A Contemporary (Catholic) Appropriation of Augustine's massa damnata Theory of Predestination

Over the centuries, especially since the Jansenist controversy, much ink has been spilled defending and criticizing Augustine’s contentious interpretation of the revealed doctrines of predestination and reprobation. Instead of attempting to trace the entire debate or adjudicate the exegetical questions, I attempt the more modest task of analyzing how Augustine’s massa damnata theory of election has been re‐received in modern Catholic scholarship. Thus, leaving aside the historical and exegetical complexity of the issue, I argue for a particular conceptual appropriation of Augustine’s theory in line with a contemporary Catholic theology of grace and predestination.