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Library / Theological Commentaries, Part III: On the Division of the Divine Will into First and Second, and on the Universal Extent of the Restored Order

LXII–LXXI · Prosper

LXII. Prosper's agreement in the same sense; according to him, it must most sincerely be professed that God wills all men to be saved

Nor do those things by which Prosper1, about the year 431, vigorously defended the sincere doctrine of Catholic profession against the objections of certain calumniating Gauls2 differ from these in any way. For when they objected3 that from the determinations and opinions of Augustine it follows “that God does not will all men to be saved, but a certain number of the predestined,” Prosper replies4:

If, concerning the universality of the human race to be saved and called to the knowledge of the truth, the will of God is to be asserted as so indiscriminate through all ages that it is shown everywhere to have passed over no man, the impenetrable depth of the judgments of God is assailed. For why5 in past ages did God permit all nations to walk in their own ways, when the Lord chose Jacob for himself and did not do in like manner to every nation and did not manifest his judgments to them? And why is he who was once not a people now the people of God, and does he now have mercy upon those upon whom he once did not have mercy? And where it was said, “You are not my people,” why are they there called the sons of the living God? And why did Israel not attain that which it sought, while the election attained it, but the others

were blinded? It is impossible to comprehend and belongs to dangerous curiosity to inquire, although it is lawful for no one to be ignorant that there is6 no iniquity with God; nor is it to be believed that anyone among men, whether before the law or in the time of the law, was justified by another grace or another faith than by this same grace through which our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the counsel of his will, came at the end of the ages to seek and to save7 that which had perished. But he who refers the causes of the works and judgments of God entirely8 to human wills and actions—which nevertheless he does not find in the adoption9 of little children—and wills the dispensations of God to be varied according to the mutability of free choice, professes that the judgments of God are scrutable to him and his ways traceable; and that which Paul, the Doctor of the Nations,10 did not dare to touch, he judges that he can publish as something disclosed. And, what is of no less impiety, he teaches either that the very grace by which we are saved is repaid to good merits or affirms that it is barred by evil merits.

Therefore, the whirlwind of obscure questions having been removed, let us turn to the breadth of revealed grace and say11 with the Apostle that God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

And again let us say12 with the Apostle: “Who is the Savior of all, especially of the faithful.” And let us hear the Lord saying13 to his Apostles: “Going, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Let us hear also the promise of God saying14 to Abraham: “In thy seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed”; and15 if we are sons of the promise, let us not waver in distrust, but with our father Abraham let us give glory to God and16 believe most fully that what he has promised he is able also to perform. Let us hear17 David prophesying: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and shall be converted to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall adore in his sight.” And18 elsewhere: “All the nations whatsoever thou hast made shall come and adore before thee, O Lord, and they shall glorify thy name.” Because these promises are most true and cannot waver in any part, they are fulfilled in those who are saved throughout all the ends of the earth; because19 what God promised he is able also to perform.

Therefore, the care of all men belongs to God, and there is no one whom either evangelical preaching, or the testimony of the law, or even nature itself does not address. But20 let us ascribe the unbelief of men to men themselves; and let us confess that the faith of men is the gift of God, without whose grace no one runs unto grace. And with the two hundred and fourteen priests whose constitution21 against the enemies of the grace of God the whole world embraced, let us say with a true profession, as their discourse has it: “Through the grace of God through Jesus Christ the Lord,

we are assisted through each act not only for knowing justice but also for performing it, so that without that grace we are unable to think, say, or do anything of true and holy piety.” Nor let us suppose that these gifts are from God in such a manner that, because he is the Author of our nature, he appears already to have conferred them by our constitution. For he indeed gave this faculty to man from the beginning; but we all lost it in him in whom we all sinned. Whence we need to be renewed in Christ by another creation and another beginning, in whom we are a new creature and a new workmanship; and through whom it is given to us, with no good merits and many evil merits preceding, that from vessels of wrath we may become vessels of mercy.

But, compressing into brief compass22 those things which he had explained ἀγωνιστικῶς, in the manner of one contending, so that under the simplicity of a few words it might appear more and more that it was settled for him both absolutely and freely to reject perverse things and not to deny assent to probable things, he opposes to the objection of the Gauls this opinion23:

He who says that God does not will all men to be saved, but a certain number of the predestined, speaks more harshly than one ought to speak concerning the depth of the inscrutable grace of God, who24 wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, and fulfills the purpose25 of his will in those whom, having foreknown, he predestined; whom, having predestined, he called; whom, having called, he justified; whom, having justified, he glorified—losing nothing from the fullness of the nations and from every seed of Israel, for whom the eternal kingdom in Christ was prepared

before the constitution of the world. For out of the whole world the whole world is chosen, and out of all men all men are adopted. Nor can the promise of God waver in any manner through the unbelief and disobedience of many, which says26 to Abraham: “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.” But27 what God has promised he is able also to perform, so that those who are saved are saved for this reason: that God willed them to be saved; and those who perish perish for this reason: that they merited to perish.

