While most Catholics hardly talk about it (and some might even think the Church does not teach it), predestination is one of the central teachings of the Catholic Church.   Catholic Encyclopaedia defines Predestination as the Divine decree by which God, owing to His infallible prescience of the future, has appointed and ordained from eternity all events occurring in time, especially those which directly proceed from, or at least are influenced by, man’s free will.   

Why there is predestination?   Catholics believe that original sin makes us unable to reach salvation, not even will our salvation, without being first moved by God’s Grace.  This leads to the question: Since the initiative of our salvation belongs to God, does He predestine who will go to heaven (the Elect) and who will go to hell (the Reprobate)?   

All Christians believe in the predestination of the Elect – it is clearly stated in the Scripture (Matthew 25:34, Acts 13:48, Romans 8:28-30).  In Catechism of the Catholic Church the term “the Elect” appears in a number of clauses (CCC # 769, 842, 1031, 1045, 1344).    How does God predestine the Elect?   Is it based on His foreknowledge of our response to His Grace or on His eternal decree when He created the world?  The former view is known as Conditional Election and the latter as Unconditional Election.   Protestants and “Bible only” Christians who adhere to Calvinism believe in the latter while the so called Arminianist Protestants believe in the former.   Until now the Catholic Church does not declare dogmatically on how God predestines the Elect, whether it is Conditional or Unconditional Election.   Catholics are still free to choose from a number of predestination views, among which are: Thomism (after Thomas Aquinas) and Molinism (after Luis de Molina).  Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was philosopher, theologian, Doctor of the Church and patron of Catholic universities, colleges and schools.  Luis de Molina (1535-1600) was Jesuit theologian.  Thomists (and some Molisnists) teach Unconditional Election while Molinism believes in the Conditional Election.

As for the Reprobate, Catholics believe that God predestines no one to hell. Scripture says God loves the world (John 3:16); He desires all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4) and come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9) and that He has no pleasure on the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11).   The belief that God predestines no one to evil has been the constant teaching of the Catholic Church.

We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.

Council of Orange (529 AD)

If any one saith, that it is not in man’s power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil God worketh as well as those that are good, not permissively only, but properly, and of Himself, in such wise that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of Paul; let him be anathema.

Council of Trent, Canon VI of the Decrees on Justification

God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1037

Because God predestines no one to hell, Catholics believe He gives His Grace, through Christ, to everyone and calls every one, no exception, to salvation.

For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men.

Titus 2:11

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:22

“‘All men are called to this catholic [universal] unity of the People of God…. And to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God’s grace to salvation.‘

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 836

If God gives His Grace to every one and desires all men to be saved, then why can’t all enter heaven?  Scripture says that God gives His Grace lavishly to the Elect (Ephesians 1:7-8) and He has mercy but also hardens the hearts of whom He will (cf. Romans 9:18).  This is something we cannot question – God is the potter and we are the clay (Romans 9:20-21).  In Catholic Church’s terminology God gives the Elect sufficient and efficacious Grace while the Reprobates receive sufficient but inefficacious Grace.  Catholics believe God gives everyone sufficient Grace to make him/her, using his/her freedom, turn to God and be saved.  One way to explain it is using Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30).  In the parable the Master gave different number of talents to his three servants according to their abilities.  The Master obviously had the right to decide how many talents each servant received. The servant with only one talent was later condemned.  Yet his Master did not intend to condemn him by giving him only one talent.  Had he deposited it in the bank he would be fine like the other two.  The servant was condemned for his own wrong action, i.e. hiding the single talent entrusted to him.  Thus Catholics believe that condemnation of the Reprobate always involves their freedom to reject God’s Grace – in other words they are responsible for their damnation.  Catholic’s view on Reprobation is called as Positive Conditional Reprobation – when God created the world He, being omniscience, foresaw the Reprobate’s rejection to His Grace and let them use their freedom to do so.  Yet God still wants them to be saved and still gives them sufficient Grace.  

“To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of ‘predestination’, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: ‘In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place [Acts 4:27-28]. For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. 

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 600

Protestants and “Bible only” Christians may or may not agree with Catholic’s position on Reprobation.  Those who follow Calvinism believe in Positive Unconditional Reprobation, i.e. when God created the world, through His decree, He foreordained the Reprobate to damnation and consequently decided to withhold His Grace from them.   

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.

Westminster Confession III.3

As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous Judge, for former sins, does blind and harden, from them He not only withholds His grace whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon in their heart; but sometimes also withdraws the gifts which they had, and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin; and, withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God uses for the softening of others.

Westminster Confession V.6

Westminster Confession is the confession of faith of English-speaking Presbyterians. It was completed in 1646 and approved after some revisions in June 1648.  Calvinists believe in common grace, which is given to everyone, however it has nothing to do with salvation.   This common grace concept explains why we can find goodness among non-Christians (i.e. the Reprobate), despite their totally deprived nature and it also comes in the form of God’s providence for all mankind – he [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45).  To Calvinists what is reserved only to the Elect (and is irresistible to them) is special grace – it is the grace that makes them believe in Christ, sanctifies them and therefore saves them.

Others Protestants believe in Negative Unconditional Reprobation, i.e. God simply bypasses the Reprobate from receiving His Grace for no reason – and without God’s Grace they are doomed to hell.   In both Positive and Negative Unconditional Reprobation God is behind the Reprobate’s damnation.   In contrast Catholic position makes the Reprobate responsible for their damnation – God gives them sufficient Grace, which they reject using their freedom.

In Calvinist’ Unconditional Election and Reprobation the role of human freedom in responding to God’s Grace for their salvation or damnation is denied.   They may argue that we still have freedom but to them it means freedom to choose evil.

“after the fall, though the will itself remains free, its capacity for choice is limited by the sinfulness of human nature.   Human beings retain the capacity of choice, but all choosing occurs in the context of sin.”  

Encyclopaedia of the Reformed Faith (Editor: Donald K. Mc Kim,) page 145

Catholics, on the other hand, believe that without God’s Grace we can neither believe in God nor obey His commandments – our salvation is impossible without God’s Grace but we have freedom to cooperate with that Grace or not. 

To Calvinists God gives His (saving) Grace only to the Elect who can neither reject nor lose it.   However Jude 4 says that those who were designated for condemnation pervert the Grace of God – something they cannot do if they do not receive it in the first place.  The belief that God gives His Grace only to the Elect was condemned in the Council of Trent.

If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.

Council of Trent, Canon XVII of the Decrees on Justification

Calvinists may use God’s sovereignty to defend their position.  But here they make presumption, i.e. God first foreordained the Reprobate to eternal damnation when He created the world and because He is sovereign then His will must take place.  Catholics do not deny that God is sovereign but He cannot contradict Himself.   Scripture does say that God through Christ intends to save all mankind (Romans 5:18, 1 Corinthians 15:22, 1 Timothy 1:15, Titus 2:11) – He won’t contradict Himself by, through His decree, foreordaining some (the Reprobate) with no reason to hell.