 
             ST. AUGUSTINE ON GRACE AND PREDESTINATION
 
                        by Fr. William Most
  
         St. Augustine is called, rightly, the Doctor of Grace, for
his great work against the Pelagians who practically denied the need
of grace for salvation. Augustine showed very well our total
dependence on God. The Eastern Fathers had not denied this, did not
bring it out so well.
 
         I. (1) On human interaction with grace: Every good work,
even good will, is the work of God: 
 
         De gratia Christi 25, 26: "For not only has God given us our
ability and helps it, but He even works [brings about] willing and
acting in us; not that we do not will or that we do not act, but that
without His help we neither will anything good nor do it" -- "Non
solum enim Beus posse nostrum donavit atque adiuvat, sed etiam 'velle
et operari operatur in nobis' non quia nos non volumus, aut nos non
agimus, sed quia sine ipsius adiutorio nec volumus aliquid boni nec
agimus."
 
         De gratia et libero arbitrio 16, 32: "It is certain that we
will when we will; but He brings it about that we will good. . . . It
is certain that we act when we act, but He brings it about that we
act, providing most effective powers to the will." -- "Certum est nos
velle cum volumus; sed ille facit ut velimus bonum. . . . Certum est
nos facere cum facimus, sed ille facit ut faciamus, praebendo vires
efficacissimas voluntati."
 
         Ibid. 6. 15: "If then your merits are God's gifts, God does
not crown your merits as your merits, but as His gifts." "Si ergo Dei
dona sunt merita tua, non Deus coronat merita tua tamquam merita tua,
sed tamquam dona sua."
 
         Ep. 154, 5. 16: "What then is the merit of man before grace
by which merit he should receive grace? Since only grace makes every
good merit of ours, and when God crowns our merits, He crowns nothing
else but His own gifts." "Quod est ergo meritum hominis ante gratiam,
quo merito percipiat gratiam, cum omne bonum meritum nostrum non in
nobis faciat nisi gratia et cum Deus coronat merita nostra, nihil
aliud coronet quam munera sua?"
 
         (2) On the other hand, on the interaction of grace with our
freedom, he lacks something. His theory is the delectatio victrix: if
God shows me more pleasure in something good than in evil, I will
choose good. Thus a poor donkey might starve to death, if placed an
equal distance between two bails of hay.
 
         But to be serious: His delight is in the category of final
cause. He does not speak of efficient cause, which is surely needed,
and which 2 Cor 3:5 and Phil 2: 13 really call for.  
 
	II. On predestination: 
 
         Predestination is an arrangement of Providence to see
someone gets either full membership in the Church, or gets to heaven.
All early writers, East and West, tended to telescope the two.
Scripture speaks always and only of predestination to full membership
in Church. Only two passages, Rom 8:9ff and Ephesians chapter 1. In
Romans, all of chapters 8, 9, 10, 11 mention predestination and they
are on membership in Church. Ephesians 1 is too. There are of course
things that are implications relative to predestination to heaven.  
 
         Basic question: does God decide to predestine to heaven with
or without looking at a man's merits or demerits? All in the past
have taken for granted that if He decides to predestine to heaven
without looking, He does same for negative reprobation (letting one
go). Or He decides both with looking.
 
         Both views give impossible consequences. Augustine wants to
make both decisions, favorable and unfavorable be given without
looking. Easterners reject negative reprobation without looking at
demerits.
 
         The Eastern Fathers, absolutely all of them, and Westerners
before Augustine, and even after him, saw that there is no
reprobation, not even negative, except in consideration of demerits.
Augustine did not see that, and the unfortunate massa damnata theory,
which said the whole human race by original sin became a massa
damnata et damnabilis: God could throw the whole damned race into
hell for original sin alone, without waiting for any personal sin.  
 
         God wanted to display mercy and justice. To display mercy,
He chose a small percent to rescue; the rest He deserted and so they
would go to hell.
 
