Preview: St. J.H. Newman on St. James the Greater and Predestination

Since Monday, July 25 is the feast of Saint James the Greater, we'll continue our series on the Son Rise Morning Show with an 1835 Parochial and Plain Sermon Newman preached on Saint James' feast day, "Human Responsibility" from volume 2 of those sermons. Either Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will discuss this sermon at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern.

Please listen live here on EWTN or on your local EWTN affiliate.

Newman takes as his text a verse from the Gospel for this feast: "To sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of My Father." (Matt. 20:23) 

As a reminder: The mother of James and John have asked Jesus to grant her sons a special place when He comes into His power: to be seated on either side of Him (she leaves it up to Him which one on which side!). Jesus warns them that there will be a cost for being His followers but then tells them He can't promise that great honor because He is obedient to the Father's Will. That's up to His heavenly Father. (The other Apostles don't like the special attention paid the Sons of Zebedee; who is the more important disciple seems to be a recurring issue for the Twelve [Luke 9:46; Mark 9:33; Matthew 18:1-4]: they even talk about it [Luke 22;24] at the Last Supper!) Jesus reminds them again that they need to have a different view of honor and precedence, which He will model at the Last Supper when He washes their feet [John 13:4-5].

Newman begins:

IN these words, to which the Festival of St. James the Greater especially directs our minds, our Lord solemnly declares that the high places of His Kingdom are not His to give,—which can mean nothing else, than that the assignment of them does not simply and absolutely depend upon Him; for that He will actually dispense them at the last day, and moreover is the meritorious cause of any being given, is plain from Scripture. I say, He avers most solemnly that something besides His own will and choice is necessary, for obtaining the posts of honour about His throne; so that we are naturally led on to ask, where it is that this awful prerogative is lodged. Is it with His Father? He proceeds to speak of His Father; but neither does He assign it to Him, "It shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of My Father." The Father's foreknowledge and design {321} are announced, not His choice. "Whom He did foreknow, them He did predestinate." He prepares the reward, and confers it, but upon whom? No answer is given us, unless it is conveyed in the words which follow,—upon the humble:—"Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

Newman is exploring the mystery of Judgment and Eternal Reward, and he is entering the debate of how we humans participate in our own salvation:

Some parallel passages may throw some further light upon the question. In the description our Lord gives us of the Last Judgment, He tells us He shall say to them on His right hand, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Here we have the same expression. Who then are the heirs for whom the Kingdom is prepared? He tells us expressly, those who fed the hungry and thirsty, lodged the stranger, clothed the naked, visited the sick, came to the prisoners, for His sake. Consider again an earlier passage in the same chapter. To whom is it that He will say, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord?"—to those whom He can praise as "good and faithful servants," who have been "faithful over a few things." (Matthew 25:21, 34-36) 

These two passages then carry our search just to the very point which is suggested by the text. They lead us from the thought of God and Christ, and throw us upon human agency and responsibility, for the solution of the question; and they finally lodge us there, unless indeed other texts of Scripture can be produced to lead us on further still. . . . Is this as far as we can go? Does it now depend ultimately on ourselves, or on any one else, that we come to be humble, charitable, diligent, and lovers of God?

Newman then offers a sketch of early Church history on the tension between God's omniscience (knowing who will be saved) and human will and perseverance to obey God's will and commandments, before turning to various Bible verses arguing both sides. For example:

Next, let us inquire whether there be any Scripture reason for breaking the chain of doctrine which the text suggests. Christ gives the Kingdom to those for whom it is prepared of the Father; the Father prepares it for those who love and serve Him. Does Scripture warrant us in reversing this order, and considering that any are chosen to love Him by His irreversible decree? The disputants in question maintain that it does.

1. Scripture is supposed expressly to promise perseverance, when men once savingly partake of grace; as where it is said, "He which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ;" [Phil. i. 6.] and hence it is inferred that the salvation of the individual rests ultimately with God, and not with himself. But here I would object in the outset to applying to individuals promises and declarations made to bodies, and of a general nature. The question in debate is, not whether God carries forward bodies of men, such as the Christian Church, to salvation, but whether He has accorded any promise of indefectibility to given individuals? Those who differ from us say, that individuals are absolutely chosen to eternal life; let them then reckon up the passages in Scripture where perseverance is promised to individuals. Till they can satisfy this demand, they have done nothing by producing such a text as that just cited; which, being spoken of the body of Christians, does but impart that same kind of encouragement, as is contained in other general declarations, such as the statement about God's {326} willingness to save, His being in the midst of us, and the like. . . .

In truth, the two doctrines of the sovereign and {327} overruling power of Divine grace, and man's power of resistance, need not at all interfere with each other. They lie in different provinces, and are (as it were) incommensurables. Thus St. Paul evidently accounted them; else he could not have introduced the text in question with the exhortation, "Work out" or accomplish "your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh" or acts "in you." So far was he from thinking man's distinct working inconsistent with God's continual aiding, that he assigns the knowledge of the latter as an encouragement to the former. Let me challenge then a Predestinarian to paraphrase this text. We, on the contrary, find no insuperable difficulty in it, considering it to enjoin upon us a deep awe and reverence, while we engage in those acts and efforts which are to secure our salvation from the belief that God is in us and with us, inspecting and succouring our every thought and deed.

He also offers verses that favor a strict Predestinarian view: that human action and effort mean little when it comes to salvation. But Newman comes back to the view that this is a mystery: that the Church may define some aspects (a la the Council of Trent's decree on Justification?) of it but cannot comprehend it all:

Lastly, there are passages which speak of God's judicial dealings with the heart of man; in which, doubtless, He does act absolutely at His sole will,—yet not in the beginning of His Providence towards us, but at the close. Thus He is said "to Send" on men "strong delusion to believe a lie;" but only on those who "received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." [2 Thess. ii. 10, 11.] Such irresistible influences do but presuppose, instead of superseding, our own accountableness.

These three explanations then being allowed their due weight,—the compatibility of God's sovereignty over the soul, with man's individual agency; the distinction between Regeneration and faith and obedience; and the judicial purpose of certain Divine influences upon the heart,—let us ask what does there remain of Scripture evidence in behalf of the Predestinarian doctrines? Are we not obliged to leave the mystery of human agency and responsibility as we find it? as truly a mystery in itself as that which concerns the Nature and Attributes of the Divine Mind.

Surely it will be our true happiness thus to conduct ourselves; to use our reason, in getting at the true sense of Scripture, not in making a series of deductions from it; in unfolding the doctrines therein contained, not in adding new ones to them; in acquiescing in what is told, not in indulging curiosity about the "secret things" of the Lord our God.

This may be a deep subject to take up on an early Monday morning, but remember that Newman's congregation was in church in the early evening at Sunday's Evensong service, before or after their Tea, listening to him cite chapter and verse! It does seem to me that Newman is setting himself to affirm the Catholic "via media" on this issue, as summarized in the old Catholic Encyclopedia article on Predestination:

Between these two extremes the Catholic dogma of predestination keeps the golden mean, because it regards eternal happiness primarily as the work of God and His grace, but secondarily as the fruit and reward of the meritorious actions of the predestined. 

Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy!

Saint James the Greater, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image credit (public domain): Guido Reni - Saint James the Greater

Image credit (public domain): Hans von Kulmbach, Mary Salome and Zebedee with their Sons James the Greater and John the Evangelist, c. 1511