I read quite a bit on this subject and recommend Garrigou-Lagrange's book which is on line and found here.
http://www.thesumma.info/predestination/index.php
To get you all interested, here is a snippet. I have written on this subject before and need to write more to unpack this great Thomist's theology.
There is a great mystery between grace and effort. Some Protestants believe that one cannot strive for grace at all.
Garrigou-Lagrange helps us with St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas' explanations on predestination. This is merely the beginning of the discussion.
For St. Augustine, predestination presupposes a decisive and definite will on God's part to sanctify and save freely all the elect.(13) God knows them individually and He wills to have them perform meritoriously acts that are required for entering heaven. He wills to give them the grace to persevere until the end, this being what St. Paul means when he says: "For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish according to His good will."(14) The fact that God foresees our salutary and meritorious acts presupposes, according to the teaching of St. Augustine, the decree of the divine will as regards these acts.(15) Father Portalié considers that St. Augustine favors the theory of the scientia media because of the following sentence: "Far be it that man should have the power to frustrate the intention of the omnipotent Being who has foreknowledge of all things."(16) We know, on the contrary, that for St. Augustine the foreknowledge of our salutary acts refers to what God has decreed that created wills should do. The words that immediately follow the text quoted by Father Portalié prove this to be so, for we read: "These have but a faint conception of so great a question, or what they have does not suffice, who think that the omnipotent God wills something and is powerless to effect it because of weak man preventing Him." Father Portalié should have remarked that Molina, on the other hand, reproved St. Augustine for not having known of the scientia media.(17)
To what cause must we assign, according to the great doctor's opinion, the efficacy of grace that is granted to the elect? The principles laid down by him reveal his mind on this point. God's will, he says, is omnipotent and efficacious (most efficacious).(18) We read in one of his treatises as follows: "There is no doubt that human wills cannot resist (in sensu composito) the will of God, who hath done whatsoever He willed in heaven and on earth, in that He does what He wills and when He wills. Undoubtedly He has the power to move the human heart to submit, as it pleases Him, to His omnipotent will."(19) From this we see that, in St. Augustine's view, the decrees of the divine will are infallible not because God foreknows that we will give our consent, but because He is omnipotent. He also says: "The wills of men are more in God's power than in their own."(20) In another of his works he says: "There is no doubt that we will whenever we will, but He is the cause of our willing what is good; . . . there is no doubt that we act whenever we act, but He is the cause of our acting, by most efficaciously strengthening our will."(21) Still more clearly when speaking professedly on this subject of predestination, he says that "no one who is hardened in heart rejects grace, because it is primarily given to remove this hardness of heart.''(22)
Lastly, St. Augustine repeatedly teaches that predestination is gratuitous. And he means predestination as he defined it, which is not only to grace but also to glory; for predestination to grace alone does not lead one effectively to eternal life. It has but the name of predestination, since it belongs equally to those who, after being justified, do not persevere.
In this past week, two people said they could not believe that God did not love all men enough to allow them free will. They could not understand that God loved us so much as to give us free will to separate from Him.
They could not understand that grace is given, but some say no.
They could not understand that God does not give the same gifts to all the same--even grace. They wanted all people to go to Heaven. So do I. But, that is not the teaching of the Church.
But, all are given the chance and grace at some point. The theologians have discussed this question for centuries. I can do a little discussion on this blog. To be continued.....
