What do you think of the idea of predestination?  That only those who have been predestined by God (from eternity past) can be saved: but not anyone else.

The doctrine can be found or at least intimated (possibly: depending on how you interpret them) in a few – though not many – passages of the Bible.  The following are three that seem the clearest (key words highlighted; these translations are from the NRSV ue):

 

Romans 8

²⁸ We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.^[s] 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 

 

Ephesians 1

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵ He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 

 

Acts 13

[After Paul had preached a sermon in Antioch of Pisidia]

⁴⁸ When the gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord, and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers. 

 

Other biblical passages can be and have  been cited by believers in predestination – e.g., Matthew 20:23; John 10:29.  You may have your own favorites!

It’s a doctrine that many people find quite disturbing.  If a person can be saved only because they were chosen by God, then actually no one has any choice in the matter, and no matter what one does, it doesn’t matter: God makes the decision.  That also means, by implication, that someone who is not chosen (through no fault of their own) is condemned.  So, well, doesn’t that mean God decides to send people to hell?  The vast majority of people who have ever lived – billions of people.  Because that’s what God has decided?

In a sense, this doctrine is a natural outcome of traditional Christian understandings that God is both all-knowing and all-powerful.   If he literally knows “everything” then he knows who will choose to believe in Christ; but if he is all powerful, he can certainly convince them to do so.  He chooses to do so only in some cases.  In the modern world, he apparently has not chosen well over six billion people.  By allowing them to be condemned because he knew they would be, he is in a sense determining that they will be (since he has actively chosen all those who will not be damned).

Ouch.

The doctrine of predestination is usually traced back to St. Augustine (354-430 CE), who was particularly concerned to stress that those who were saved were the ones chosen – and that (a) there was no way to understand the mind of God and why he made his choices and (b) humans nonetheless have free will.  (most people find free will hard to reconcile with predestination).

The explicit doctrine of “double-predestination” seems to be implied by the doctrine of single-predestination — the claim that only those predestined were chosen (single-predestination), a view promoted already by St. Augustine.  Double-predestination is associated principally with the theology of John Calvin (1509-64) and (especially) his followers, and was ultimately rooted in their understandings of divine sovereignty and grace.

“Sovereignty” means that God is the Lord and Master over all things and no one and nothing can usurp his all-powerful will.  He is in control of all that happens.  Humans themselves, of course, are responsible for their sins on some level, or at least must pay a price for their sins.  And since all have sinned, all are condemned.  But if some do not have to pay the price, God must have decided which ones that would be, since he is control of everything.

“Grace” means that God has freely (of his own volition) extended undeserved favor to some people, giving them salvation even though they deserve condemnation.  They should be damned like everyone else, but God goes out of his way to show his graciousness to them.

In large part this combination of sovereignty and grace is meant to emphasize that no one can merit salvation, or earn it, or attain it on their own.  Only God is sovereign.  Only God can decide whom to save.  For those who believe in predestination in most any sense, God determined in eternity past which of those he would save.  The implication is necessarily that he didn’t choose everyone.  But those who are a bit clearer and forceful about the doctrine state the conclusion more strongly.  He predestined both the saved and the damned.

Every possible option connected to “predestination” has been rigorously debated among Christian theologians – from Augustine’s day through the middle ages through the Reformation to today.

I myself once held to the view (Hey – God himself is TOTALLY sovereign!).  But I frankly haven’t given it a whole lot of sustained thought for, well, decades.

I’ve become interested in it in the last few months for a reason I bet you would never guess.  German scholar Max Weber (1864-1920; last name pronounced Vey (rhymes with “hey”) – Ber (rhymes with, “her”) (accent on first syllable) is usually regarded as the founder of the academic discipline of Sociology.  His most famous book is called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.  In it he argues that the economic system of capitalism owes its origins to Calvinist understandings of predestination.

WHAT?  I’ll explain in my next post.

But FOR NOW: I’d love to hear your opinions about Predestination as a doctrine (one that still seems to me almost necessary for anyone who believes in an all-powerful and all-knowing God, but as problematic for anyone who really believes in free will.)  What do you think?