Customer Reviews

Predestination

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Yes, this is about as scholarly a work as you will ever read on one of the most perplexing paradoxes in all of Christian theology - the omnipotent, sovereign God versus man's free will.

And Father Garrigou-LaGrange explains it well in this book. His 50-plus years of teaching at the highest levels shows itself, as the book is excellently written and the materially is expertly outlined and presented.

He starts with a few basic principles with which all conclusions about predestination must adhere, for example:
- That God wills to save all men and that He predestines nobody to damnation
- That all we have we have received from God
- That God works in man to will and accomplish according to His good will, yet our will is still free
- That God wills nothing that is impossible (not even His command to obey the commandments)
- That no created being would be better than another if God did not will a greater good for that being (predilection)
- That God is the cause of all good and the author of NO evil
- and much more.

Then, by applying the above principles he refutes the predestination teachings of the Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, Molinists, Jansenists, and protestants. He follows with explanations of the Catholic (Augustinian and Thomistic) view and answers to objections.

But this book is not an easy read, seemingly having been written for educated people - priests, professors, and seminarians. It is well worth your time and effort (have some aspirin ready, though, for the inevitable headaches!).

On a side note, this book was a pleasure to read because it is classic Catholic theology written by a great teacher in classic Catholic style - heavy on theology and light on sarcastic criticism. Let us point out where we are right; let us explain where the others are wrong. Let us reconcile those passages of Scripture which SEEM to contradict; let us see how, when thoroughly examined, those passages harmonize and give us God's own truth. Let us not, as many protestants (sadly) do, take hold of one side of the paradox, and ignore or demote the other. It is a book like this that shows how the Catholic Church is truly Biblical on account of its acceptance of ALL Scripture as inspired; on account of its refusal to ignore or demote passages which do not fit into a pre-conceived interpretation; and its refusal to elevate one Biblical author (Paul, for example) over another or over all of the rest.

Five stars.

I must admit that I approached Father Lagrange's work with skepticism, but after I finished his work on the difficult issue of Predestination I was completely stunned. Being from the Reformed tradition I strongly believe in the doctrines of election and predestination and affirm that they are biblical tenets of the faith. Nevertheless, I was compeletely uninformed concerning the two schools of thought on this issue which exist within the Catholic Church. The first school is the Molinist school which is very similar in many respects to Protestant Arminianism, while the second is the Augustinian/Thomistic school, which is very similar to Protestant Calvinism. Although I knew that the Church was very Molinist in it's practices, I did not know where these practices originated from. Furthermore, I was completely unaware that there were many who still believed in traditional Augustinian ideas regarding grace and predestination.

Lagrange begins his work by laying out the history of the doctrine of predestination in the Church. He starts by analyzing scripture then works his way up through history analyzing the writings of many of the Church's greatest theologians who wrote about predestination including, Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Bellarmine, Suarez, Molina, and many others. Lagrange shows that several of the councils convened in the sixth century to deal with the issue of election did in fact support the Augustinian viewpoint. Father Lagrange uses documented evidence from the Coucil of Orange to show how the Church of the 6th century condemned Pelagianism and Semi-pelagianism and upheld traditional Augustinianism.

In the second part of this book Lagrange sets out to uphold and clarify the traditional Thomistic teaching on predestination. Many of his arguments were fascinating and intriguing. I love his work on the doctrines of grace and premotion. Lagrange argues that grace does not destroy free will, but perfects it and that grace is not irresistable but instrinsically efficacious. Lagrange emphatically affirms the absolute gratuity of predestination and constantly makes reference to the same quote of Augustine which states "No one thing would be better than another, unless it were loved more by God." According to Lagrange, the only reason one individual chooses God and another does not is because God has loved the one more than the other. It is a hard truth indeed, but one that is ratified by scripture.

The one negative side to this book is that it does contain a lot of vague and intellectual terminology. It may be hard for anyone who is not familiar with Augustine and Aquinas to follow Lagrange's reasoning since he continually refers to their writings and their ideas. Nevertheless, this book is a valuable resource for anyone wishing to understand the other Catholic school of thought on predestination. Every Reformed Protestant should read this book in order to understand that not all Catholics adhere to the Molinist train of thought; The Catholic Church has in fact taught predestination throughout it's 2,000 history and this is beautifully illustrated by Father Lagrange.

