predestination

predestination. The Divine decree according to which certain persons are infallibly guided to eternal salvation. It is presupposed in the Gospels, e.g. Mt. 20: 23, where Christ is reported as saying that sitting on His right and left is reserved ‘for them for whom it hath been prepared of my Father’. In Rom. 8: 28–30 St Paul traces the process of salvation of those ‘that are called according to His purpose’ from foreknowledge and predestination to vocation, justification, and glorification.

In the W. St Augustine developed this teaching in the Pelagian controversy. For him the mystery of predestination consists in the inaccessibility to the human mind of the reasons for the Divine choice, which, nevertheless, is made in perfect justice. It contains the gift of final perseverance and depends not on human acceptance, but on the eternal decree of God; it is therefore infallible, without, however, according to Augustine, violating free will. In S. Gaul his teaching was questioned by John Cassian and other Semipelagians, but the Augustinian position was accepted at the Council of Orange (529). In the 9th cent. Gottschalk, basing himself on Augustine, taught a double predestination of some to eternal blessedness and others to eternal fire. This doctrine was condemned by the Synod of Quiercy in 849. Medieval teaching was based on Augustine but took account of the Greek doctrine represented by St John of Damascus. He held that God ‘antecedently’ wills the universal salvation of all men, but, in consequence of their sins, He wills eternal punishment for some. Various attempts to reconcile this view with the Divine omnipotence and the efficacy of grace were made by the Schoolmen.

Predestination emerged again as a significant issue at the Reformation. M. Luther revived the full Augustinian doctrine which he combined with a new stress on the depravity of man. In 1525 he maintained that in an act of Divine sovereignty both the elect and the reprobate are predestined without reference to their merits or demerits. The Formula of Concord in 1577, however, embodied the position of the Philippists, who, while accepting the total depravity of man after the Fall and justification by faith alone, denied that double predestination followed from either. This has remained Lutheran doctrine. The doctrine of double predestination, however, became a cornerstone of the Calvinist system. Though rejected by the Arminians, it was imposed by the Synod of Dort (1618–9) and by the Westminster Assembly (1647), which declared that at least after the Fall God does not will the salvation of all men and that Christ died only for the elect. Post-Tridentine RC theologians in their formulations of the doctrine of predestination have tried to preserve the element of human consent and the reality of the Divine will that ‘all men should be saved’.

See also ELECTION.