         He thought God picked those to rescue blindly, without any
consideration of how they lived. He picked them not that He had any
love for them, but merely to make a point. Augustine did not see it,
but that was a denial of God's love. For to love is to will good to
another for the other's sake. If I will good to another not for that
other's sake, but for some outside purpose of mine, I am not loving
that person, but using him.
 
         So in that theory, God does not really love anyone, He
merely uses the few for His own purposes, not for their sake. Hence,
as we shall son see, he explicitly denied several times that "God
wills all to be saved: (1 Tim 2:4) . He even said, as we shall soon
see below, that it means nothing to God that most persons are damned,
without a chance.  
 
         Of course Augustine did not see this fact, or he would
surely have stayed away from his theory. Actually, as we shall see
later on, in about six places he implies the opposite of that theory,
when his sense of God's goodness took over his thinking.
 
         Further, he reached this theory from a collection of
reasons, chiefly, the fact that he misunderstood the passage in
Romans 8:29 through chapter 11. He thought it all referred to
predestination to heaven or hell. (Hence, within that framework, he
thought that the words of Romans 9:13,"I have loved Jacob and hated
Esau" meant that God really hated Esau. And without even looking at
Esau's life wanted to damn him) .  Actually, St. Paul does not speak
of any such thing, but only of predestination to full membership in
the Church. (We will; explain below why we use that word full) . By
allegory- without any support in the text or context, he thought that
in the image of the potter in Romans 9:19-24 the gob of clay on the
potter's table meant the whole human race, made into a massa damnata
et damnabilis by original sin.
 
         St. Prosper of Aquitaine is often called the great defender
of Augustine. But he clearly contradicted Augustine on the massa
damnata , three times. For example, in his Responsiones ad capitula
obiectionum Gallorum 3: ". . . for this reason they were not
predestined because they were foreseen as going to be such as a
result of voluntary transgression . . . For they were not deserted by
God so that they deserted God; but they deserted and were deserted. .
. ." 
 
	How did St. Augustine happen to reach such a position? 
 
I. Predisposing factors: 
 
         A. Tendency to allegorical interpretations: He first learned
a solution to Manichean objections against Old Testament from St.
Ambrose: (Conf. 6, 4, 6) : "Joyfully I used to hear Ambrose saying in
his sermons to the people, as though he were most diligently teaching
a rule: 'The letter kills, but the spirit gives life, ' when he
opened up in a spiritual sense . . . those things which, taken
literally, seemed to each perversity." Actually the words are from 2
Cor 3:6. It meant that the old regime of the law kills spiritually,
the new regime of the spirit gives life. (St. Paul meant this only in
a focused or artificial perspective: cf. W. Most, The Thought of St.
Paul on this passage) .  Both St. Ambrose and St. Augustine were
completely wrong in their understanding of this line of St. Paul.  
 
         B. His view on the salvific will: He was predisposed to deny
it is universal, i.e. , God does not really want all to be saved: 
 
         (a) In natural order, he blurred the line between ordinary
and miraculous things (On John's Gospel 6. 1) : "Because . . . His
miracles, by which He rules the whole world . . . had become
commonplace by constant experience . . . He reserved to Himself
certain things which He would perform at opportune times, beyond the
usual course and order of nature, so that they for whom the daily
things had become commonplace might be amazed in seeing not greater
but unusual things."
 
         (b) In supernatural order: There was a similar failure to
see clearly the line (Sermon 141, 1, 1) : ". . . who would dare to
say that God lacked a way of calling, in which even Esau would apply
his mind to faith, and join his will [to that] in which Jacob was
justified?" I. 5. , Esau was reprobated, God could have used means
which would have saved Esau, He did not. Therefore He did not will
Esau's salvation! God wanted to damn him, and did so without even
looking at the future faults of Esau!  Augustine failed to understand
Romans 9:13, which was quoting Malachi. The semitic pattern meant: He
loves one more, the other less. Further, love here means a decision
to give full membership in the Church. So the mistake made by
Augustine was dreadful!
 