Gives a masterful theological exposition of the classic Thomastic teaching on this, the most difficult of all theological tracts, showing the reconciliation - as far as it can be understood on this side of the Beatific Vision - of the various elements of the Church's teaching on Predestination. Based on Scripture and Tradition, this book gives the history of Catholic thought on this topic, showing how centuries of Catholic theologians have wrestled to reconcile the two truths of divine predilection and the damnation of souls. Explains the teachings of Sts. Augustine, St. Anselm, Peter Lombard, St. Bonaventure, St. Albert the Great, Duns Scotus, St. Robert Bellarmine, Suarez, etc. He also analyzes the problems with Molinism, Congruism, Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Protestantism (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin), Baianism and Jansenism.

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange sheds the great light of St. Thomas Aquinas on these questions, emphasizing the gratuity of Predestination and the absolutely fundamental principle of hte divine predilection. He also covers efficacious and sufficient grace, free will, God's antecedent and consequent will, His justice, His mercy, and the question of whether foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination. This book is a magnificent exposition for serious students and for all seekign a deep, theological understanding of the Catholic myster of Predestination. 382 pages, PB. Imprimatur.

This great, difficult book (the middle part, dealing with philosophical issues was very tough) shook me out of my semi-pelagian complacency and opened my eyes to alternative views on grace. I am indebted to Lagrange forever.

* Concerning the issue of predestination we must distinguish between the opinions of Thomists/Augustinians/Scotists on the one hand, and Molinists/Congruists on the other hand

* God has chosen (elected) certain individuals from all eternity (before all time) and granted them the gift of Final Perseverance, irrespective of their merits. This is what we call "predestination to glory"

* It is impossible to find out the reasons for this divine choice. Augustine wrote: "Why He draws one and not another, seek not to judge, if you wish not to err;" Isidore wrote: "In an obscurity so great as this, it is of no avail for man to investigate the divine dispensation and examine the secret arrangements of predestination" (p.54); and finally Thomas: "Yet why he chooses some for glory and reprobates others has no reason except the divine will." (p. 102)

* The two main problems with the idea of predestination are: 1) How to reconcile predestination with God's universal salvific will; 2) The reason why Peter is chosen and Frank is rejected

* Predestination is before and not contingent upon foreseen merits (p.84). In other words, God is not a passive spectator, but the reason and cause of our predestination.

A) God wills the end before the means: thus, He wills the predestined glory before

willing them grace by which they will merit it

B) The principle of predilection states that "no being would be better than another unless it were more by God (p.94) Also, "That is loved more which receives a greater good." (p. 87) In other words, God loves the elect more (as Scriptures says too)

C) Grace is intrinsically efficacious, and does not depend merely on God's

foreknowledge (p.51)

* There is no double predestination or predestination to sin; only predestination to glory

* Negative reprobation = "it is not the privation of a good that is due; it is merely the negation of a good that is not due to one." (p. 209) This is the non-election and the will to permit unforgivable sins Positive reprobation = an eternal decree to inflict punishment for sins

* Antecedent salvific will; Sufficient grace;Aquinas builds his view of predestination on it; Consequent salvific will; Efficacious grace; Foreknew ; Predestined ; Called; Justified; Merits; Glorified. Thomas wrote: "God preordained to give grace to some so that they would merit glory." (p. 69); St. Albert: "It is of Catholic faith that merit does not come before grace." (p. 68)

* Distinction between order of intention and order of execution. Is it like someone who sets up a race saying: "I wish you all luck" but then favors his compatriot in the race itself? Nah...bad example

* Free will and predestination are two total, subordinated clauses (not partial and coordinated)

* Not only corporate but also individual election (p. 200)

* God does not command the impossible: sufficient grace for salvation is given to everyone, though most people do not respond to it. Therefore, in the words of the Council of Quiercy: "That certain persons are saved, is the gift of Him who saves; but that certain persons are lost, is the fault of those who are lost." (p. 202)

* Predestination is infallible; no one can know for sure, with absolute certainty if he/she is in the number of the elect: you can only have a moral certainty (p. 216)

This is an excellent presentation of a very controversial and difficult subject. The book is divided into three parts. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange begins by investigating the doctrine of predestination in reference to Sacred Scripture, canons of various ecumenical councils, and the early controversies that first necessitated a definition of the doctrine. He pays particular attention to the writings of Sts. Paul and Augustine.

In part two of the book the various solutions to the problem of predestination are explored. Positions ranging from those developed in the Middle Ages, to St. Thomas Aquinas, the various Protestant stances, and positions arising after the Council of Trent. In this section Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange introduces the teaching of the Jesuit, L. Molina. Throughout the remainder of the work, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange compares the doctrine of Molina and his sciencia media to that of the Thomists, using it as a sort of relief against which he defends the principle of predilection first articulated by St. Augustine and later advanced by St. Thomas.

