by: Deacon Paul Rooney (deaconpaul@cox.net)
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Cycle “A" – July 24, 2005)

Q. 329: Isn’t today’s Second Reading (Rom 8:28-30) proof of Calvin’s protestant doctrine of “predestinationism”? St. Paul says, “those he foreknew he predestined.”

A. 329: Calvin’s 16th century false doctrine says that God is going to send you to heaven or hell, no matter what you do with your life. For example, if you go to hell, Calvin would say that it is only because God caused that to happen, even though you may have lived your life as a saint.

Long before Calvin departed from many teachings of the Official Magisterium during the Protestant Reformation era, the united Catholic bishops had met in Council in Mainz, Germany in the 9th century. They condemned as pure heresy the idea that God “predetermines” your soul’s destiny irregardless of your response to His grace. Instead, the Council taught (and the Church still teaches as dogma) that each person has a free will, and can choose to reject God’s gift of salvation.

Divine predestination does not mean God chooses one in advance and rejects another. Instead it means “God knows in advance” how we will use our free will. Therefore, God’s “knowing” simply reflects one’s freely chosen destiny (i.e., one’s acceptance or rejection of His freely offered grace). As St. Paul teaches, we must “work out our salvation” day by day (Phil 2:2).

Know Your Catechism! Calvin’s doctrine breaks down quickly, because it claims that Jesus died just for some, the “elect,” and not for all. The Catholic Church constantly teaches that Christ died for all men, without exception (CCC#605). Another bishops’ Council in Quiercy, France in the 9th century taught that “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”(ibid.) God willed that man should be ‘his own free agent’, and of his own accord seek God and freely attain perfection through Him (cf. Gaudium et Spes 17; CCC#1730).

Deacon Paul Rooney
Mary Our Queen Parish, Omaha