Dear John:

Sorry for the delay in responding. Actually I did answer a couple of days ago, but it got erased by mistake. I will try to remember most of what I said in the first version.

The quote you posted from the book, Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, has no relationship to Calvin's concept of predestination. John Calvin, taking the lead from Martin Luther, who believed that one could not doing any "work" to attain salvation, developed the extensive theology to support this his and Luther's unbiblical and man-made notions.

As intelligent as these men were it is odd that they misinterpreted St. Paul so badly, and ignored St. James, on this issue of faith and works.

St. Paul wrote in Romans 3:28, "For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law." He repeats this idea in a couple of other verses as well. To force Scripture to match Luther's personal opinion, he added the word "alone" to his German edition of the Bible. Thus, this passage read, as Luther made it to say, ""For we hold that a man is justified by faith ALONE apart from works of law."

The problem is that the word "alone" is not in the this or any other passage of St. Paul. The only place where the phrase "faith alone" appears in the Bible is in the Book of St. James 2:24  "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." This is why Luther called the Book of James, "an epistle of straw," and desired to rip the book out of the bible, like he did with seven books in the Old Testament. He also wanted to remove from the New Testament the books of Hebrews and Revelation, and some others.

At the time Luther was asked why he was messing with the words of the Scripture. His reply is very telling. He said:

"You tell me what a great fuss the Papists are making because the word 'alone' is not in the text of Paul. If your Papist makes such an unnecessary row about the word 'alone,' say right out to him: 'Dr. Martin Luther will have it so,' and say: 'Papist and asses are one and the same thing.' I will have it so, and I order it to be so, and my will is reason enough. I know very well that the word 'alone' is not in the Latin or the Greek text, and it was not necessary for the Papists to teach me that. It is true those letters are not in it, which letters the jackasses look at, as a cow stares at a new gate...It shall remain in my New Testament, and if all the Popish donkeys were to get mad and beside themselves, they will not get it out."

Luther justified his messing with the Bible by appealing to his brute will, as if his will was infallible and sacrosanct. 

There was/is no real contradiction between St. Paul and St. James. It is true that salvation comes by grace through faith, not of works (of the law) as St. Paul states. St. James said that faith does not exist unless a person expresses his faith in love (works of love). Thus, if one claims to be Christian but does not express his faith in good works of love, then his faith is actually dead. If his faith is dead, then he has no faith, and thus he as no salvation as faith is required for salvation. Both Paul and James are correct, two sides of the same coin.

By around the year 2000, after more than 20 years of discussions between Lutherans and Catholics concluded that there was no real difference of opinion on this point. Why Martin Luther did not see this rather obvious solution 500 years ago is amazing, but not amazing, given that Luther's interpretation was based on his own personality disorders and pride.

John Calvin had more integrity than Luther. Calvin at least tried to prove this "faith without works" theologically, rather than mere opinion and force of will as Luther attempted.

Nevertheless, the tremendous theological hoops Calvin went through to prove that we cannot participate in our own salvation, ended up in a huge heretical tome filled with contorted intellectual gymnastics. His conclusion? That we are predestined from eternity past to either go to heaven or to go to hell. Whichever list we are on, there is nothing we can do about it. If we are on the list for hell then there is nothing we can do to change that. If we are on the list for heaven then we will go to heaven whether we like it or not. Calvin rejected free will.

To resolve the criticism that God would not force a person into heaven, Calvin came up with the idea of "irresistible grace." This is the notion that if we are on the list for heaven we will accept salvific grace. We have no choice. This is a heresy.

God made man in His image. God is love. Love cannot be forced. Thus, God gave us the gift of free will so that we may choose to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves. Love must always be chosen. Thus, in Calvin's economy there can be no ability for humans to love. What nonsense this is!

Predestination is an article of Catholic Faith, but let us examine the Catholic (and thereby the correct) definition. from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary:

[Predestination] in the widest sense ... is every eternal decision of God; in a narrower sense it is the supernatural final destination of rational creatures; and in the strictest sense it is God's eternal decision to assume certain rational creatures into heavenly glory.

Predestination implies an act of the divine intellect and of the divine will. The first is foreknowledge, the second is predestination.

According to its efficacy in time, predestination is distinguished as incomplete or complete depending on whether it is to grace only or also to glory. Complete predestination is the divine preparation of grace in the present life and of glory in the life to come.

