Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
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Fulgentius of Ruspe
AD 533
The eternal firmness and firm eternity of God’s predestinating will consist not only in the ordaining of works. God also knows in advance the number of the elect. No one of that full number may lose his eternal grace, nor may any outside that total attain the gift of eternal salvation. For God, who knows all things before they come to pass, is not confused about the number of the predestined, any more than he doubts the effectiveness of the works he has ordained.
God in his love has predestined us to adoption through Christ. How could God possibly have Christ for his Son by adoption? … We speak of ourselves as heirs of God the Father and heirs through Christ, being sons through adoption. Christ is his Son, through whom it is brought about that we become sons and fellow heirs in Christ.
Christ, as we have often said already, is wisdom, justice, peace, joy, temperance and the rest. Note that the names of all these virtues are loved even by those who do not pursue them! No one is such a brazen criminal that he does not claim to love wisdom and justice. .
The former [verse] refers to those saints who did not previously exist and who before they came into being were thought of and subsequently acquired existence. This [verse] speaks of God, who was preceded by no thought or willing but always existed and never had a beginning for his existence. Therefore he rightly used the term destined for those who, having once not existed, subsequently acquired existence. But of the Son, that is, of our Lord Jesus Christ, he wrote ordained in another place also. .
Everywhere the purpose or good pleasure means God’s antecedent will. Yet there is another will. For God’s first [or antecedent] will is that sinners should not perish. His second or consequent will is that those who become evil should perish. Hence he does not chastise them from necessity but due to their own willing. .
That is to say, because He earnestly willed it. This is, as one might say, His earnest desire. For the word good pleasure every where means the precedent will, for there is also another will. As for example, the first will is that sinners should not perish; the second will is, that, if men become wicked, they shall perish. For surely it is not by necessity that He punishes them, but because He wills it. You may see something of the sort even in the words of Paul, where he says, I would that all men were even as I myself. 1 Corinthians 7:7 And again, I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children. 1 Timothy 5:14 By good pleasure then he means the first will, the earnest will, the will accompanied with earnest desire, as in case of us, for I shall not refuse to employ even a somewhat familiar expression, in order to speak with clearness to the simpler sort; for thus we ourselves, to express the intentness of the will, speak of acting according to our resolve. What he means to say ...