The principle of predilection, "one thing would not be better than another, if God did not will greater good for one than for the other," is referred to on numerous occasions. According to Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, the answer to why some individuals are among the "Elect" and predestined from all eternity to glory and others are among the "Reprobate" and allowed to freely resist God's grace can be found in no other answer except that God loves some individuals more than others. God is not bound to love everyone equally, and if anyone goes to hell it is not because God is denying something owed to the individual, but because God in His Sovereign Will chooses to manifest in these individuals His justice, while in the Elect He manifests His mercy. The awesomeness of someone, through their own free will, choosing not to respond to God's grace and subsequently being damned is disturbing to us and rightly so. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange admits that in this life, how God's mercy and justice are reconciled will always allude us, but it is clear that the beauty of God's creation could not be known by anyone but Himself and would therefore be pointless if there were no free beings to witness it. This implies the revelation of God in the totality of His being and therefore His justice as well as His mercy. God's justice is manifested through the damnation of the Reprobate. That we don't see the beauty in this doesn't mean God is unfair, but that we simply are deficient in our ability to appreciate the beauty of God's justice in the same way that we appreciate His mercy. Our personal sinfulness makes us biased toward God's mercy and prevents us from an objective appreciation of His justice. In other words, if we truly realized the gravity of sin we would then concur in the damnation of the Reprobate as readily as we would in the glory of the Elect.

In part three, the manner in which God's grace operates within us is described. For me this was the most interesting since the puzzle lies in how God causes an individual to infallibly choose to respond to His grace without violating the individual's free will. The answer, because of its simplicity, can be easily overlooked or fall into suspicion. St. Thomas is quoted in response to the objection: "Every cause that cannot be hindered, produces its effect necessarily. But the will of God cannot be hindered," therefore if God determines our will it is not free. St. Thomas responds,

"From the very fact that nothing resists the divine will, it follows that not only those things happen that God wills to happen, but that they happen necessarily or contingently according to His will." Therefore, when God wills that a man do a particular thing He wills it in accord with the man's nature, that is, in such a way that the man do it freely. Only God because of the absolute efficaciousness of His omnipotent Will can accomplish this. This concept of "physical premotion" becomes the overriding preoccupation for the remainder of the book since it is crucial that its operation be correctly understood.

Many ideas are repeated in this work and the reader may feel it monotonous, but the arguments are so subtle that frequent repetition helps the ideas to ferment in the mind. If one is patient, the third part of the book explains the "how" of predestination and for me this was the most profitable.

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange could have addressed the ideas of the Reformers more deeply. I came away with a good grasp of the ideas of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and Molina, but those of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were barely touched upon. Perhaps he felt the ideas of the Reformers were nothing new, already having been dealt with in earlier heresies.

For those without a background in philosophical terminology the book will be difficult, but the same ideas are reviewed from so many different angles that if one is persistent the terminology will become self-explanatory.

The Roman Catholic perspective on predestination was a puzzle to me until a few years ago, when I read a previous printing of this book. This copy features pages that do not smell like they were kept in a bookshelf untouched for fifty years. Surprisingly easy to read and thorough, Garrigou-Lagrange really clarifies the Thomist approach and recognizes an often-neglected biblical truth: whether you like it or not, the Bible teaches predestination of the saved, reconciling free will is another matter altogether. Some may find it disappointing that he spends so few words on non-Catholic perspectives, but great parallels abound between Catholic and non-Catholic in a continuum once one studies this issue (Thomist/Augustinian with Reformed versus Molinist with Armenian/Wesleyan views).

Other Amazon readers have described this book by Garrigou-Lagrange quite clearly, so my words will be about the reaction of one Lutheran Protestant, a pilgrim to Eastern Orthodoxy or to Roman Catholicism (however things turn out), who finds this book peculiarly satisfying but also more than a little bewildering. The book also is available in paperback binding from Herder's publishing successor, TAN Books and Publishers (1998, copyright 1939, ISBN 0-89555-634-0).

