Predestination

Predestination, in Christian theology, the teaching that the eternal destiny of a person is predetermined by God's unchangeable decree. Predestination does not necessarily imply a denial of free will, however. Most exponents of the doctrine have maintained that it is only the individual's final destiny that is predetermined, not the individual's actions, which remain free. The doctrine customarily takes one of two forms: single predestination or double predestination.

Single predestination is the less severe form of the teaching. It is based on the experience of the presence of God and his love, and on the concurrent understanding that God grants the gift of his presence as an act of sheer grace. In order to emphasize that God's gift is independently willed by him and is in no sense a response to some human act, some Christians have asserted that their relation to God depends only on God and on God's eternal decree established before the foundation of the world.

This point of view is implied only twice in the New Testament, in Romans 8 and Ephresians 1. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son...And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30). These verses imply single predestination, because they concern only predestination to life with God.

Double predestination is a conclusion deduced from single predestination. If some are to enjoy God's presence by his eternal decree, others must then be eternally separated from God, also by his decree. Because salvation and glory are predestined, it follows that condemnation and destruction must also be predestined. The first theologian to enunciate a doctrine of double predestination was St Augustine in the 5th century. He has not, however, had many successors. The best-known exponent of double predestination was John Calvin: “We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which he determined within himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others” (Institutes 3. 21. 5).

After Augustine, Roman Catholic theologians rejected double predestination, insisting that no predestination to evil exists and that those who suffer damnation bear full responsibility for it. Anglicans have also adhered to a doctrine of single predestination. In the 17th century, the Dutch Protestant theologian Arminius, whose teachings inspired the movement called Arminianism, criticized the injustice of Calvin's doctrine of predestination and formulated a modified version of it that allowed for human free will. Liberal Protestant theologians have tended to ignore or deny predestination in either the single or double form. The most influential restatement of the doctrine of single predestination was made by the 20th-century Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who claimed that God's will is revealed in Jesus Christ, and all are elect through him. In this form the doctrine of predestination is virtually universalist—that is, all are promised salvation.