The problem of predestination as it surfaced in the ninth century was not a new problem and is one for which Augustine of Hippo bears some respon- sibility, 10 Augustine's position had been that human beings cannot will what is good without the action of divine grace. Since they are dependent upon grace, it follows that human beings cannot save themselves; that means. some people are predestined to salvation. According to Augustine, however, the faults of the wicked and their resulting damnation are their own respon- sibility. Gottschalk believed that it followed from Augustine's account that if some are predestined to salvation and heavenly bliss, then those who are not saved through the action of divine grace are predestined to hell and eternal damnation. This rather crude formulation of the principle of "double predes- tination" gives a very simple picture of the position of Gottschalk, who claimed to be elaborating the views of Augustine. One argument of Gottschalk was based on the absoluteness and unchangeability of God: since God cannot change, either God's mind or God's judgment, the judgment of those who will be damned or saved must be predestined. This formulation of divine predesti- nation troubled Hincmar, whose pastoral concern was directed toward stamp- ing out a fatalistic attitude among Christians. Hincmar's own view, that there is only predestination to heaven for the elect is, in fact, closer to the original view of Augustine, who stressed both the grace of God and the free will of hu- man beings.

 Eriugena's view, as he sets it out in the rather hastily written treatise On Predestination, is that because God is simple and unchangeable, there can be nothing at all that can be predestined.11 Eriugena explains God's predestina- tion as God's knowledge of the primordial causes. God cannot predestine the human will, and people are blessed or punished because of their own free will. Since the free will of human beings can be misused, sins must be the fault of individuals. Sin and evil, and the fact that some souls are damned, cannot imply a change in God or a defect in God's power; if we accept the view of Gottschalk. God is responsible for sin and evil. Eriugena's way out of this dif- ficult position is based on the Neoplatonic idea that God as good is simply existence and, therefore, the opposite of non-being. Evil and sin are negations that do not, in fact, exist and cannot be caused by God. Thus, God cannot pre- destine any soul to damnation; rather, human sinfulness creates its own hell. As I show in chapter 4. in the Periphyseon Eriugena argues that lack of knowl- edge in God is not a defect: in fact. nothing in God (wisdom. power, being, or the ability to predestine) can be understood, precisely because God's essence is simple and unchangeable. Therefore, Eriugena concludes, salvation is open to all, a theme I discuss in relation to his conception of the final return in Periphyseon V. In addition to the arguments based on the dialectical under- standing of being and non-being and the unity of God's nature, Eriugena also invokes the principles of negative theology in his answer to Gottschalk's heresy. Foreknowledge and predestination imply temporal notions in God, who tran- scends time. Since God is simple and unchanging, ideas, signs, and language cannot properly signify the divine nature (On Predestination IX. 390B).12

This was, in brief, the case Eriugena presented to Hincmar for scrutiny. How- ever, since Eriugena had denied the possibility of the predestination of the elect to eternal bliss, he had committed the sin of contradicting the great Au- gustine; for this reason Hincmar ultimately rejected the treatise. But a more serious issue was the invocation of the philosophical (and secular) principles of dialectic: in fact, Prudentius later rebuked Eriugena for using non-Christian sources and arguments in his refutation of Gottschalk's heresy. The dialecti- cal approach to a theological question (an approach Eriugena was to use to great effect in the Periphyseon), resulted in the rejection of the work by Hinc- mar, Prudentius, and Florus as "sophistry," and the treatise was eventually condemned at the council of Valence in 855 and at Langres in 859. Despite the disappointment of Eriugena's apparent failure, Hincmar did not let the matter drop; in fact, he could be said to have persecuted Gottschalk until he died. The stubborn Saxon monk did not recant his heresy and died unrecon- ciled with and reviled by his church. Surprisingly, Eriugena did not suffer the same fate, and his future was much brighter, most likely because he was pro- tected by Charles.

With regard to the predestination controversy, perhaps the one major point that demands further discussion is the fact that both Gottschalk and Eri- ugena claimed to be clarifying the ideas of Augustine himself. It would appear that, like the sacred texts, the writings of Augustine were open to manifold interpretations, a view that brings into question the use of the authority of Augustine. In the case of the predestination debate. Eriugena's practical ap- plication of the Augustinian dictum that true philosophy is true religion had disastrous consequences. Theology (the study of the scriptures and the fathers) was neither ready nor willing to admit the secular science of dialectic into its privileged arena. Yet Eriugena's endeavors in relation to the question of pre- destination showed very clearly that the authority of Augustine could be ques- tioned; as Jaroslav Pelikan observes, "the Augustinian synthesis" with which the previous centuries had been comfortable was now called into question. 13 In this sense, Eriugena's treatise On Predestination prefigures one recurring characteristic one finds in the Periphyseon: the reconciliation of the many au- thorities who influenced one of the greatest philosophical minds of the ninth century.