Predestination is the biblical doctrine that God has decreed before hand the election of some individuals to be saved, or to certain appointments in life. While the idea is abundantly clear in the NT, it finds it clearest expression in two of Paul's letters:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predistined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predistined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
(Rom 8:28-30)
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predistined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. . . . In him we were also chosen, having been predistined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:4-12)
The doctrine is, however, is left undefined in the NT, and the result is that the Church is left to grapple with all that the term implies and, just as important, does not imply.
In seeking to understand the concept it is important that we do not confuse it with the non-Christian idea of fate which has, as its central tenet, that nothing we humans do matters in deciding the course of events as they unfold. It is just as important to three fundamentals about Paul's use of the concept: 1) only an omni-capable God can predestine, and 2) the close association between predestination and its goal of our glorification, which leads, in turn, to joy, assurance, and praise. This is important because the ferocity and lack of grace that have attended the debates about it in the history of the Church have often been in reverse proportion to the sentiments and meaure expressed by the apostle.
Calvinist theologians (following the Synod of Dort rather than Calvin) also teach a slightly amended version of this basic idea called 'double predestination,' that is, God does not only elect some to salvation, He also elects those whom He will condamn, i.e. He "predestines" some to salvation and others to reprobation.
Three main questions have arisen from the idea of predestination and the long and convoluted debates that had gone on for centuries. 1) If we are predestined, what place does our free-will have in the question of our decisions? (what is often known as the Calvinist-Arminian debate). 2) What is the relationship between predestination and God's foreknowledge? 3) When did God begin to decide on who to predestine to salvation, and, if double predestination is true, to reprobation? (the Supralapsarian-Infralapsarian debate).
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