stination is accepted.

Reply Obj. 3: Preparation is twofold: of the patient in respect to
passion and this is in the thing prepared; and of the agent to
action, and this is in the agent. Such a preparation is
predestination, and as an agent by intellect is said to prepare
itself to act, accordingly as it preconceives the idea of what is to
be done. Thus, God from all eternity prepared by predestination,
conceiving the idea of the order of some towards salvation.

Reply Obj. 4: Grace does not come into the definition of
predestination, as something belonging to its essence, but inasmuch
as predestination implies a relation to grace, as of cause to effect,
and of act to its object. Whence it does not follow that
predestination is anything temporal.
_______________________

THIRD ARTICLE [I, Q. 23, Art. 3]

Whether God Reprobates Any Man?

Objection 1: It seems that God reprobates no man. For nobody
reprobates what he loves. But God loves every man, according to (Wis.
11:25): "Thou lovest all things that are, and Thou hatest none of the
things Thou hast made." Therefore God reprobates no man.

Obj. 2: Further, if God reprobates any man, it would be necessary for
reprobation to have the same relation to the reprobates as
predestination has to the predestined. But predestination is the
cause of the salvation of the predestined. Therefore reprobation will
likewise be the cause of the loss of the reprobate. But this false.
For it is said (Osee 13:9): "Destruction is thy own, O Israel; Thy
help is only in Me." God does not, then, reprobate any man.

Obj. 3: Further, to no one ought anything be imputed which he cannot
avoid. But if God reprobates anyone, that one must perish. For it is
said (Eccles. 7:14): "Consider the works of God, that no man can
correct whom He hath despised." Therefore it could not be imputed to
any man, were he to perish. But this is false. Therefore God does not
reprobate anyone.

_On the contrary,_ It is said (Malachi 1:2,3): "I have loved Jacob, but
have hated Esau."

_I answer that,_ God does reprobate some. For it was said above (A.
1) that predestination is a part of providence. To providence,
however, it belongs to permit certain defects in those things which
are subject to providence, as was said above (Q. 22, A. 2). Thus, as
men are ordained to eternal life through the providence of God, it
likewise is part of that providence to permit some to fall away from
that end; this is called