Does Romans 8:28–30 teach limited atonement?

y lim­it­ed atone­ment I refer to the view that Christ died only for the elect; that Christ, before all time, chose only the elect for sal­va­tion, and did not choose oth­ers; and that human beings pos­sess no free­dom of the will to coop­er­ate with the grace of God work­ing in them. This is the Calvin­ist posi­tion.

With that said, here is Romans 8:28–30 (RSV-CE). It’s a stan­dard Calvin­ist proof-text:

We know that in every­thing God works for good with those who love him, who are called accord­ing to his pur­pose. For those whom he foreknew he also pre­des­tined to be con­formed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he pre­des­tined he also called; and those whom he called he also jus­ti­fied; and those whom he jus­ti­fied he also glo­ri­fied.

Now, in an absolute sense, “lim­it­ed atone­ment” is not con­trary to Catholic teach­ing, if you mean only that not all will be saved. By reject­ing the “L” of “TULIP,” the Church does not teach uni­ver­sal­ism. Many are called but few are cho­sen. The Coun­cil of Trent makes that clear:

But, though He died for all, yet all do not receive the ben­e­fit of His death, but those only unto whom the mer­it of His pas­sion is com­mu­ni­cat­ed.

It is com­mu­ni­cat­ed only to those who, by free will, coop­er­ate with the grace of God work­ing in them. Thus Canons 4–6 pro­nounce anath­e­mas upon those who deny human free will.

And that Christ died for all and desires that all be saved is the teach­ing of Scrip­ture:

• 2 Cor. 5:14–15 (NRSV-ACE): “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are con­vinced that one has died for all; there­fore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for them­selves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
• 1 Tim. 2:4 (RSV-CE) “[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowl­edge of the truth.” [N.B., “men” here is gener­ic.]
• 2 Pet. 3:9 (KJV): “The Lord is not slack con­cern­ing his promise, as some men count slack­ness; but is long­suf­fer­ing to us-ward, not will­ing that any should per­ish, but that all should come to repen­tance.”

It is impor­tant not to read one verse in iso­la­tion from oth­ers. (And I know that Calvin­ists have answers for the texts above, but I’ll save those for an upcom­ing post. Suf­fice it for now that St. Paul does not delim­it the word “all.”) It is also impor­tant to not read into Romans 8 what is not there.

Right­ly under­stood, the Church affirms both pre­des­ti­na­tion and the exis­tence of an elect. Romans 8 con­di­tions them upon God’s fore­knowl­edge, and that’s a tricky con­cept. Calvin­ists illic­it­ly read into that word the notion that God picked, pri­or to the cre­ation of the world, the names of the elect. That’s not the sense of fore­knowl­edge. It does not even mean that he saw for­ward into time, because God is out­side time; all time is now for God. It is “foreknowl­edge” from the human per­spec­tive, being bound by time. God sees the choic­es every­one makes by free will, and upon that basis “pre­des­tines” an “elect” for sal­va­tion.

Here is the Cat­e­chism on that point:

To God, all moments of time are present in their imme­di­a­cy. When there­fore he estab­lish­es his eter­nal plan of “pre­des­ti­na­tion”, he includes in it each per­son­’s free response to his grace. (600)

And Sts. Paul & Peter real­ly do speak as though they think human beings have free will to coop­er­ate with God or not to, and even the free­dom to lose sal­va­tion:

• Phil. 2:12 (KJV): “Where­fore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my pres­ence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own sal­va­tion with fear and trem­bling.”
• 2 Pet. 1:10: “Where­fore the rather, brethren, give dili­gence to make your call­ing and elec­tion sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall nev­er fall.”
• 1 Cor. 10:12 (KJV) “Where­fore let him that thin­keth he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

(Don’t take “thin­keth” too lit­er­al­ly here. I can here some­one say­ing, “But Alt! 1 Cor. 10:12 talks about those who “think” they stand, mean­ing they don’t real­ly stand.” Oh, yeah? But if they’re not real­ly stand­ing, they can hard­ly fall either.)

Even Jesus said that “many are called, but few are cho­sen” (Matt. 22:14). The offer of sal­va­tion is for many; only few will respond. Those who do are the “called accord­ing to his pur­pose” of Romans 8. It’s impor­tant not to say that Matt. 22 con­tra­dicts Romans 8. Matthew 22 refers to God’s call to all peo­ple; Romans 8 lim­its it to those called “accord­ing to his pur­pose.” There is a con­tin­u­ing call to con­ver­sion, where­by we are “con­formed to the image” of Christ. That’s the sense of “called” in Romans 8. It has noth­ing to do with God being a kind of team cap­tain in gym class say­ing, “I’ll take Fred and John and Maud and Iris.”

One can only get to a Calvin­ist under­stand­ing of Romans 8:28–30 by ignor­ing (or splain­in away) a good many oth­er texts, and by read­ing into the pas­sage a good deal that’s not there.