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predestination’.”[Augustinism and Pelagianism, p. 252.] At first, Augustine himself was inclined
to this view, but deeper reflection on the sovereign character of the good pleasure of God led
him to see that predestination was in no way dependent on God’s foreknowledge of human
actions, but was rather the basis of the divine foreknowledge. His representation of
reprobation is not as unambiguous as it might be. Some of his statements are to the effect that
in predestination God foreknows what He will Himself do, while He is also able to foreknow
what He will not do, as all sins; and speak of the elect as subjects of predestination, and of the
reprobate as subjects of the divine foreknowledge.[Cf. Wiggers, ibid., p. 239; Dijk. Om’t Eeuwig
Welbehagen, pp. 39f.; Polman, De Praedestinatieleer van Augustinus, Thomas van Aquino, en
Calvijn, pp. 149ff.] In other passages, however, he also speaks of the reprobate as subjects of
predestination, so that there can be no doubt about it that he taught a double predestination.
However, he recognized their difference, consisting in this that God did not predestinate unto
damnation and the means unto it in the same way as He did to salvation, and that
predestination unto life is purely sovereign, while predestination unto eternal death is also
judicial and takes account of man’s sin.[Cf. Dyk, ibid., p. 40; Polman, ibid., p. 158.]
Augustine’s view found a great deal of opposition, particularly in France, where the semi-
Pelagians, while admitting the need of divine grace unto salvation, reasserted the doctrine of a
predestination based on foreknowledge. And they who took up the defense of Augustine felt
constrained to yield on some important points. They failed to do justice to the doctrine of a
double predestination. Only Gottschalk and a few of his friends maintained this, but his voice
was soon silenced, and Semi-Pelagianism gained the upper hand at least among the leaders of
the Church. Toward the end of the Middle Ages it became quite apparent that the Roman
Catholic Church would allow a great deal of latitude in the doctrine of predestination. As long as
its teachers maintained that God willed the salvation of all men, and not merely of the elect,
they could with Thomas Aquinas move in the direction of Augustinianism in the doctrine of
predestination, or with Molina follow the course of Semi-Pelagianism, as they thought best.
This means that even in the case of those who, like Thomas Aquinas, believed in an absolute
and double predestination, this doctrine could not be carried through consistently, and could
not be made determinative of the rest of their theology.
The Reformers of the sixteenth century all advocated the strictest doctrine of predestination.
This is even true of Melanchton in his earliest period. Luther accepted the doctrine of absolute
predestination, though the conviction that God willed that all men should be saved caused him
to soft-pedal the doctrine of predestination somewhat later in life. It gradually disappeared
from Lutheran theology, which now regards it either wholly or in part (reprobation) as
conditional. Calvin firmly maintained the Augustinian doctrine of an absolute double
predestination. At the same time he, in his defense of the doctrine against Pighius, stressed the