In investigating the real soteriology of the Roman Catholic Church, it seemed that "zeroing in on" the watershed issue of Predestination and Election would reveal Roman Catholicism's genuine teaching regarding the doctrines of grace. Garrigou-Lagrange's book certainly explains the various currents in Thomistic scholastic theology (and the teachings of those who oppose it in whole or in part) on Predestination (and even on Reprobation, which may surprise many Protestants!) as simply and clearly as possible without loss of depth. The author's reasoning and writing (as translated) is quite pellucidly clear; it is only when Garrigou-Lagrange comes to questions of God's ineffable operations in the "divine motions" of predestination in grace and sanctification that the book simply becomes too abstrusely technical for the non-specialist reader in philosophy to handle, for me from page 143 through to the end (p. 340) before the four helpful appendices and the index (p. 341-382). With regard to indexation, it would have been helpful to have another index devoted to citations to Holy Scripture (in which the book, thankfully, abounds) and I intend to prepare one for my own use.

What is so especially perplexing for a serious Protestants (i.e. for a Lutheran or Reformed/Calvinist, perhaps an Anglican who is theologically of "sturdier stuff" than most Anglicans tend to be) is Garrigou-Lagrange's (and Thomistic Scholasticism's) relative emphasis on God's predestining grace of the Christian to obedience rather than to faith itself. It is not that this kind of Catholic thinking denies the role of faith in salvation, but that there is such an emphasis (from a Lutheran or Reformed vantage point) upon God's predestination of the saved believer to a life of sanctification. However, Catholic Scholasticism does teach the utter gratuity, in the final analysis, of God's gift of salvation, despite the differences of emphases between Protestant Scholasticism (classical Lutheran and Reformed dogmatics) and Roman Catholicism's own Scholasticism which predated Protestantism. For all the divergences, Catholicism's soteriological doctrine can seem surprisingly familiar to a Protestant who previously had held stereotyped preconceptions of the nature of Catholicism's teachings.

I made copious notes in pencil on the pages of my copy of Garrigou-Lagrange's work, but it was not until page 221, at a chapter's head, that I felt moved (and, frankly, relieved) to note "This chapter, at long last, begins more to mention sufficiently faith's role in all of this!" Jimmy Akin (the justly famed Roman Catholic apologist) is right when he states, "Too often the accusations [that] Protestants and Catholics make against each other are based on misunderstandings; the two groups fail to appreciate that they are using terms differently" and here I would note, that they have differing priorities and emphases. "This is especially true when it comes to the doctrine[s] of salvation" (of which predestination and election play an important part). "Over and over again, individuals get distracted by semantics while they agree on substance" (Jimmy Akin's "The Salvation Controversy"; San Diego, Calif.: Catholic Answers, 200l, on pg. 24).

I think that for most Protestants, it is preferable, after all, to begin with books broadly about soteriology, from Catholic and Reformation viewpoints, which explain honestly the issues and differences, rather than to begin, as I did, with particuarly salient works on specific "pressure points" of doctrine and contention, such as Garrigou-Lagrange's "Predestination" and H.J. Schroeder's edition of "The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent" (Rockford, Ill.: TAN Books and Publishers, 1978). It turns out, regarding the second of those books, that the wording of the Conciliar canons, decrees and anathemas of Trent do not condemn outright the Doctrines of Grace, as Protestants and sectaries so often claim, albeit the Tridentine statements pose considerable problems, even obstacles, for assessing and absorbing Roman Catholic thought on soteriology, the sacraments, and the other weighty matters with which the Council of Trent dealt. There is a dense "fog" that beclouds Protestant perception of just what Trent's hardline Thomistic Scholastic orientated pronouncements really meant. A particularly helpful and reasonably succinct guide to understanding the Tridentine formulations and their background can be found in chapter 2, "The Council of Trent and the Catholic Reformation", (i.e. what Protestants call the Counter-Reformation), in Michael A. Mullett's book, "The Catholic Reformation" (London: Routledge, 1999), p. [29]-68.

In addition to Akin's book already cited above, there is, famously, also as a guide to these deep matters the almost miraculously percipient "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification [by] the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church" (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000; 47 p.), a powerfully and acutely apt summation of just how vast is the agreement in substance, even with differences admitted, that exists between Reformation and Roman Catholic teaching, in the Western Christianity which they both share. As a Lutheran from the orbit of the old "Synodical Conference" member Lutheran churches and splinter groups, most notably the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), I formerly had been steeped in prejudice and hostility towards what this remarkable Joint Declaration declares. In fact, on getting around to reading it in all of this declaration's brief and trenchant fulness, I have come to realise that it only is due to the bizarrely eccentric soteriological paradigm of these Synodical Conference Lutheran groups (a teaching little known to outsiders, even in Lutheran circles), of "universal objective justification" and this twisted dogma's corollary, "subjective justification", that provokes the LCMS, WELS, and other groups in the orbit of the former Synodical Conference to rail against and to decry (with essentially very unLutheran erroneous reasoning) what the Joint Declaration teaches concerning Lutheranism's understanding of Reformation soteriology.

