Catholics on the LANGUAGE of Double Predestination

When we hear terms like “double predestination” or the idea that predestination applies even to reprobation, most people immediately think of Calvin or Reformed theology. But what if that story is incomplete? In this video, we explore early modern Catholic theologians, Dominican and Jesuit alike (among others), who openly used the language of predestination with respect not only to salvation but also to reprobation. Far from being uniquely Calvinist, this terminology appears in a wide range of Catholic sources during the 16th and 17th centuries. Even amid heated debates such as the De auxiliis controversy—where Dominicans and Jesuits fiercely disagreed over grace, freedom, and divine causality—there were still theologians from both sides who maintained that God’s decree extends to both election and reprobation. In other words: despite their differences, they shared a vocabulary and conceptual framework often assumed to belong only to Calvinism.