If I can hijack my own thread that was initially intended for humor: A more Catholic way of looking at predestination (which is Catholic) is this:
God created you incompletely sanctified that you may choose to become sanctified. He desires that all should be sanctified. But in giving Man free will, being that he is ominscient, he recognized that some men would choose not to be sanctified. Contrary to a cartoonish view of Calvinism, this does not mean that God desires that any man not be sanctified. When God calls someone, he knows that that person will follow, but that does not mean that the decision to follow is not consistent with that person’s created nature.
Now, a Calvinist will object to that definition, but not because the Catholic understanding behind it is untrue, but because Calvinists have a different understanding of free will, and would argue that no man has free will before he is saved.
Free will is the ability to act according to one’s own nature. Catholicism sees Man as having been created in God’s image, and having fallen. In his fallen nature, he has no free will. Therefore, Christ restores his free will by paying the debt of original sin. Calvinism asserts that Adam sinned because he was evil, which is true in the sense that Adam was ignorant and untrusting, but not in the sense that Adam was malevolent. Free will means, necessarily to the Calvinist, that Man will always return to sinfulness from which he came.
The true theological distinction I can detect between Calvinism and Catholicism is that Calvinism denies prevening grace; IOW, they don’t believe there is any grace until a man is converted, at which grace is complete. Catholics view attaining grace as a continual process. At some point along the journey, one will become Christian according to outward signs (”sacraments”), but that processed began from the first encounter with Christ’s church, and continues until they are rid of all sin (including concupiscence). Therefore Calvinists believe that “once saved, always saved,” since grace is irresistable, which Catholics believe that while someone may receive certain graces, but still may reject salvation.
It is for this reason that Catholics pay special attention to the Luke’s unique wording for Mary: “ketocharitoumene” meaning “(already having been) completely (full of ) grace”: At the point of sinlessness, one’s grace is complete. Protestant word studies frequently simplify this word to “charitou,” which fails to convey that this grace was present achieved before the conception of Christ (the “immaculate conception” refers to Mary’s own conception), and was complete.
That was a very funny post.