1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Predestination

PREDESTINATION (from Late Lat. praedestinare, to determine beforehand; from the root sta, as in stare, stand), a theological term used in three senses: (1) God's unchangeable decision from eternity of all that is to be; (2) God's destination of men to everlasting happiness or misery; (3) God's appointment unto life or "election" (the appointment unto 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 fate; this assumes a moral character as nemesis, or the inevitable penalty of transgression.

Sophocles represents man's life as woven with a "shuttle of adamant" (Antigone, 622-624). Stoicism formulated a doctrine of providence or necessity. Epicurus denies a divine superintendence of human affairs. A powerful influence in Scandinavian religion was exercised by the belief in "the nornir, or Fates, usually thought of as three sisters." In Brahminic thought Karma, the consequences of action, necessitates rebirth in a lower or higher mode of existence, according to guilt or merit. With some modifications this conception is taken over by Buddhism. The Chinese tao, the order of heaven, which should be the order for earth as well, may also be compared. According to Josephus (Antiq. xviii. I, 3, 4; xiii. 5, 9) the Sadducees denied fate altogether, and placed good and evil wholly in man's choice; the Pharisees, while recognizing man's freedom, laid emphasis on fate; the Essenes insisted on an absolute fate. This statement is exposed to the suspicion of attempting to assimilate the Jewish sects to the Greek schools. In Islam the orthodox theology teaches an absolute predestination, and yet some teachers hold men responsible for the moral character of their acts. The freethinking school of the Mo'tazilites insisted that the righteousness of God in rewarding or punishing men for their actions could be vindicated only by the recognition of human freedom.

While retained in the creeds of several denominations, in the public teaching of the churches the doctrine of predestination has lost its 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 sovereignty must be conceived as consistent with man's liberty. While God fulfils His all-embracing purpose, that fulfilment leaves room for the exercise of individual freedom; the freedom God has bestowed on man He can so restrain and 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 general convictions of modern theology. The problem now is the reconciliation of human freedom with divine foreknowledge. Martineau accepts Dugald Stewart's solution. "There is no absurdity in supposing that the deity may, for 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. G.*)