Well, happy reading, Christian Amazon user, whether you begin with works like those of Garrigou-Lagrange's "Predestination" or Schroeder's compilation of the Tridentine pronouncements, or, on the other hand, with less headache (and heartache) inducing works such as Akin's "Salvation Controversy" or the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration. You even may prefer to make your pathway through Western Christian soteriology by way of contrasting it through reading some quite startling dogmatic writings of Eastern Orthodox leanings! Hopefully you will not get mired in the "Arminian" or Pelagian vulgar wallows of the teaching of the sects (Methodists, Pentecostals, Campbellites, most Baptists, et alia) from which truly genuine Protestantism as well as Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy alike all differ quite markedly, in common with each other as well as according to each tradition's own distinctive way.

Clearly written, the challenges of this book lie in the deep thought you will have and want to apply to the concepts therein. There are no easy answers to these questions, and the book presents arguments for and against many views, giving you the tools to grasp the issues and understand why the answers transcend mortal reason. A couple of concepts are referenced early on without adequate definition, and you'll have to make your own notes to fix the index in these areas, but these flaws are minor.

This book goes through the Catholic doctrine of predestination, considering all the most popular mechanisms (Thomism, Molinism, etc) of how God accomplishes his will while still allowing human freedom. Obviously, Fr. Garrigiou-Lagrange is a Thomist, and hence argues for the Thomistic position, often against the Jesuit position espoused by Molina. Basically, the question is "how do we balance God's perfect sovereignty (EVERYTHING that happens is God's will, in some way or another), human free will, and the fact that God desires ALL men to be saved? This conundrum lead to ideas like efficacious grace, the principle of predilection, and the scientia media (middle knowledge). All those terms and more are defined and scrutinized by Fr Garrigiou-Lagrange in the book.

Although the book is very deep and theologically covers a multitude of rich ideas, it is a very smooth, enjoyable, and even understandable read. However, it does require much reflection. For example, it took me quite a while to finally be able to pinpoint the difference between the Thomistic understanding of efficacious grace and the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace.

If you are unfamiliar with the finer points of the Catholic doctrine of predestination, you will learn a LOT from this book. The only other book that I know of which seems to be an thorough and mature as this book on predestination is Fr William Most's (Fr. Garrigiou-Largrange's student) "Grace, Predestination, and Salvific Will" which seems to be a much larger and longer read, though I have not read it. My guess is that "Predestination" is the best combination of detail and ease as far as any book on the subject goes.

Other Amazon readers, for other entries for (and editions of) this work, have described this book by Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange quite clearly, so my words will be about the reaction of one Lutheran Protestant, a pilgrim to Eastern Orthodoxy or to Roman Catholicism (however things turn out), who finds this book peculiarly satisfying but also more than a little bewildering. A paperback edition (of good quality at modest price) of this work is available from Herder's own publishing successor, TAN Books and Publishers (1998, copyright 1939, ISBN 0-89555-634-0).

In investigating the real soteriology of the Roman Catholic Church, it seemed that "zeroing in on" the watershed issue of Predestination and Election would reveal Roman Catholicism's genuine teaching regarding the doctrines of grace. Garrigou-Lagrange's book certainly explains the various currents in Thomistic scholastic theology (and the teachings of those who oppose it in whole or in part) on Predestination (and even on Reprobation, which may surprise many Protestants!) as simply and clearly as possible without loss of depth. The author's reasoning and writing (as translated) is quite pellucidly clear; it is only when Garrigou-Lagrange comes to questions of God's ineffable operations in the "divine motions" of predestination in grace and sanctification that the book simply becomes too abstrusely technical for the non-specialist reader in philosophy to handle, for me from page 143 through to the end (p. 340) before the four helpful appendices and the index (p. 341-382). With regard to indexation, it would have been helpful to have another index devoted to citations to Holy Scripture (in which the book, thankfully, abounds) and I intend to prepare one for my own use.

