In his
massive (750+ pages) study of the Catholic doctrine of predestination from Augustine to the
Renaissance, Guido Stucco discussed a passage in Isidore’s Sentences which, at first blush, appears to indicate he believed
God was active, not merely in election, but reprobation,
too:
Isidore’s
view of predestination
“Predestination is twofold: that of the elect
to eternal peace and that of the reprobates to death” (VI, 1) (“Gemina est praedestinatio, sive electrum ad
requiem, sive reproborum ad mortem," PL 83, 606).
This problematic statement has led some
people to claim that Isidore believed in positive reprobation, namely that God
actively wills some people to be damned, regardless of original sin or actual
sins; others have criticized this statement as imprudent or imprecise talk,
bound to generate future misunderstandings. I do not think that either one of
these two views does justice to Isidore, since the evidence gathered from the
texts suggests otherwise. To begin with, we must recognize that in this
statement Isidore is referring to the consequences
of predestination (which are either ad
requiem or ad mortem), not to the
fact that some people have been
predestined to eternal life and others to eternal damnation; this becomes
clearer in the next sentence, which reads: “Both cases of predestination are
animated by divine judgment, which causes (faciat)
the elect to always (semper) follow
inner and higher realities, while always allowing
reprobates to delight in lowly and superficial realities, thereby abandoning them” (VI, 1). If we were to
focus on a really problematic statement, we should pick the one found in VI, 3
instead: “Although in this life one can probably identify some of the elect, it
remains uncertain to what end men have been predestined (incertum tamen hominibus ad quem finem praedestinati); thus, all
things are reserved to a future judgment.” In this context, it does seem that
Isidore is talking about double predestination (i.e., two ends are possible)
and yet, I don’t think much should be made of the whole section. Isidore
continues to echo typical Augustinian corollaries to the doctrine of
predestination; while still living nobody can know for sure if they belong to the
number of the elect:
This is indeed a great mystery: human beings
will forever fail to comprehend whether they will end their lives in sin or in
repentance and final perseverance. In Rev 22:11, we read: “Let the wicked still
act wickedly and the filthy still be filthy [permissive will of God]. The
righteous must still do right and the holy still be holy [God’s willful and
causative act]. (Ibid., VI, 2)
According to Isidore,
Somebody wants to be good, but he can’t; another
wants to be evil, but he is not allowed to be lost. To one who wants to be good,
it is given to be so; another neither wants to, nor is given to be good. The
latter person is born in sin and dies; the former person preservers to the end
in the good that he began to follow. (Ibid., 4)
The next chapters in Isidore’s Sententiae discuss the meaning of conversion
(its beginning and struggles) and its opposite, namely sin (perseverance in it;
and its different degrees and consequences). In these chapters we find the
familiar Augustinian themes of the mystery of God’s election, the importance of
perseverance, and the necessity of God’s grace to attain it. (Guido Stucco, God's Eternal Gift: A History of the
Catholic Doctrine of Predestination from Augustine to the Renaissance
[Xlibris Books, 2009], 175-76)
