God does predestine some to heaven; he predestines none to hell. There is no Scripture that supports that contention.
We do not gainsay this from Augustine. We know and accept it. It is a pity that the Reformed do not understand that Augustine was a pure Catholic when he died. It’s okay to make that crossing even now.
God does predestine some to heaven; he predestines none to hell. There is no Scripture that supports that contention. Not according to Augustine.
Let us, then, understand the calling whereby they become elected,—not those who are elected because they have believed, but who are elected that they may believe. For the Lord Himself also sufficiently explains this calling when He says, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." [John 15.16.] For if they had been elected because they had believed, they themselves would certainly have first chosen Him by believing in Him, so that they should deserve to be elected. But He takes away this supposition altogether when He says, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." And yet they themselves, beyond a doubt, chose Him when they believed on Him. Whence it is not for any other reason that He says, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," than because they did not choose Him that He should choose them, but He chose them that they might choose Him; because His mercy preceded them according to grace, not according to debt. Therefore He chose them out of the world while He was wearing flesh, but as those who were already chosen in Himself before the foundation of the world. This is the changeless truth concerning predestination and grace. For what is it that the apostle says, "As He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world"? [Eph. 1.4.] And assuredly, if this were said because God foreknew that they would believe, not because He Himself would make them believers, the Son is speaking against such a foreknowledge as that when He says, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you;" when God should rather have foreknown this very thing, that they themselves would have chosen Him, so that they might deserve to be chosen by Him. Therefore they were elected before the foundation of the world with that predestination in which God foreknew what He Himself would do; but they were elected out of the world with that calling whereby God fulfilled that which He predestinated.
Please note this VERY IMPORTANT POINT of Augustine; we are not elected BECAUSE we believe, we are elected so that WE MAY believe. We are God's workmanship and every Christian that God creates bears testimony to His truth. God substains our belief in Him. Those who He foreknew, He predestined, and those who He predestined He justified, and those who He justified...