Footnotes

  1. From this most beautiful agreement of Prosper with the Anonymous author of On the Calling of Nations, anyone may readily estimate with what judgment or equity Henry Noris, in History of Pelagianism, book II, chap. XIV, denied the books On the Calling to Prosper for the reason that Prosper’s doctrine concerning the most ample fountain of grace differs greatly from the tenets of the Anonymous author. ↩

  2. The Maurist editor of the works of Prosper in the admonition to Prosper’s response on behalf of Augustine to the chapters of the calumniating Gauls, pp. 115–116, Venice edition of 1744, seeks by conjecture who these men were. ↩

  3. Chapter VIII. ↩

  4. Response to chapter VIII, pp. 121–122. ↩

  5. Acts XIV. 16, compared with Ps. CXXXIV. 4; CXLVII. 20; I Pet. II. 10; Hos. II. 24; Rom. IX. 26 and XI. 7. ↩

  6. II Chron. XIX. 7. ↩

  7. Christ received from the Father a twofold mission: the first, that of Savior, concerning which he himself says in John XII. 47, “For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world”; the other, that of Judge, concerning which it is written in John V. 22: “For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son.” To the first mission corresponds the universal benefit expended upon all men whom the Father gave to Christ to save; but to the other mission corresponds the benefit of the awarded crown, which is particular and pertains only to those who have not contemned the medicine of the Savior. Augustine elegantly says in Tractate LIV on John, no. 5: “Hear how the Son says, ‘I do not judge him,’ although he says in another place, ‘The Father doth not judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son’; unless it must be understood: ‘I do not judge him now.’ Why does he not judge now? Attend to what follows: ‘For I came not,’ he says, ‘to judge the world, but to save the world,’ that is, that I might make the world safe. Now, therefore, is the time of mercy; afterward will be that of judgment, because ‘Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord.’” ↩

  8. By these words the Pelagians and the Semipelagians alike are assailed. ↩

  9. This is a customary argument among orthodox writers of the fifth century, by which they demonstrate that grace is gratuitous. ↩

  10. Rom. XI. 33. ↩

  11. I Tim. II. 4. ↩

  12. I Tim. IV. 10. ↩

  13. Matt. XXVIII. 19. ↩

  14. Gen. XXII. 18. ↩

  15. Rom. IV. 20. ↩

  16. Rom. IV. 21. ↩

  17. Ps. XXI. 28. ↩

  18. Ps. LXXXV. 9. ↩

  19. Rom. IV. 21. ↩

  20. He writes things twin to these in Against the Conferencer, chap. V. ↩

  21. Compare Augustine, Epistle CCXV. ↩

  22. Prosper, in the things which he premises to the individual opinions concerning the individual chapters, p. 126. ↩

  23. Opinion concerning chapter VIII, pp. 126–127. ↩

  24. I Tim. II. 4. ↩

  25. By this manner of speaking Prosper distinguishes the will of saving from the purpose of fulfilling this will, which is finally fulfilled by salvation itself having been conferred. He teaches that the former is universal and of such a kind that by it opportunity is given to all, so that, with God preventing and assisting, they can obtain salvation; but he writes that the latter is particular and circumscribed solely to those whom God foreknows will use rightly and constantly the faculty received from God. Everyone, moreover, perceives that these mutually correspond: on the one side, the will of saving and the first and antecedent will; on the other, the purpose of fulfilling it and the second and consequent will. ↩

  26. Gen. XXII. 18. ↩

  27. Rom. IV. 21. ↩

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To cite this page

Carlo Passaglia, “LXII. Prosper's agreement in the same sense; according to him, it must most sincerely be professed that God wills all men to be saved,” in Theological Commentaries, Part III: On the Division of the Divine Will into First and Second, and on the Universal Extent of the Restored Order, English translation, Mind of the Church, https://mindofthechurch.com/works/passaglia-commentaries-3/065-lxii-prosper-s-agreement-in-the-same-sense-according-to/.

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