Predestination

Monotheistic determinism

Predestination, is a sub-type of religious determinism, peculiar to the monotheistic religions. In Jewish and Christian traditions, predestination is the action of God by which the future condition of a particular person is made certain. Comparably, the Arabic word, kismet means "an inevitability", which Islamic tradition holds to be determined according to the all-powerful will of Allah.

In all of these belief systems, the doctrine of predestination refers to inevitability as a general principle, but more particularly refers to the exercise of God's eternal will, as it relates to the future of each member of the human race, with special concern for issues of human responsibility.

Although comparable in such broad terms, the differences between and among Jewish, Christian and Islamic ideas of predestination are very complex, and in many cases this difference is echoed in all distinctives of each doctrinal and belief system. Predestination always involves issues of the Creator's personality and will; and consequently, the different versions of the doctrine of predestination appear together with appropriately different conceptions of the contribution any creature is able to make toward its own destiny. E.g., Predestination variously conceived implies human responsibility accordingly conceived. Consequently, the version of the doctrine of predestination found in one of these belief systems uniquely exposes the religious presuppositions upon which that system is organized. It is of particular interest in discerning the principle upon which a belief system explains differences of status or condition between people.

Contrasted with other kinds of determinism

In contrast to predestination are other materialistic, spiritualist, non-theistic or polytheistic ideas of determinism, destiny, fate, doom, or karma. Such beliefs or philosophical systems may hold that any outcome is finally determined by the complex interaction of multiple, possibly immanent, possibly impersonal, possibly equal forces: rather than the issue of the Creator's conscious choice.

For example, some may speak of predestination from a purely physical perspective, such as in a discussion of time travel. In this case, rather than referring to the afterlife, predestination refers to any events that will occur in the future. In a predestined universe the future is immutable and only one set of events can possibly occur; in a non-predestined universe, the future is mutable and multiple different events are possible. This may be considered as part of the issue of free will or separately from the context of consciousness. See also determinism and free will and determinism.

Finally, antithetical to determinism of any kind, are irrationalist theories of the cosmos, which assert that any outcome is ultimately unpredictable, luck, pure chance, or chaos.

All conceptions of an ordered or rational cosmos have determinist implications, which come together with the idea of predictability; but predestination as here considered is a specifically religious type of determinism, especially as found in the various monotheistic systems of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have occasionally produced conceptions of God that bear little resemblance to traditional understanding, which are thus in some cases more comparable to polytheistic or spiritualist notions of determinism, or even irrationalism. These versions, while in some cases important, are not predestinarian because the conceptions variously deny the unchangeability of God's nature or, the personality of God or, the volitional aspect of God's personality or, that the cosmos is the product of God's action or, that it is possible for God either to produce or to predict the future condition of any individual with certainty.

Types of predestination

Described in terms of human freedom

Predestinarians may be described under two types, with the basis for each found within their definition of free will. Between these poles, there is a complex variety of systematic differences, particularly difficult to describe because of equivocation in the foundational terms.

The two poles of predestinarian belief may be usefully described in terms of their doctrinal comparison between the Creator's freedom, and the creature's freedom. These can be contrasted as either univocal, or equivocal conceptions of freedom.

Univocal concept of freedom

The univocal conception of freeom holds that human will is free of cause, even though creaturely in character. The Creator wills the creature into being, and yet has fashioned human volition in the likeness of God's uncreated will - unequivocally comparable in terms of freedom and creativity, although different in terms of the willing subject: whether God or the creature.

The resulting view is that the freedom with which men make choices is compatible with, and in some sense co-ultimate with, the freedom of the Creator's choices. This univocal conception of freedom rejects as incompatible with any freedom, an overruling will of the Creator causing the particular choices of man.