         (c) His actual comments on God's salvific will: (1)
Enchiridion 103: "When we hear and read in sacred Scripture that He
wills all men to be saved . . . we must . . .  so understand [it] . .
. as if it were said that no man is saved except whom He wants [to 
be saved]. . . . Or certainly it was so said . . . not that there is 
no man whom He is unwilling to have saved, He who was unwilling to
perform the wonders of miracles among those whom He says would have
done penance it He had done them: but in such a way that we
understand 'all men' to mean the whole human race, distributed into
various categories: kings, private citizens, nobles, ordinary men,
lofty, lowly, learned, unlearned. . . ." 
 
         (2) De correptione et gratia 14. 44: "And that which is
written that which is written that 'he wills all men to be saved and
yet not all are saved, can be understood in many ways, of which we
have mentioned some in other works, but I shall give one here. It is
said in such a way . . . that all the predestined are meant: for the
whole human race is in them."
 
         (3) De correptione et gratia 15, 47: "That 'God wills all
men to be saved' can be understood also in this way: that He causes
us to wish [that all men be saved]. . . ." 
 
         (4) Epistle 217, 6, 19: ". . . and so that which is said,
'God wills all men to be saved' although He is unwilling that so many
be saved, is said for this reason: that all who are saved, are not
saved except by His will."
 
         It is tragically obvious that Augustine completely denied
the clear sense of Scripture here. Further, since to love is to will
good to another for the other's sake, then when God says He wills all
to be saved, it means He loves all. Augustine was denying the love of
God, without realizing it of course.
 
 
         II. First or explicit theory of Augustine on Predestination:
Massa damnata: As we said above, from an allegorical interpretation
of Romans 9, chiefly verses 19-24, Augustine said the whole race is
as a mass of potters's clay from original sin--all could be sent to
hell for that fact of original sin alone (infants dying without
baptism are damned) .  First, there was and is no support for such an
allegorical interpretation. More importantly, he was sadly wrong.
Original sin alone does not deserve hell. St. Thomas Aquinas knew
that in teaching (De malo 5. 3. ad 4) that unbaptized infants suffer
no pain at all, even have natural happiness. More important: Pius IX
in Quanto conficiamur moerore (DS 2866) : "God . . . in His supreme
goodness and clemency, by no means allows anyone to be punished with
eternal punishments who does not have the guilt of voluntary fault."
So original sin alone does not bring hell.
 
         (a) Explicit texts: (1) Ad Simplicianum 1, 2, 16: "Therefore
all men are . . . one condemned mass [massa damnata] of sin, that
owes a debt of punishment to the divine and supreme justice. Whether
it [the debt] be exacted, or whether it be condoned, there is no
injustice."
 
         (2) Enchiridion 27: ". . . the whole condemned mass of the
human race lay in evils, or even rolled about in them, and was
precipitated from evils into evils. . . ."
 
         (3) City of God 21, 12: "Hence there is a condemned mass of
the whole human race . . . so that no one would be freed from this
just and due punishment except by mercy and undue grace; and so the
human race is divided [into two parts] so that in some it may be
shown what merciful grace can do, in others, what just vengeance can
do. . . . In it [punishment] there are many more than in [mercy] so
that in this way there may be shown what is due to all." 
  
         (4) Epistle 190. 3. 12: He said that reprobates are so much
more numerous than the saved that "by an incomparable number they are
more numerous than those whom He deigned to predestine as sons of the
promise to the glory of His kingdom; so that by the very number of
those rejected, it might he shown that the number, howsoever large,
of the justly damned is of no importance with a just God. . . ."
Which implies that God does not will all to be saved: hence
Augustine's explicit denial, several times, of the words of 1 Tim
2:4. Hence too, as we said above, God does not really love anyone: He
merely uses a few to show mercy.
 
