b) What is meant by “predestination of the elect”? In view of the many errors that have arisen with regard to this important dogma, it is necessary to start with clearly defined terms.
Predestination may mean one of three different things. A man may be simply predestined to receive certain graces (_praedestinatio ad gratiam tantum_); or he may be predestined to enjoy eternal happiness without regard to any merits of his own (_praedestinatio ad gloriam tantum_); or, again, he may be predestined to both grace and glory, glory as the end, grace as a means to that end—vocation, justification, and final perseverance. When the concepts of grace and glory are considered separately, and each is made the object of a special predestination, we have what is called incomplete or inadequate predestination (_praedestinatio incompleta sive inadaequata_). It is this incomplete predestination that St. Paul(574) and St. Augustine(575) have in mind when they apply the term to the vocation of men to grace, faith, and justification. Theologians speak of _praedestinatio ad gloriam tantum_, that is, _ante praevisa merita_, as a true predestination, but disagree as to its existence.(576)
The dogma of predestination, which mainly concerns us here, has for its sole object predestination in the complete or adequate sense of the term, which is explained by St. Augustine as follows: “Predestination is nothing else than the foreknowledge and the preparation of those gifts of God whereby they who are delivered are most certainly delivered [_i.e._ saved].”(577) St. Thomas expresses himself more succinctly: “Predestination is the preparation of grace in the present, and of glory in the future.”(578)
2. THE DOGMA.—Complete predestination involves: (a) the first grace of vocation (_gratia prima praeveniens_), especially faith as the beginning, foundation, and root of justification; (b) a number of additional actual graces for the successful accomplishment of the process; (c) justification itself as the beginning of the state of grace; (d) the grace of final perseverance; (e) eternal happiness in Heaven.
The question arises; Do men really seek and find their eternal salvation with infallible certainty by passing through these successive stages—not merely in the foreknowledge of God (_praescientia futurorum_), but by virtue of an eternal decree (_decretum praedestinationis_)?