At the farthest end of this spectrum of predestinarian beliefs, human choices are co- creative and absolutely free, without denying that man's choices are creaturely in their subjective character. Therefore, individuals differ from one another on account of both, human effort and divine action. The outcome of man's choices are predictable and inevitable: predestined in this sense by God, but constructed upon a dual foundation of both, God's definite order established by His creating and sustaining will, and the co- operating will of man. Thus, the interplay of God's and man's volition is called synergism (working together). Predestination is therefore on the basis of God's foreknowledge of man's choices, according to such a system of belief.

Nevertheless, to clarify, there is no significant predestinarian view that denies that the Creator has left man's choices entirely free from an ordered and predictable cosmos. Men make choices according to the created nature given them by their Creator - regardless of whether the act of creation is understood to have been a fiat act, or an evolutionary process. At this end of the spectrum of conceptions of freedom, which we have called 'univocal', the boundaries or circumstances of man's volition are causally determined, without determining man's particular choices, either evil or good, in a causal way.

Analogical concept of freedom

At the other end of the spectrum are analogical conceptions of freedom. These versions of predestination hold that, all created things are caused by the Creator in an on-going and particular sense, including individual choice, in such a way that human choices are directly fashioned by the Creator, according to a settled purpose. Man's will may be called free and responsible, but not in the sense of being undetermined; the choice of good or of evil must be uncoerced in order to be free, but it is never uncreated or uncaused. The likeness of creaturely freedom to divine freedom is analogical, not univocal.

It is important to note that there is no significant representation among predestinarians, for the idea that human choices are unreal, merely the direct expression of the Creator's will. The analogy implied by the name, refers to the impossibility of equally ultimate freedom in the same sense, when the free will of the Creator is juxtaposed with the free will of a created being. With no significant exception, when predestinarians deny that man has freedom of will, it is in order to deny that man's will is free in the same sense as the Creator's will, or to affirm that man's choices are entirely subject to divine causation: responsible without being absolutely original. This is particularly true in any tradition that acknowledges a doctrine of Original Sin, whereby every person is understood to be in a condition of helplessness; for whom, either through inherited guilt, or the inherited consequences of guilt, a purely free choice of the good is not possible without the aid of God's Grace.

Traditional Islam holds to the powerlessness of human will, apart from the aid of Allah, and yet without a doctrine of Original Sin. Thus, Islam has the simplest version of predestination, viewing all that comes to pass as the will of Allah. And yet, the Q'uran affirms human responsibility, saying for example: "Allah changeth not the condition of a people until they change that which is in their hearts". There is no significant view of predestination that entirely relieves man of responsibility for his own choices.

Therefore, all significant versions of predestination account for the differences between people by reference to the will of the Creator. Also, all versions of predestination incorporate into the doctrine various concepts of human responsibility, which differ from one another in terms of the kind of volitional freedom possible for the creature.

Described in terms of Augustinianism

In the intellectual and doctrinal history of the Christian Church, the issue is extremely complex. A useful reference point, to distinguish the differences, is Augustine of Hippo, whose career is prominently marked by his writings against the non-predestinarian views of Pelagius.

In these terms, The Eastern Orthodox Church tradition has never adopted the Augustinian view of predestination, and formed a doctrine of predestination by another historical route, sometimes called Semi-Pelagianism. The Western Church, including the Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations, are predominantly Augustinian in some form, especially as interpreted by Gregory the Great and The Council of Orange (a Western council that anathemitized Semi- Pelagianism as represented in some of the writings of John Cassian and his followers). This council explicitly denies 'double predestination'.

In Roman Catholic doctrine, the accepted understanding of predestination most predominantly follows the interpretation of Tomas Aquinas, and can be contrasted with the Jansenist interpretation of Augustinianism, which was condemned by the Catholic Church during the Counter-Reformation. The only important branch of Western Christianity that continues to hold to a 'double predestination' interpretation of Augustinianism, is within the Calvinist branch of the Protestant Reformation.

In broad Christian conversation, the term refers to the view of predestination commonly associated with John Calvin and the Calvinist branch of the Protestant Reformation; and, this is the non-technical sense in which the term is typically used today, when Christians and Jews affirm or deny belief in predestination.