         (b) Exclusion of foreseen merits: (1) On the predestination
of the saints 17: "Let us, then, understand the call by which the
elect are made [elect]: [they are] not [persons] who are chosen
because they have believed, but [they are persons] who are chosen so
that they may believe. For even the Lord Himself made this [call]
sufficiently clear when He said: 'You have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you. ' [COMMENT: In context, Christ was telling the Apostles
He had chosen them, not that they had chosen Him. So the text had
nothing at all to do with predestination to heaven or hell. The
error, so common, lies in ignoring the context of the text. ] . . .
This is the unshakable truth of predestination and grace. For what
else does that mean, that the Apostle says, 'As He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world. '[COMMENT : In context, St. Paul
was speaking of predestination to full membership in the Church, not
of predestination to heaven]. For surely if it was said [that they
were chosen] because God foresaw that they would believe, [and] not
because He Himself was going to make them believers--the Son speaks
against that sort of foreknowledge, saying: 'You have not chosen me,
but I have chosen you. '[ See comment above on this text] . So they
were chosen before the foundation of the world by that predestination
by which God foreknew His own future acts: they are chosen out of the
world by that vocation by which God fulfilled that which he had
predestined, 'For those whom He predestined, them also He called. . .
. '[COMMENT: In context, all of chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11 of 
Romans speak only of predestination to full membership in the Church,
not of predestination to heaven]. Therefore God chose the faithful,
not because they already were [faithful] but that they might be
[faithful]. So by choosing, He makes them rich in faith, just as [he
makes them] heirs of the kingdom." [COMMENT: Sadly, Augustine takes
every bit of Scripture used above out of context, so that the texts
prove nothing of what he has in mind].  
 
         (2) Enchiridion 99: "For grace alone distinguishes the
redeemed from the lost, whom a common cause from [their] beginning
had joined into one mass of perdition. . . ." COMMENT: If grace,
God's blind decision, alone is decisive, we arrive at the massa
damnata described above. There must be, and is, another factor
deciding who is saved or lost. We will explain that below.  
 
         (3) Epistle 194, 8, 35: "it is, moreover, marvelous into
what precipices they hurl themselves, in their fear of the nets of
truth, when they are pressed by these difficulties. 'It was for this
reason' they say, 'that He hated of those not yet born [Esau] and
loved the other [Jacob] because He foresaw their future works. ' Who
would not be surprised that this most keen thought could be lacking
to the Apostle? . . . . This, then, was the place for him to say what
these think: 'For God foresaw their future works', when He said that
'the elder would serve the lesser. ' But the Apostle did not say
this, but instead, lest anyone dare to boast of the merits of his
works, he wanted what he did say to be able to teach the grace and
glory of God." COMMENT: Augustine is right in saying it is not
prevision of merits that is decisive--but he did not see that
prevision of demerits could be the decisive factor. How to reconcile
these two points we will show below.  
 
         III. Second, or implicit theory: A good theologian knows
mysteries occur in theology.  So, if, from different points in
revelation, he seems to find opposing answers, and if rechecking does
not reveal an error on his part, he will feel obliged to hold both
ends of the chain without knowing how they can fit together (as when
we know there are three divine Persons, only one God) . So Augustine
could hold, even though only implicitly, a second theory which
contradicted the first. The elements of it are these:
 
         (a) From above, we retain: (1) Predestination does not
depend on merits. (2) We are totally dependent on God.  
 
         (b) We reject the massa damnata, and substitute instead: God
does not reprobate except after and because of foreseen grave
demerits. All the Eastern Fathers, and all Western Fathers before and
after Augustine held this truth. This position is compatible with the
position that predestination comes independently of foreseen merits,
even though Augustine did not see how.  
 
         We need to see that in God's decision there are three
logical stages or momenta: First, God wills sincerely and vehemently
that all be saved; Second, He foresees some will gravely resist
grace: on account of this resistance and because of it, He
reprobates; Third, He decrees to save the others, not because of
merits (which are not yet foreseen logically--only resistance is
looked at--merits come after absence of resistance) but because He
has always wanted that (salvific will) and these do not block His
will.
 
