The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Was Aquinas a Calvinist?

Quotes taken from a writing by Calvinist turned Catholic James Akin (I've been recommended to read his book 'The Salvation Controversey' - but from what I can tell he takes universal passages at face value instead of considering the contexts - so I will probably disagree with him from the get-go, HAS ANYONE READ THIS BOOK???)



A Thomist version of TULIP:

T = Total inability (to please God without special grace)

U = Unconditional election

L = Limited intent (for the atonement's efficacy)

I = Intrinsically efficacious grace (for salvation)

P = Perseverance of the elect (until the end of life).

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There are other ways to construct a Thomist version of TULIP, of course, but the fact there is even one way demonstrates that a Calvinist would not have to repudiate his understanding of predestination and grace to become Catholic.





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Thomas Aquinas wrote, "God wills to manifest his goodness in men: in respect to those whom he predestines, by means of his mercy, in sparing them; and in respect of others, whom he reprobates, by means of his justice, in punishing them. This is the reason why God elects some and rejects others.... Yet why he chooses some for glory and reprobates others has no reason except the divine will. Hence Augustine says, 'Why he draws one, and another he draws not, seek not to judge, if thou dost not wish to err.'"


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Thomas Aquinas declared that special grace is necessary for man to do any supernaturally good act, to love God, to fulfill God's commandments, to gain eternal life, to prepare for salvation, to rise from sin, to avoid sin, and to persevere


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According to Aquinas, "[Christ] is the propitiation for our sins, efficaciously for some, but sufficiently for all, because the price of his blood is sufficient for the salvation of all; but it has its effect only in the elect."


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This is the principal issue between Thomists and Molinists. Thomists claim this enabling grace is intrinsically efficacious; by its very nature, because of the kind of grace it is, it always produces the effect of salvation.


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Aquinas taught, "God's intention cannot fail... Hence if God intends, while moving it, that the one whose heart he moves should attain to grace, he will infallibly attain to it, according to John 6:45, 'Everyone that has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.'"


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The alternative to double-predestination is to say that while God predestines some people, he simply passes over the remainder. They will not come to God, but it is because of their inherent sin, not because God damns them. This is the doctrine of passive reprobation, which Aquinas taught

First ask Akin if he accepts evolutionary theism. If he does, he and Thomas Aquinas and the other of the two greatest scholastics of the later middle ages, namely Anselm of Canterbury are in diametrically eternally opposed and ex posito not reconciliable professions. Akin is an opportunist.

By the way, Anselm is the clearer of the two (between Anselm and Aquinas).