Heresies on Predestination, Grace and Free will

Catholic teaching is that everybody without exception is given 'Sufficient Grace' to enter Heaven. The First or ‘Prevenient’ Grace comes from God. Then the free will of man responds to that Grace, either ‘corresponding’ to it or rejecting it.

Calvinists are constantly quoting S. Augustine, but he was exploring a subject that was still being meditated upon. His other writings show very clearly that he would have adhered to a definite ruling from the Catholic Church: ‘I would not believe the Bible itself if it had not been given to us by the Catholic Church’. In his day (4th Century) it would still have been possible for each major centre of Catholic life to trace its pedigree back to the actual apostle who had evangelised their forebears.

It is indeed an unfathomable mystery. Many heresies gain their credence by ignoring one or other side of a Christian Mystery that we can’t exactly get our heads round. The Nestorians, Monophysites and others tried to ‘explain’ the mystery of the Trinity by denying either the Divinity or the Humanity of Christ. Likewise, in the mystery of Predestination, Grace and Free Will the Pelagians basically denied Prevenient Grace, and the Calvinists (and Moslems – the greatest of the Christian heresies, with a little Paganism thrown in for good measure) denied Free Will and the merit of Good Works united to His Passion.