Described in terms of Calvinism

In this common, loose sense of the term, to affirm or to deny predestination has particular reference to the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination. 'Double predestination' is the eternal act of God, whereby the future of every particular person in the human race is set prior to birth. Whatever the individual wills or does, for good or for evil, is only a functional part, not the decisive instrument in that ordained destiny, whether finally reconciled with God or finally alienated from Him forever. God has from eternity, arbitrarily (out of the council of His own will) ordained some to be objects of mercy and some to be objects wrath. The circumstances and the time-ful choices of man, and all of their future consequences, are outworkings of this eternal decree.

Expressed sympathetically, the Calvinist doctrine is that God has mercifully ordained the exact number, out of the total number of human beings, who will be rescued from punishment to dwell forever in His presence. Thus, the number of the saved is settled by the sovereign determination of God's will. By implication, and expressed unsympathetically, the number of the elect subtracted from the total number, leaves an exact number of those who are consciously passed over by the mercy of God, who will dwell forever away from His presence. In other words, God determines the exact numbers of the damned and the saved, and these numbers are fixed before any of these individuals have begun to exist.

Thus, Calvinists acknowledge that 'double predestination' is a legitimate, deductive, logical position from any form of single predestination that does not include universal salvation; however, this term only properly applies to Calvinism in contrast with views which disavow this deduction as part of their belief system.

The debate concerning predestination according to the common usage, concerns the destiny of the damned, whether God is just if that destiny is settled prior to the existance of any actual volition of the individual, and whether the individual is in any meaningful sense responsible for his destiny if it is settled by the eternal action of God.

Calvinists typically divide on the issue of predestination into infralapsarians (sometimes called 'sublapsarians') and supralapsarians. Infralapsarians believe that God chose his elect considering the situation after the Fall, while supralapsarians believe that the Fall was ordained by God's decree of election. In infralapsarianism, election is God's response to the Fall, while in supralapsarianism the Fall is part of God's plan for election.

Some Calvinists decline from describing the eternal decree of God in terms of a temporal order relative to the Fall. Most make distinctions between the positive manner in which God chooses some to be recipients of grace, and the manner in which grace is consciously witheld so that some are destined for everlasting punishments.

Examples of non-Calvinistic predestination

The Eastern Orthodox view was summarized by Bishop Theophan the Recluse in response to the question, "What is the relationship between the Divine provision and our free will?" :Answer: The fact that the Kingdom of God is "taken by force" presupposes personal effort. When the Apostle Paul says, "it is not of him that willeth," this means that one's efforts do not produce what is sought. It is unnecessary to combine them: to strive and to expect all things from grace. It is not one's own efforts that will lead to the goal, because without grace, efforts produce little; nor does grace without effort bring what is sought, because grace acts in us and for us through our efforts. Both combine in a person to bring progress and carry him to the goal. (God's) foreknowledge is unfathomable. It is enough for us with our whole heart to believe that it never opposes God's grace and truth, and that it does not infringe man's freedom. Usually this resolves as follows: God foresees how a man will freely act and makes dispositions accordingly. Divine determination depends on the life of a man, and not his life upon the determination.

Arminians similarly hold that God does not so much choose, as infallibly predict, who will believe and, persevering, be saved. Although God knows from the beginning of the world who will go where, the choice is still with the individual.

Barthians provide a view of predestination by which it is hoped that the antithesis between Augustinianism and Pelagianism is entirely circumvented. In this scheme, predestination only properly applies to God Himself. Thus, mankind is chosen for salvation in Jesus Christ, at the permanent cost of God's self-surrendered hiddenness, or transcendence. Thus, the redemption of all mankind is a devoutly to be wished for possibility, but the only inevitability is that God has predestined Himself, in Jesus Christ, to be revealed and given for mankind's salvation.

Lutherans also believe in predestination, but they differ from Calvinists. Lutherans believe in single predestination, in which God only chooses whom to save, while those he does not choose are damned not by his intent but merely by default.