What is so especially perplexing for a serious Protestants (i.e. for a Lutheran or Reformed/Calvinist, perhaps an Anglican who is theologically of "sturdier stuff" than most Anglicans tend to be) is Garrigou-Lagrange's (and Thomistic Scholasticism's) relative emphasis on God's predestining grace of the Christian to obedience rather than to faith itself. It is not that this kind of Catholic thinking denies the role of faith in salvation, but that there is such an emphasis (from a Lutheran or Reformed vantage point) upon God's predestination of the saved believer to a life of sanctification. However, Catholic Scholasticism does teach the utter gratuity, in the final analysis, of God's gift of salvation, despite the differences of emphases between Protestant Scholasticism (classical Lutheran and Reformed dogmatics) and Roman Catholicism's own Scholasticism which predated Protestantism. For all the divergences, Catholicism's soteriological doctrine can seem surprisingly familiar to a Protestant who previously had held stereotyped preconceptions of the nature of Catholicism's teachings.

I made copious notes in pencil on the pages of my copy of Garrigou-Lagrange's work, but it was not until page 221, at a chapter's head, that I felt moved (and, frankly, relieved) to note "This chapter, at long last, begins more to mention sufficiently faith's role in all of this!" Jimmy Akin (the justly famed Roman Catholic apologist) is right when he states, "Too often the accusations [that] Protestants and Catholics make against each other are based on misunderstandings; the two groups fail to appreciate that they are using terms differently" and here I would note, that they have differing priorities and emphases. "This is especially true when it comes to the doctrine[s] of salvation" (of which predestination and election play an important part). "Over and over again, individuals get distracted by semantics while they agree on substance" (Jimmy Akin's "The Salvation Controversy"; San Diego, Calif.: Catholic Answers, 200l, on pg. 24).

I think that for most Protestants, it is preferable, after all, to begin with books broadly about soteriology, from Catholic and Reformation viewpoints, which explain honestly the issues and differences, rather than to begin, as I did, with particuarly salient works on specific "pressure points" of doctrine and contention, such as Garrigou-Lagrange's "Predestination" and H.J. Schroeder's edition of "The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent" (Rockford, Ill.: TAN Books and Publishers, 1978). It turns out, regarding the second of those books, that the wording of the Conciliar canons, decrees and anathemas of Trent do not condemn outright the Doctrines of Grace, as Protestants and sectaries so often claim, albeit the Tridentine statements pose considerable problems, even obstacles, for assessing and absorbing Roman Catholic thought on soteriology, the sacraments, and the other weighty matters with which the Council of Trent dealt. There is a dense "fog" that beclouds Protestant perception of just what Trent's hardline Thomistic Scholastic orientated pronouncements really meant. A particularly helpful and reasonably succinct guide to understanding the Tridentine formulations and their background can be found in chapter 2, "The Council of Trent and the Catholic Reformation", (i.e. what Protestants call the Counter-Reformation), in Michael A. Mullett's book, "The Catholic Reformation" (London: Routledge, 1999), p. [29]-68.

In addition to Akin's book already cited above, there is, famously, also as a guide to these deep matters the almost miraculously percipient "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification [by] the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church" (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000; 47 p.), a powerfully and acutely apt summation of just how vast is the agreement in substance, even with differences admitted, that exists between Reformation and Roman Catholic teaching, in the Western Christianity which they both share. As a Lutheran from the orbit of the old "Synodical Conference" member Lutheran churches and splinter groups, most notably the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), I formerly had been steeped in prejudice and hostility towards what this remarkable Joint Declaration declares. In fact, on getting around to reading it in all of this declaration's brief and trenchant fulness, I have come to realise that it only is due to the bizarrely eccentric soteriological paradigm of these Synodical Conference Lutheran groups (a teaching little known to outsiders, even in Lutheran circles), of "universal objective justification" and this twisted dogma's corollary, "subjective justification", that provokes the LCMS, WELS, and other groups in the orbit of the former Synodical Conference to rail against and to decry (with essentially very unLutheran erroneous reasoning) what the Joint Declaration teaches concerning Lutheranism's understanding of Reformation soteriology.

Well, happy reading, Christian Amazon user, whether you begin with works like those of Garrigou-Lagrange's "Predestination" or Schroeder's compilation of the Tridentine pronouncements, or, on the other hand, with less headache (and heartache) inducing works such as Akin's "Salvation Controversy" or the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration. You even may prefer to make your pathway through Western Christian soteriology by way of contrasting it through reading some quite startling dogmatic writings of Eastern Orthodox leanings! Hopefully you will not get mired in the "Arminian" or Pelagian vulgar wallows of the teaching of the sects (Methodists, Pentecostals, Campbellites, most Baptists, et alia) from which truly genuine Protestantism as well as Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy alike all differ quite markedly, in common with each other as well as according to each tradition's own distinctive way.