Two Examples of Gratuitous
Predestination: The Baptized Infants and Jesus Christ
There are two examples, above
all, which illustrate the mystery of predestination: one is the case of infants
and the other Christ the Mediator. In both cases, merits play no part: they
play no part in the case of baptized infants set apart through no merits of
their own (nor in the case of unbaptized infants who are condemned at death,
though obviously not because of demerit or actual sins). Neither does it play a
part in the case of Christ who, being simultaneously God and man, could not be
regarded as Mediator and Saviour of humanity simply on account of his possible
merits.
The problem of infants is dealt
with in accordance with the doctrine of original sin. If some infants die after
baptismal regeneration, this should be attributed exclusively to the merciful
grace of God. He it is who has saved them from the eternal damnation. On the
other hand, if some infants die without baptismal regeneration and are not
saved, this is not due, as the Massilians would hold, to the futura merita
mala, which, of course, would never happen (futura quae non sunt futura),
but to original sin, the birthright of every human being born into this world,
and from which these children have not been delivered. For Augustine it was
absolutely clear that the reason for God’s just judgement regarding those
infants dying before baptism? rested on the reality of original sin and not on
the futura merita mala. Moreover, Augustine could not accept, and found
it absurdum, that the futura merita mala could only be the object of
God’s punishment and not of his mercy. Thus, it would be really nonsensical to
establish, between these two categories of infants (those who die with baptism
and those who die without it) a discrimination based on a foreknowledge of
future merits that would never happen. Augustine also uses the quotation of Wis
4,11 (Raptus est, ne malitia mutaret intellectum eius) to confirm
through Scripture (and with the support of Cyprian’s interpretation of the same
passage) that an early death removes the believer from the possibility of sin
and that this is ultimately beneficial. In fact Augustine infers that early
death would be of little advantage to the believer if God were to judge on the
basis of how a life might have been lived, rather than on the performance of a
life already lived. In the light of the futura merita mala, instead, an
early death would be completely useless, because its “prevenient” goal would be
lost. (Donato Ogliari, Gratia Et Certamen: The Relationship Between Grace
and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians [Bibliotheca
Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 169; Leuven: Leuven University Press,
2003], 162-65)