         Augustine's implication on reprobation is found in: e. g. ,
De diversis quaest. 83, 68, 5: De correptione et gratia 13, 42; De
peccatorum meritis et remissione 2, 17, 26; De actis cum Felice
Manichaeo 2, 8, which we shall now examine:
 
The Problem of a Second Theory of Predestination in St. Augustine 
 
         A theologian who follows precise theological method will
first study under the guidance of official teachings, all passages in
revelation that have any bearing on his problem directly or
indirectly. He will try to work out the answer, so far as possible,
from each separate starting point. A good comparison would be this:
he is like a man standing on the rim of a circle. From each of two or
more points on the rim he tries to draw a line that will hit the
center, the right answer. If he has done his work well, all lines
will focus in the center.
  
         Suppose he finds that two (or more) lines do not meet in the
center? He should first recheck his work. But then, if they still do
not meet, he must not force anything, but should just admit there are
mysteries in theology, and so should hold both truths, both lines.  
 
         Augustine seems to have done that, without realizing it, in
his study of grace. he did arrive, clearly, at the erroneous massa
damnata theory from his misinterpretation of Romans 9. But some
passages in his works seem to imply that he felt, without being fully
aware of it, a second line. Here are the passages.  1. On 88
different questions 68, 5: "For not all who were called wanted to
come to that dinner, which as the Lord says in the Gospel, was
prepared, nor would those who came have been able to come if they had
not been called. And so neither should they who came attribute [it]
to themselves; for they came being called nor should those who were
unwilling to come attribute [it] to anyone but themselves, for, in
order that they might come, they were called in free will."  COMMENT:
Compare his Enchiridion 99: ". . .  grace alone distinguishes the
redeemed from the lest, whom a common cause from [their] beginning
had joined into one mass of perdition. . . .") . [Written 388-98 A.
D. In saying those who did not come must attribute it only to
themselves, he is taking position opposite to massa damnata, where
the first reason for their not coming is not their own will but God's
desertion of them
  
         2. On correction and grace 13, 42: "Those, then, who do not
belong to that most certain and most happy number [of the
predestined] are judged most justly according to their merits. For
they either lie under the sin which they contracted originally by
generation.

         . . . Or they receive the grace of God, but are temporary,
and do not persevere: they desert and are deserted. For they were let
go in their free will, not receiving the gift of perseverance, by a
just and hidden judgment of God." [written 426]. COMMENT: In the
second part of this text, he speaks of those who have been forgiven
original sin--so, original sin cannot be the reason for reprobation
in them.  Augustine gives the reason: "They were let go in their free
will by a just judgment of God. They desert and are deserted." But in
massa damnata the reason would be that God first deserted them, and
then they deserted Him.  Nor can some remaining debility left from
original explain what he says: that debility is in ALL the baptized.
So the reason here why they do not persevere is their own free will,
not God's desertion within massa damnata.
 
 
         3. On the merits and remission of sins 2, 17, 26: "Men are
not willing to do what is right either because the fact that it is
right is hidden from the, or because it does not please them. It is
from the grace of God, which helps the wills of man, that that which
was hidden becomes known, and that which did not please become sweet.
The reason why they are not helped [by grace] is in themselves, not
in God, whether they are predestined to damnation because of the
wickedness of their pride, or whether they are to be judged and
emended, contrary to the wickedness of their pride if they are sons
of mercy." [written 411]. COMMENT: "The reason why they are not
helped [by grace] is in themselves, not in God." Now if the
fundamental reason were desertion by God, as in massa damnata,
Augustine would have said the opposite. But he did say "the reason
why they are not helped is in themselves, not in God."
 
 
         4. The debate with Felix the Manichean 2, 8: "Felix said:
You call Manichaeus cruel for saying these things. What do we say
about Christ who said: Go into eternal fire?  Augustine said: He said
this to sinners. Felix said: These sinners, why were they not
purified? Augustine said: Because they did not will [it]. Felix said:
Because they did not will it - did you say that? Augustine said: Yes,
I said it: Because they did not will it." [written 398]. COMMENT: :
He says the cause why they were not purified is "because they did not
will it." If he really meant that the first thing was a desertion by
God, as in massa damnata, then Felix would have won the debate, for
men would be damned without any opportunity. And God would be like
the God of the Manichees, who deserted to prepare the way for a
victory that never came.
 
