α) For one thus negatively reprobated it is metaphysically impossible to attain eternal salvation. To hold otherwise would be tantamount to assuming that an essentially absolute decree of God can be frustrated. This consideration led certain Thomists(672) to describe the divine _voluntas salvifica_ as rather an ineffectual _velleitas_.(673) But this conflicts with the obvious teaching of Revelation.(674) Suarez labors in vain to reconcile the sincerity of God’s salvific will with the theory of negative reprobation. The two are absolutely irreconcilable. How could God sincerely will the salvation of all men if it were true, as Suarez says, that “it is not in man’s power to work out his eternal salvation in case he falls under non-election, non-predestination, or, which amounts to the same thing, negative reprobation”?(675)
β) The cruel absurdity of the theory of negative reprobation becomes fully apparent when we consider the attitude it ascribes to God. Gonet writes: “Foreseeing that the whole human race would be depraved by original sin, God, in view of the merits of Christ who was to come, elected some men to glory and, in punishment of original sin and to show His justice towards them and His greater mercy towards the elect, permitted others to miss the attainment of beatitude, in other words, He positively willed that they should not attain it.... In virtue of this efficacious intention He devised appropriate means for the attainment of His purpose, and seeing that some would miss beatitude by simply being left in the state of original sin, and others by being permitted to fall into actual sins and to persevere therein, He formally decreed this permission, and finally ... by a command of His intellect ordained these means towards the attainment of the aforesaid end.”(676) Translated into plain every-day language this can only mean that God tries with all His might to prevent the reprobate from attaining eternal salvation and sees to it that they die in the state of sin. Suarez is perfectly right in characterizing Gonet’s teaching as “incompatible with sound doctrine.”(677) But his own teaching is equally unsound and cruel. For he, too, is compelled to assert: “Predestination to glory is the motive for which efficacious or infallible means towards attaining that end are bestowed. Hence to refuse to predestine a man for glory is to deny him the means which are recognized as fit and certain to attain that end.”(678)
