Chapter 1: God Wishes All Men to be Saved;
Christ Died for All Men, Section 1, Part 1

God Wishes All Men to be Saved

     God loves all things that he has created: "For Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things that Thou hast made." [Wisd. 11: 25] Now love cannot be idle: "All love has a force of its own, and cannot be idle," says St. Augustine. Hence love necessarily implies benevolence, so that the person who loves cannot help doing good to the person beloved whenever there is an opportunity: "Love persuades a man to do those things which he believes to be good for him whom he loves," says Aristotle. If, then, God loves all men, He must in consequence will that all should obtain eternal salvation, which is the one and sovereign good of man, seeing that it is the one end for which he was created: "You have your fruit unto sanctification; but your end eternal life." [Rom. 6: 22]

    This doctrine, that God wishes all men to be saved, and that Jesus Christ died for the salvation of all, is now a certain doctrine taught by the Catholic Church, as theologians in common teach, namely, Petavius, Gonet, Gotti, and others, besides Tourneley, who adds, that it is a doctrine all but of faith.

1. DECISION OF THE CHURCH

     With reason, therefore, were the predestinarians condemned, who, among their errors, taught that God does not will all men to be saved; as Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, testifies of them in his first letter, where he says, the ancient predestinarians asserted that God does not will all men to be saved, but only those who are saved." These persons were condemned, first in the Council of Arles, A.D. 475, which pronounced "anathema to him that said that Christ did not die for all men, and that He does not will all to be saved." [Anath. 6] They were next condemned in the Council of Lyons, A.D. 490, where Lucidus was forced to retract and confess, "I condemn the man who says that Christ did not suffer death for the salvation of all men."  So also in the ninth century, Gotheschalcus, who renewed the same error, was condemned by the Council of Quercy, A.D. 853, in the third article of which it was decided "God wills all men, without exception, to be saved, although all men be not saved;" and in the fourth article: "There is no man for whom Christ did not suffer, although all men be not redeemed by the mystery of His Passion." [Art. 3, 4] The same error was finally condemned in the 12th and 13th Propositions of Quesnel. In the former it was said: "When God wills to save a soul, the will of God is undoubtedly effectual;" in the latter: "All whom God wills to save through Christ are infallibly saved." These propositions were justly condemned, precisely because they meant that God does not will all men to be saved; since from the proposition that those whom God wills to be saved are infallibly saved, it logically follows that God does not will even all the faithful to be saved, let alone all men.

   This was also clearly expressed by the Council of Trent, in which it was said that Jesus Christ died, "that all might receive the adoption of sons," and in chapter 3: "but though He died for all, yet all do not receive the benefits of His death." [Sess. 6, c. 2-3] The Council then takes for granted that the Redeemer died not only for the elect, but also for those who, through their own fault, do not receive the benefit of Redemption. Nor is it of any use to affirm that the Council only meant to say that Jesus Christ has given to the world a ransom sufficient to save all men; for in this sense we might say that He died also for the devils. Moreover, the Council of Trent intended here to reprove the errors of those innovators, who, not denying that the blood of Christ was sufficient to save all, yet asserted that in fact it was not shed and given for all; that is the error which the Council intended to condemn when it said that our Savior died for all.

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