 
         5. Tracts on the Gospel of St. John 53, 6: " 'They were not
able to believe', since Isaiah the prophet predicted it; and the
prophet predicted it, because God had foreseen that this would
happen. But if I am asked why they were not able, I reply quickly:
Because they did not want to: For God foresaw their evil will, and He
from whom the future things cannot be hidden announced it in advance
through the prophet. But, you say, the prophet speaks of another
cause, not of their will. What cause does the prophet speak of?
Because 'God gave them a spirit of compunction, eyes so that they did
not see, and ears, so that they did not hear, and He blinded their
eyes and hardened their heart'. I reply that their will merited even
this." [written 413-18]. COMMENT: He says the cause is their evil
will. And then seeing someone may say that that bad will came from
divine desertion he adds: "I reply that their evil will merited even
this." Could he mean they merit it by original sin? Then why such a
process of words and objection and solution--it would be a deception
of his readers. -- So again, Augustine is saying that the first cause
why some are reprobated is found in the wills of men, not in God.
 
 
         6. On instructing the ignorant 52: "The merciful God,
wanting to deliver men, if they are not enemies to Him and do not
resist the mercy of their Creator, sent His only- begotten Son."
[written 399]. COMMENT: Again, Augustine teaches that the distinction
between those who are freed and those who are not freed depends on
the resistance or lack of it on the part of men.  
 
=================================================================
Objection: Could it be that Augustine changed his mind over a period
of time? No, for the texts just cited come from all across the range
of his literary activity. Probable dates are as follows: 
 
				De diversis quaest-- between 388 and 398 
				De actis cum Felice-- 398 
				De peccatorum meritis-- 411 
				Tract in Ioannem -- 413-418 
				De correptione et gratia -- 426.  
=================================================================
 
         III. A newer theory using some of the above data from
Augustine: The second series of texts show he admits a power of man
on negative side, which is decisive (even though in #1 above he
excludes power on positive side) .
 
         Therefore even though he excludes any positive power for
good from the ability of man, and excludes any foreknowledge of
merits on the part of God as a reason for predestination, yet he
admits a negative power in man of rejecting or not rejecting.
 
         What is the result: Predestination must be without merits.
But reprobation, even negative, is the result of demerits.  
 
         St Augustine then seems to have wanted, even though only
implicitly, to have this combination. He did not, of course, know how
it was possible to hold both things, namely, reprobation depending on
demerits, and predestination not depending on merits.  
 
         Yet we can supply the missing solution. There are three
logical steps in God's decisions: 
 
         (1) He wills all men to be saved. Augustine did deny this,
but Scripture teaches it, so we must and do hold it. Further since to
will salvation is to will good to another, and since love consists in
willing good to another for the other's sake, therefore to deny this
first step wold be to deny God's love. Which would be blasphemy. This
will on God's part is extremely strong, measured by how far He went
to make our eternal happiness possible: the terrible death of His
Son, and His binding Himself in the covenant by the infinite price of
redemption to offer forgiveness and grace infinitely, that is,
without limit, except that limit set by man's rejection of it.
 
         (2) He looks--not ahead, for there is no time with Him--to
see who resists His grace both gravely and persistently, so
persistently that he throws away the only thing that could save him.
Then sadly God decrees to let him go, negative reprobation. This is
the unanimous view of all Eastern Fathers, and Westerners except St.
Augustine.
 
         (3) All who were not discarded in step two are positively
predestined. But not because of merits. This is St. Augustine's large
contribution. Merits have not yet been considered at all. Rather, God
predestines them to heaven because that is what He wanted to do in
step 1, and thy are not blocking it.
 
Fate of Unbaptized Infants			 
 
Sermon 294. 3:After quoting Mt. 25 on the last judgment: "In
the one place He names the kingdom; in the other place, damnation
with the devil. There is no middle place left where you could put the
infants. There will be judgment for the living and the dead: some at
the right, others at the left: I do not know anything else."
 
