Second, I think Augustine's also consistent, then, to say that it is not just original sin that causes damnation, but also God's own "unwillingness to show mercy." That divine unwillingness is a necessary and, for both Augustine and Thomas, sufficient condition for damnation. So it really isn't true to say that original sin alone is the condition for damnation. There is no world in which that alone could be the actual condition, since there is no world in which God could not have given grace sufficient for all to be saved.
What the Catechism implies, and what Maritains/Ratzinger-BXVI/et al. go on to elaborate, is that while God does will the salvation of all, it's possible that not all will be saved. Aquinas would deny this; it is not "compossible," he says, for God actually to will the salvation of a person and that person be actually damned (even if it is abstractly possible to conceive it otherwise). God's will does not fail, not in the end.
I like the de Sales quote. The question, I think, would be this though: Does God commiserate with us merely to restore "the means necessary," or does he himself accomplish "for us" or "in us" what those means make possible? If we say merely that grace restores the means to salvation, but does not accomplish the ends that we ourselves accomplish by those means (e.g. by willing in an almost libertine sense whether to take up or ignore the means), then I don't think we've really harmonized anything. We've merely stopped short of the actual tension in order to avoid facing it.
What JDW has been presenting resonates with both my head and my heart.
This is a great conversation, thanks for having it. Just a little quibble. I think someone could theoretically argue that Augustine's position on predestination is compatible with the Catechism's teaching that Hell is one's "definitive self-exclusion from communion with God." What I mean is, what Augustine and those who follow his line of thinking would say is that it's our shared guilt for Adam's sin and our guilt for our personal sins that is really the cause of our damnation. God punishes the unrepentant for their sin, or if you want to avoid the language of God directly punishing, you could say the unrepentant separate themselves from communion with God.
However, for Augustine (and Aquinas), it *is* true that God withholds the grace necessary for overcoming sin from those who end up being damned. But from an Augustinian perspective, that is simply God in His justice allowing some of humankind to suffer the consequences of the mess we ourselves have created.
To me, the more interesting magisterial teaching comes from Chapter 13 of the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification: "For God, unless men themselves fail in His grace, as he has begun a good work, so will he perfect it, working to will and to accomplish." As I read it, the implication here is that there aren't any limits on God's generosity, any failure is going to be on our part in failing to respond to God's grace (that point is even clearer in earlier drafts of the decree). In the post-Tridentine period, Thomist and Augustinian theologians tied themselves in knots trying to harmonize that with their teachings, I think unsuccessfully. At my own newsletter, I've written about how St. Francis de Sales interprets it in a more straightforward way:
"He willed that thus he should make himself the companion of our miseries to make us afterwards companions of his glory, showing thereby the riches of his goodness, by this copious, abundant, superabundant, magnificent and excessive redemption, which has gained for us, and as it were reconquered for us, all the means necessary to attain glory, so that no man can ever complain as though the divine mercy were wanting to anyone." (Treatise on the Love of God, Book II, Chapter 4)
Thanks for these thoughts, Matthew.
I don't think Augustine can be harmonized with the Catechism in the way you suggest, for two reasons.
First, Augustine explicitly considers "the more usual explanation" of someone being damned--that human will has resisted God's grace--and he rejects it repeatedly. I think he's consistent to do so. Otherwise, we'd lock ourselves into the notion that while God has a will for the "ideal creation" that never comes about, he wouldn't apparently have a will for the actual creation--fallen creation--once it becomes less than ideal. "It is not as if human freedom has defeated God's," as he puts it.
Second, I think Augustine's also consistent, then, to say that it is not just original sin that causes damnation, but also God's own "unwillingness to show mercy." That divine unwillingness is a necessary and, for both Augustine and Thomas, sufficient condition for damnation. So it really isn't true to say that original sin alone is the condition for damnation. There is no world in which that alone could be the actual condition, since there is no world in which God could not have given grace sufficient for all to be saved.
What the Catechism implies, and what Maritains/Ratzinger-BXVI/et al. go on to elaborate, is that while God does will the salvation of all, it's possible that not all will be saved. Aquinas would deny this; it is not "compossible," he says, for God actually to will the salvation of a person and that person be actually damned (even if it is abstractly possible to conceive it otherwise). God's will does not fail, not in the end.
I like the de Sales quote. The question, I think, would be this though: Does God commiserate with us merely to restore "the means necessary," or does he himself accomplish "for us" or "in us" what those means make possible? If we say merely that grace restores the means to salvation, but does not accomplish the ends that we ourselves accomplish by those means (e.g. by willing in an almost libertine sense whether to take up or ignore the means), then I don't think we've really harmonized anything. We've merely stopped short of the actual tension in order to avoid facing it.
Hell is eternal. This is infallible and unchangeable teaching. You’re promoting spiritually dangerous and evil lies.