Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/692

Rh 668 P R E P R E 10. Academical Frtieiltnct. (1) Chancellors; (2) high stewards; (3) vice- chancellors ; (4) rectors ; (5) principals ; (t&amp;gt;) heads of colleges and halls ; (7) doctors of divinity ; (8) doctors of law ; (9) doctors of medicine ; (10) doctors of music; (11) bachelors of divinity; (12) proctors; (13) professors; (14) masters of law ; (15) masters of arts ; (1(5) bachelors of law ; (IT) bachelors of medicine ; (IS) bachelors of music ; (li&amp;gt;) bachelors of arts. Offices in the universities are more or less different in each of them, and those which are peculiar to any one vary so much from those which are peculiar to the others that it is not convenient to enumerate and distinguish them. Among graduates of all of them the senior take precedence of the junior according to their several faculties and degrees and the relative antiquity of their universities in the order of Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dublin, London, Durham, Queen s, Sydney, Melbourne, Catholic, Royal, and Victoria. (F. DR.) PREDESTINATION is a theological term, sometimes used with greater latitude to denote the decree or purpose of God by which He has from eternity immutably deter mined whatever comes to pass ; sometimes more strictly to denote the decree by which men are destined to everlasting happiness or misery ; and sometimes with excessive strict ness to denote only predestination to life or election. 1 The question to which the theory of predestination supplies an answer, although it has a special interest to Christian thought, yet arises in all minds which are occupied with the problems of human existence. That question is, To what cause can we refer the diversities in human character, fortunes, and destiny? The Greek tragedians made it their business to exhibit the helplessness of man in his strife against fate. Sometimes indeed they explicitly distinguish fate from a mere pitiless and non-moral sove reignty and identify it with the Nemesis which pursues hereditary or individual guilt; and sometimes as in the case of (Edipus they follow the history of the sufferer for the sake of showing how the predestined and inevitable transgression and punishment educate the character. But the idea which fascinates and pursues them is that man can not escape his destiny, that his life is woven with a &quot; shuttle of adamant,&quot; and that when God means to destroy a man He makes evil seem good to him (Soph., Antig., 622-24). The Greek philosophy tended in the same direction ; and the Stoic doctrine of necessity or providence, though based on a broad and thoroughly philosophical view of nature and of man s place in it, was entangled in the very diffi culties which attach to Calvinism. Among the Jews the Sadducees carried their defence of free will so far as to deny predestination ; while the 1 This restricted use of the term is favoured by Lutherans (&quot;Ac- cipitur praedestinatio vel improprie, quomodo destinationem et ad vitam et ad mortem complectitur, ... vel proprie, quomodo phrasi scriptune tantum ordinationem ad vitam notat,&quot; Quenstedt). In a different interest, the Westminster Confession seems to incline to restrict the use of the word &quot; predestinate &quot; to the decree which secures to some men life eternal, while for the obverse of that decree, by which the rest of men are consigned to everlasting death, it prefers the term &quot; foreordained &quot; : its words are, &quot; By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained,&quot; &c Dr Cunningham (Historical Theol, ii. 422) tells us that this distinction is not grounded either on etymology or on the usage of theologians, &quot; but Calvinists, in general, have held that there is an important dif ference between the way and manner in which the decree of election bears or operates upon the condition and fate of those who are saved, and that in which the decree of reprobation, as it is often called, bears or operates upon the condition of those who perish ; and the existence of this difference, though without any exact specification of its nature, the compilers of the Confession seem to have intended to indicate, by estricting the word predestinate to the elect, the saved ; and using the word foreordained in regard to the rest.&quot; Probably a signi- icance slightly more definite should, however, be attached to the introduction of this distinction ; for as early as the age of Augustine objection was taken to the expression &quot; prsedestinati ad inter itum&quot; on the specific ground that it seemed to impose upon men a necessity n perishing. And Bishop Davenant, while he does not shrink from using the term &quot;predestinate to death,&quot; gives this significant explana- f by predestinating ad interitum we understand the causing id effectual working of any man s destruction, God rannot be said prKdestinare ad interitum : but if we only understand the foreordain- those to damnation whom God foresaw deserving and workin s same, we neither think nor speak otherwise than the orthodox atbers did (Animadversiont, &c., p. 41). Pharisees and Essenes ran to the other extreme and left no place for human freedom (Josephus, Antiij., xviii. 1, 3, 4 ; xiii. 5, 9). In Islam the subject of predestination has produced endless controversy. The orthodox doctrine is thus stated by Al-Berkevi. &quot; It is necessary to confess that good and evil take place by the predestination and predetermination of God, that all that has been and all that will be was de creed in eternity and written on the preserved table. ; that the faith of the believer, the piety of the pious, and their good actions are foreseen, willed, predestinated, decreed by the writing on the preserved table produced and approved by God : that the unbelief of the unbeliever, the impiety of the impious, and bad actions come to pass with the foreknowledge, will, predestination, and decree of God, but not with His satisfaction and approval. Should any ask why God willeth and produceth evil, we can only reply that He may have wise ends in view which we cannot comprehend.&quot; Some Mohammedan teachers (disciples of Al-Ash ari) endeavour to maintain the consistency of this doctrine with man s freedom and responsibility ; but prac tically the Sunnite or orthodox Mohammedans believe that by the force of God s eternal decree man is constrained to act thus or thus. From this there has resulted, on the one hand, the Epicurean pessimism of Omar Khayyam &quot; Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days Where destiny with men for pieces plays : Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays &quot; or the weak recklessness of the poet Faizi : &quot; Before thou and I were thought of, our freewill was taken from us ; be without cares for the Maker of both worlds settled our affairs long before we were made.&quot; On the other hand, there has resulted the freethinking (Mo taziKte) reaction, to which the Shiahs incline and which rehabilitates freewill at the expense of the divine sovereignty. Within the Christian church there have in like manner always existed two opposed beliefs regarding predestina tion, which have received their ultimate development and expression in the Calvinistic and Arminian systems respect ively. The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination is that &quot;from all eternity God chose or elected some men certain definite persons of the human race to everlasting life ; that He decreed or determined certainly and infallibly, and not conditionally and mutably, to bring those persons to salvation by a Redeemer ; that in making this selection of some men, and in decreeing to save them, He was not in fluenced or determined by anything existing in them or foreseen in them such as faith or good works by which they were distinguished from other men, or by anything out of Himself, or by any reason known to us or compre hensible by us ; and that this eternal purpose or decree He certainly and infallibly executes, in regard to each and every one included under it ; while all the rest of men not thus elected He decreed to pass by, to leave in their natural state of sin and misery, and finally to punish eter nally for their sin.&quot; The Arminian doctrine of predestina tion (see ARMINITJS) is that God has from eternity decreed to give eternal life to as many as repent and believe, and foreseeing who shall repent and believe He has determined to give life to these. The &quot; peremptory &quot; election of indi viduals to life eternal proceeds only on the foreknowledge of their faith and obedience, so that, as the Remonstrants explicitly affirmed, the decree proper in predestination is that decree by which it is determined on what grounds or conditions God assigns sinners to salvation. 2 The differ ence between these two views of predestination is wide, and, when logically carried out, radical. The Calvinist 2 &quot;Sententia Remonstr.,&quot; in Hales s Letters from Dort, pp. 174- 175; also ApoL Conf, Remonstr., p. 102.