This doctrine is proposed by the ordinary and universal teaching of the Church as a truth of revelation. The reality of predestination is clearly attested by St. Paul: "They are the ones he chose especially long ago and intended to become true images of the Son, so that his Son, might be the eldest of many brothers. He called those he intended for this; those he called he justified and with those he justified he shared his glory." (Romans 8:29-30).

All elements of complete predestination are given: the activity of God's mind and will, and the principal stages of its realization in time.

The main difficulty in the doctrine of predestination is whether God's eternal decision has been taken with or without consideration of human freedom. Catholic teaching holds that predestination by God does not deny the human free will. Numerous theories have been offered on how to reconcile the two, but all admit with St. Paul (Romans 11:33) that predestination is an unfathomable mystery. (Etym. Latin praedestinatio, a determining beforehand.)

Also see the Old Catholic Encyclopedia article, Predestination.

Faith Facts, Chosen In Him: The Catholic Teaching on Predestination, from Catholics United for the Faith, is also instructive:

Predestination is a term used to identify God’s plan of salvation, in which according to His own decree, He “accomplishes all things according to his will” (Eph. 1:11). God gives us the gift of salvation through grace and faith. In turn, we must use our free will to persevere in good works “prepared beforehand” by God Himself (Eph. 2:8-10; cf. Phil. 2:12, 13).

Predestination, from a Catholic perspective is that faculty of God in which all things are accomplished according to His will. God gives us Free Will that we may choose to perform the good works that He has for us, "prepared in eternity past" for us. He does not force us, but He has prepare for us a work to do. This is why Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman said:

Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random...God see every soul, He lodges it in the body, one by one, for a purpose, He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us. He has an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labour in them for Him. As Christ has his work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also.

And why Pope Benedict XVI said:

Dear friends, may no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness. The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, his name will continue to resound throughout the world.

It is a mystery how predestination and free will works. One very limited analogy about how God can know what we will do yet not force us to do it, or in any way intrude upon our Free Will, is found in the story of an old married couple.

The couple knows each other so well after 60 years of marriage that the wife "knows" how her husband will react in a certain situation. She does not force her husband to do this thing, or intrude upon his Free Will, but the wife knows in advance that her husband will react in a certain way in certain circumstances.

All analogies are inadequate, but this at least this gives us an idea of how someone can know in advance how someone will react and yet not intrude upon that person's free will.

When we abandon ourselves to His will, our lives will be according to His will, and that also means that we will die according to His schedule. We have a pamphlet about Abandoning ourselves to God's Will.

This is what the writers of Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence” are talking about. When we place ourselves into God's arms all things are fulfilled that God has for us from eternity past. When in God's arms we will die on God's schedule.

For example, I am told by actuaries that statistics for someone with my health will not live beyond 64. Well those actuaries originally said I would be dead by 52. When I past that marker the projection was changed to 54. When I past that marker the projection was for 56, and now that I have past that marker, the new projection is 64.

Well, I think I will die when God says, regardless of what statistical analysis may project. I may still be around at 95. Only God knows.

We must always we ready to die at any given moment. That is why we must be "confessed up" and in-between Confessions offering a Perfect Act of Contrition, which restores us immediately to a State of Grace. With this Act we must promise to confess those sins in the Sacrament of Confession, but we are restored immediately when we offer a Perfect Act of Contrition.

A Perfect Act of Contrition means being sorry for our sins because we love God and are sorry that we have disappointed Him. Imperfect Contrition is being sorry for sins out of fear of hell. It is the Perfect Act that we must have to be immediately returned to a State of Grace.

Abandoning ourselves to God means that we do not listen to statistics as God is greater than statistics. I have no fear of dying today, tomorrow, at 64 or at 94. I shall keep doing whatever God wants me to do until the day He decides to bring me home. 

Bottomline: When we abandon ourselves to God, we offer our very life to Him, to decide not only how we shall live, but the day, time, and manner that we shall die.

The passage you quote does not violate predestination (properly understood) nor does it violate free will. It says that through Free Will we give everything to Him, to make Him the Captain of our life, then we will enjoy the fruits of God's predestined work and death that He has for us. It is then that our death will be a glory to Him who created us.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary