Friday of the 4th Week of Easter
Acts 13:26-33 | Psalm 2:6-11 | John 14:1-6
“Predestination” and “free will” can be tricky concepts to introduce into any discussion about Catholic faith, because many people seem to think erroneously that the one negates the other.
What the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did, though they did not realise it, was in fact to fulfil the prophecies read on every sabbath. (Acts 13:27)
One reaction I’ve received to the above passage is:
So were the Jews predestined to condemn Jesus?
to which I would respond, to the best of my knowledge:
Yes. We believe that the Jews’ condemnation of Christ was part of God’s plan for our salvation, and so it would have happened regardless of any individual’s change of heart. That said, we should also remember that His first followers were also Jews, who came to Christ of their own free will.
That we humans have free will is undeniable. Scripture herself says:
God in the beginning created human beings
and made them subject to their own free choice.
(Sirach 15:14)
As I wrote in yesterday’s blog entry, we are even able to exercise willful ignorance, a common pretext for justifying behaviour that would generally be deemed immoral or unethical. I think some Jews who condemned Christ were willfully ignorant, but most of them truly believed that Jesus did not meet their criteria for the promised Messiah, and therefore committed blasphemy by claiming to be such. As such, they played their predestined role by exercising their free will to be faithful to their tenets, and our Saviour died on a cross.
However, Mother Church is very clear in her Catechism about our predestined path, as well as the consequences of blatantly ignoring the Word of God:
1037. God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.
1731. Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.
1732. As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.
1734. Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts.
1736. […] An action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something one should have known or done.
So, we’re free to do what we will, but our actions have consequences and, in the local patois, ‘dunno’ no cure.
As self-acknowledged children of God, we have no basis for claiming ignorance in this matter, any more than a recalcitrant sysadmin has an excuse for not being rigorous in performing backups. Indeed, I’ve been tempted to “play the prophet” a few times by leaving the following message for such persons:
Hard drives will crash.
You will have no usable backups.
Weeping and grinding of teeth to follow.
secure in the knowledge that, from my observations of their laxity, my words will come to fruition in the fullness of time. ?
Make known to me your ways, LORD;
teach me your paths.
Guide me by your truth and teach me,
for you are God my savior,
for you I wait all the day long. (Psalm 25:4-5)
Amen.