The top left is John Calvin, the theological father of modern Presbyterianism who believed in Double-Predestination (the notion that God creates some people for heaven and God creates others for hell.) The top right is St. Francis De Sales, a Catholic saint and doctor of the Church. Both said a lot about pre-destination. >Granted, we Catholics have some Church Fathers who seemed to have flirted with Double Pre-Destination even before John Calvin did, so it’s not a clear-cut topic. But ultimately, St. Francis De Sales navigated the true way between the Fathers and Common-Sense on God’s mercy. Fr. Ludwig Ott has a book titled Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma in which he beautifully quotes St. Francis De Sales. I highly suggest you read it.>Recently, I received an email from a young man struggling with the topic of predestination. Although I’m not going to give long quotes from St. Francis De Sales, I can say that St. Francis De Sales is the one who helped me most through my own theological struggles on this topic. Hopefully, you can see strands of his thought in my letter below on this delicate topic. I replied:

Originally published in Padre Peregrino. Read original article