Enchiridion 93: "The mildest of all will be the punishment
of those who have contracted nothing but original sin" 
 
Epistle 166. 6. 16: "But when we come to the punishment of
infants, believe me I am in a very tight spot, nor do I find at all
what I could answer."
 
(Others: 
 a) Agreeing with Augustine:  
 
         St. Fulgentius, <De fide ad Petrum> 27. 68
 
         St. Gregory the Great, <Moralia> 9. 21. 32-- This however
was written as a private person, not as Pope.  
 
 b) Disagreeing with him:  
 
         St. Gregory of Nazianzen, <Orations> 40. 23:" I think that.
. . these are neither glorified, nor are punished by the Just Judge, 
who on the one hand were not sealed [baptized] but on the other hand
are not evil, but rather suffered a loss than inflicted one."
 
         St Gregory of Nyssa, <On Infants Taken away Prematurely>
-Thinks that those who die without baptism are those who would have
been lost by sin had they lived a full life.  
 
         St. Thomas Aquinas, <De malo> q. 5. a. 3. ad 4 :"The infants
are separated from God perpetually, in regard to the loss of glory,
which they do not know, but not in regard to participation in natural
goods, which they do know. . . . That which they have through nature,
they possess without pain."
 
Magisterium: 
 
         1) The Council of Florence in 1439, in DS 1306 taught: "The
souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin or in original sin
only, go at once into the realm of the dead, to be punished with
different penalties." COMMENT: About the two underlined words: "realm
of the dead" is Latin infernus which does not always mean the hell of
the damned. In the Creed we read that Christ descended into hell. The
word punished has the root of Latin poena which need not mean the
infliction of positive pain, but merely the loss of something. So it
would mean that infants who really die in original sin, are given the
loss of the vision of God. This bypasses the question of whether or
not God, in some way, might provide grace to them even without a
sacrament. He can surely do this if He so wills. St. Thomas, in III.
68. 2. c. says the obvious, that God's hands are not tied by the
Sacraments.
 
         2) The Council of Pistoia: It tried to teach that the idea
of a limbo for unbaptized infants was a Pelagian fable. Pius VI in
1794, in DS 2626 condemned that teaching.
 
         3) Pius IX in Quanto conficiamur moerore of August 10, 1863
(DS 2866) said: "God. . . in His supreme goodness and clemency, by no
means allows anyone to be punished with eternal punishments who does
not have the guilt of voluntary fault." COMMENT: Infants do not have
voluntary fault. Therefore, no hell for the infants. Leonard Feeney
(reprinted in Thomas M. Sennott, They Fought the Good Fight pp.
305-06) quoted this text of Pius IX and said: "To say that God would
never permit anyone to be punished eternally unless he has incurred
the guilt of voluntary sin is nothing short of Pelagianism. . . . If
God cannot punish eternally a human being who has not incurred the
guilt of voluntary sin, how then, for example, can He punish
eternally babies who die unbaptized?"-In other words, Feeney calls
Pius IX a heretic!
 
         4) Catechism of the Catholic Church: In # 1261, after
carefully explaining that those who without fault do not find the
Church, can still be saved, quoted the words of Christ (Mk 10:14)
"Let the little children come to me, and do not prevent them," added:
"[this] permits us to have hope that there is a way to salvation for
infants who die without Baptism." 
 
         Objection: A local Council of Carthage in 418 taught, in
Canon 3 (DS 224) : "Of anyone says that. . . in the kingdom of heaven
there will be some middle place, or a place elsewhere, where the
infants live as blessed who have departed from this life without
Baptism. . . let him be anathema." COMMENT: This was only a local
council. Some of its canons were approved by Pope Zosimus, and so
gained universal teaching authority. But the note on this section,
just ahead of DS 222 (DB 101) that this text of DS 224 was not
approved, but instead the text of DS 225, also called Canon 3, which
makes no mention of infants. It merely teaches that grace of
justification counts not only for the remission of sins already
committed, but also for help that they may not be committed [again].

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