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PREDESTINATION (from Late Lat. praede...

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 276 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PREDESTINATION (from See also:Late See also:Lat. praedestinare, to deter-mine beforehand; from the See also:root sta, as in stare, stand) , a theological See also:term used in three senses: (1) See also:God's unchangeable decision from eternity of all that is to be; (2) God's destination of men to See also:everlasting happiness or misery; (3) God's See also:appointment unto See also:life or " See also:election " (the appointment unto See also:death being called " reprobation," and the term " foreordination " being preferred to " predestination " in regard to it). In the first sense the conception is similar to that of See also:fate; this assumes a moral See also:character as See also:nemesis, or the inevitable See also:penalty of transgression. The question of the relation of divine and human will has been the subject of two controversies in the See also:Christian See also:church, the Augustinian-Pelagian and the Calvinistic-Arminian. See also:Pelagius maintained the See also:free-will of See also:man, and held that man's conduct, character, destiny are in his own See also:hand. See also:Grace, by enlightening, forgiving See also:sin and strengthening his moral See also:powers, See also:helps man to fulfil this purpose. While grace is meant for all, men make them-selves worthy of it by striving after virtue. This See also:doctrine as minimizing grace was repugnant to See also:Augustine. He regarded mankind as sinful, guilty, ruined, incapable of any See also:good. God alone can See also:save. His grace is effectual and irresistible. As what God has done He has eternally willed to do, grace involves pre-destination. God has from eternity chosen those whom He See also:wills to save (" election "), and consequently He has also passed over those whom He leaves to perish (" praeterition ").

As all deserve damnation, there is no injustice in leaving them to their deserts. The " reprobation " of the wicked is not the cause of their sin; God's foreknowledge does not make the sin necessary; how reprobation and foreknowledge are related is not made See also:

plain. The doctrine of Augustine was revived in the 9th See also:century by See also:Gottschalk, who taught that God's passing over the lost meant their predestination to See also:punishment. See also:Hincmar of See also:Reims persecuted him for not distinguishing the two positions. This dispute would have little See also:interest now, had not Hincmar appealed to See also:John Scotus See also:Erigena, who attempted to solve the theological problem by philosophical conceptions. He denied that foreknowledge or predestination as temporal relations could be properly predicated of God as eternal; he described sin and its consequences as negations, neither caused by nor known to God; he maintained that as evil is only a See also:stage in the development of good, there will ultimately be a universal return to God. Thus the doctrine of reprobation was emptied of meaning. This See also:defence of orthodoxy was condemned as heretical. The controversy was kept up during the scholastic See also:period. See also:Thomas See also:Aquinas followed Augustine. See also:Duns Scotus leaned toward Semi-Pelagianism, which rejected the doctrine of predestination, and maintained a co-operation of freedom and grace. While Aquinas affirmed the positions of Augustine, he deduced them from his Aristotelian conception of God as " first mover, itself unmoved." His See also:original contribution to the subject was his theory of divine concurrence.

He distinguishes secondary causes as natural and necessary, and as voluntary and contingent; though both are set in See also:

motion by God, yet as the natural remain natural, so do the voluntary remain voluntary. But this is clearly only a verbal See also:solution. At the See also:Reformation the Augustinian position was accepted by both See also:Luther and See also:Calvin. See also:Melanchthon modified his earlier view in the direction of synergism, the theory of a co-operation of divine grace and human freedom. The later Lutheran doctrine is " that man, unable as he is to will any good thing, can yet use the means of grace, and that these means of grace, carrying in themselves a divine See also:power, produce a saving effect on all who do not voluntarily oppose their See also:influence. See also:Baptism, e.g. confers grace, which if not resisted is saving. And God, foreseeing who will and who will not, resist the grace offered, predestinates to life all who are foreseen as believers." Calvin's view is the same as Augustine's. He held the sublapsarian view that the fall was decreed, but not the supralapsarian view that it " was decreed as a means towards carrying out a previous See also:decree to save some and leave others to perish." The latter view was held by See also:Beza and other Calvinists, and, it is said. repelled See also:Arminius from Calvinism, and led him to formulate the doctrine that as repentance and faith are the divinely decreed conditions of eternal life, God has determined to give that life to all whom He foresees as fulfilling these conditions. According to Calvinism God's election unto salvation is See also:absolute, determined by His own inscrutable will; according to Arminianism it is conditional, dependent on man's use of grace. The See also:Synod of See also:Dort (1618-1619) which affirmed the sublapsarian withaut excluding the supralapsarian See also:form of Calvin-ism, condemned the views of Arminius and his followers, who were known as See also:Remonstrants from the remonstrance " which in four articles repudiates supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism (which regarded the Fall as foreseen, but not decreed), and the doctrines of irresistibility of grace, and of the impossibility of the elect finally falling away from it, and boldly asserts the universality of grace." In the Church of See also:Rome the See also:Dominicans favoured Augustinianism, the See also:Jesuits Semi-Pelagianism; the See also:work of See also:Molina on the agreement of free-will with the gifts of grace provoked a controversy, which the See also:pope silenced without deciding; but which See also:broke out again a See also:generation later when See also:Jansen tried to revive the decaying Augustinianism. The church of See also:England has passed through several disputes regarding the question whether the See also:Thirty-Nine Articles are Calvinistic or not; while there is some See also:ambiguity in the See also:language, it seems to favour Calvinism. At the Evangelical Revival the old questions came up, as See also:Wesley favoured Arminianism and See also:George See also:Whitefield Calvinism.

In See also:

Scotland Calvinism was repudiated by See also:James See also:Morison, the founder of the Evangelical See also:Union, who declared the three universalities, God's love for all, See also:Christ's death for all, the See also:Holy Spirit's working for all. While retained in the See also:creeds of several denominations, in the public teaching of the churches the doctrine of predestination has lost its See also:place and power. While the doctrine of election magnified God's grace, and so encouraged humility in man, it minimized man's freedom, and so produced either an over-confidence in those who believed themselves elect, or despair in those who could not reach the assurance. Now it is recognized that God's See also:sovereignty must be conceived as consistent with man's See also:liberty. While God fulfils His all-embracing purpose, that fulfilment leaves See also:room for the exercise of individual freedom; the freedom God has bestowed on man He can so restrain and See also:direct as to overrule even its abuse for His own gracious ends. That God desires that all should be saved, and that the salvation of each depends on his own choice—these are the See also:general convictions of See also:modern See also:theology. The problem now is the reconciliation of human freedom with divine foreknowledge. See also:Martineau accepts Dugald See also:Stewart's solution. " There is no absurdity in supposing that the deity may, for See also:wise purposes, have chosen to open a source of contingency in the voluntary actions of his creatures, to which no prescience can possibly extend." Others hold the problem to be insoluble, and not needing to be solved. (A. E.

End of Article: PREDESTINATION (from Late Lat. praedestinare, to deter-mine beforehand; from the root sta, as in stare, stand)

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