CCLXXIII. Corollary LXIX

COROLLARY LXIX.

In the Catechesis on Grace¹, to the question, “Does God will the elect alone to be saved?” the Jansenists respond: “Yes: he wills to save only those whom he has predestined; but he has predestined the elect alone. If he willed to save all and each of men, all would actually be saved, because he does all things whatsoever he wills in heaven and on earth, and there is no one who can resist his will.” But they rely so greatly upon this confirmation that they neither employ any argument more frequently nor urge any more vigorously. But whence shall we judge it to have come about that this confirmation wholly occupied the minds of the Calvinists, but did not move the orthodox Fathers even so little? Whence shall we derive the fact that the things which occur everywhere among the Calvinists are nowhere read among the Fathers? That the Fathers nowhere teach either what Theodore Beza urges most bitterly²: “If God truly and simply willed all to be saved, all would necessarily be led unto salvation—

—because his will is most omnipotent. But not all are actually saved; therefore, he does not will all to be saved”? Or what Jerome Zanchi inculcates³: “Since the will of God can be impeded by no means and is most omnipotent, it can therefore in no way be said that God simply and properly wills men universally to be saved”? Or what Andrew Willet repeatedly insists upon⁴: “If God willed all men to be saved, why would not all be saved? For who resists his will? Nor is the rather ancient escape of the Pelagians valid here, namely, that the will of God is not fulfilled because man resists. For thus men would be established as more powerful than God.”

Certainly, we cannot take the cause of this difference from the fact that the Fathers were ignorant either of the first article of the Creed, “I believe in God the Father almighty,” or of the well-worn oracles of Scripture⁵, “Whatsoever the Lord willed, he has done in heaven and on earth,” and, “There is no one who can resist his will.” Whence, then, shall we judge so great a difference to have arisen? We shall derive it from no other source than the fact that the Fathers⁶: 1) skillfully understood that the will cannot be confounded with omnipotence; 2) saw that the oracles of Scripture in no way pertain to the matter; 3) believed that the physical order is governed in one way and the moral order in another; 4) so took thought for divine omnipotence that they did not destroy human liberty; 5) accurately distinguished from one another the things which God wills and perfects as the principal cause and those which he wills and perfects as the sole and adequate cause; 6) all saw that, according to the chosen order of restoration, all would necessarily be saved if the attainment of salvation depended upon the divine will as upon the sole and adequate cause; 7) did not fail to know that the will can be judged conquered only if it is deprived of those things which are referred to it as to the sole and adequate cause; and 8) having distinguished the power of obtaining salvation from—

—its attainment, attributed the former to the antecedent will and the latter to the consequent; they believed the former independent, but the latter dependent upon human and free cooperation; finally, they numbered the former among bare gifts, but the latter among gifts and rewards together. Furthermore, that the power of salvation is offered to all through grace⁷, and that it can most truly be said of grace with Hildebert of Tours⁸: “The grace of God is most dutiful toward men and, as it were, sworn to their service.”