What Is Predestination? A Biblical, Historical & Theological Overview

Does God plan everything ahead of time? If so, does that mean humans lack free will, that we are like robots? Such topics lead to questions about salvation: Does God save only those he’s chosen in advance? And, if so, how is that fair? These are the kind of questions that pop up whenever we broach the doctrine of predestination.

These questions are not just extra-biblical speculation. The main reason Christians talk about the doctrine of predestination is that they’ve encountered it in the Bible. The doctrine of predestination derives from several biblical passages, including Romans 8:28–30, Romans 9:9–23, and Ephesians 1:11: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”¹

To answer our questions properly, we first need to understand some key terms. The different categories that have been used to explain predestination and its related topics, and the way others have answered these questions throughout church history, will help us think about these ideas more clearly.

In short, predestination is a doctrine in Christian theology that explains God’s role in planning and bringing about actions in history. In theological discussions, predestination is at times given a broader or narrower meaning. Its broad meaning applies to the foreordination of all things that come to pass, whereas its narrow meaning limits the focus to God’s gracious election of certain creatures to eternal salvation. How you understand predestination will also affect or be affected by your understanding of the nature of God, the role of grace in salvation, the freedom of the will, the offer of the gospel, and perseverance in the faith.

In church history, the doctrine of predestination is often associated with Augustine of Hippo and John Calvin, but a wide variety of theologians discuss it at length, making use of a spectrum of technical terms and points of emphasis. Mature understandings of predestination are articulated by Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas. Predestination also became a hot-button topic among Protestants during the seventeenth century. The 1619 Dutch Synod of Dort is perhaps the most famous Protestant defense of predestination.

In this article, I seek to lay out the basic grammar involved in the theology of predestination and summarize the church’s historical discussion of the matter, showing areas of consensus and areas where distinctive schools of thought developed. My hope is that this will equip you to have a better grasp of the related arguments and feel more confident in understanding the Bible’s teaching.

Defining key terms

Discussions of predestination have been marked by controversy since at least the fourth century. Sometimes this is due to real and substantial disagreements. Other times, the disagreement comes down to a misunderstanding of the meaning and use of key terms. So it is helpful to begin by defining certain important theological terms.

Prescience and foreknowledge

Prescience or foreknowledge refers to God’s own knowledge of things before they actually come to pass.

The Scriptures explicitly teach that God knows all things (1 John 3:20), and that he knows them before they happen in history (Ps 139:4).

Counsel and decree

God’s counsel has to do with his active planning of all that comes to pass. “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isa 46:10).

When God’s counsel is applied to the specific question of redemption and God’s intention to carry out his counsel, this is also called his eternal decree.

Providence

Providence refers to God’s active involvement in and governance over all things.

Providence is often described as a sort of continuation of creation and the outworking of God’s decree in history. The doctrine of providence maintains that God wills, preserves, and sustains whatsoever happens (Matt 10:29; Amos 3:6).

Theologians distinguish between primary and secondary causes, as well as prevenient (causally preceding) and permissive acts (choosing not to intervene with secondary causes). The doctrine of providence also gives rise to discussions about determinism, free will, necessity, and contingency with different conclusions according to the varying schools of thought. Theologians who disagree about other specific aspects of predestination nevertheless often do agree on providence and the relationship between God’s causation and human causation. The term concursus is used to affirm that God’s causation can work in and along with other lesser causes without taking away their integrity.

Election

Election is God’s choosing certain creatures to be saved. In the case of humans, people are usually said to be elected from their fallen state. They are elected out of this general status and transferred into a new status, the plan of redemption. Believers are said to be chosen in Christ (Eph 1:11) and before the creation of the world (Eph 1:4).

Reprobation and preterition

Reprobation is the inverse of election, sometimes referred to as God’s rejection or his passing over of certain creatures. Reprobation is usually identified with God’s preterition. This is his immanent act of “not choosing” or of passing some by without granting them additional grace.

Reprobation is also sometimes applied to God’s determination to damn those who are not chosen. This determination to damn is grounded upon the actual sins of the reprobate, while the decision to “not elect” is grounded upon God’s good pleasure. No orthodox account of reprobation teaches that God is the cause of sin or evil. Instead, the doctrine affirms that God permits sin in order to bring about his purposes.

Reprobation is drawn from Romans 9:22 and Jude 4, passages which ascribe a pre-temporal intention to God’s condemnation of certain sinners.

Predestination

Predestination, then, is sometimes defined as the summary of all of the above terms, essentially the larger topic of God’s sovereign foreordination of all things. But predestination is also conceived of more narrowly, being limited to the specific act of God in choosing to elect some creatures to glory. Anselm of Canterbury provides an example of this distinction between a broader and narrower sense of the term:

It should be recognized that God’s predestination attaches not only to our good actions but, it is possible to say, to our evil ones in the sense that it is by permitting the latter that God is said to be the cause of evils which he does not actually cause. … Therefore there is no problem in saying that in this sense God predestines evil people and their acts when he does not straighten them out along with their evil acts. He is, however, more precisely said to foreknow and predestine their good works because in their case he causes both that they should exist and that they are good, whereas in the case of the evil ones he is only the cause that they simply exist and not that they are evil.²

A narrow technical definition of predestination could be as follows: The determination to provide the means by which all those whom God has chosen will infallibly be saved.

All orthodox Christians affirm God’s prescience or foreknowledge, his immutable counsel, and his sovereign and active providence. Disagreements arise over predestination, with some theological traditions arguing that it is absolute or unconditional and others arguing that election is conditioned on future events or actions which are foreseen by God.

Reprobation is usually where one sees the most pointed disagreement, particularly as theologians discuss the way in which God can be considered in any way a cause of damnation.

What does the Bible say about predestination?

The Scriptures teach each of the related points of the doctrine of predestination.

Prescience and foreknowledge

God’s omniscience is directly inferred from his nature as the almighty Creator, but it is explicitly stated in Psalm 139:4 and John 16:30. His foreknowledge is asserted whenever he predicts future events, but is also directly affirmed in John 6:64, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him”; and Romans 8:29, “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 among many brothers.”

Counsel and decree

God’s eternal counsel and foreordination is also taught explicitly in the Scriptures. Isaiah 46:9–10 says, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’”

Acts 2:23 even applies this to the death of Christ: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

Providence

Divine providence is affirmed throughout the biblical witness. “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples” (Ps 33:10); and “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Prov 16:9); and “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matt 10:29).

Election

The doctrine of election can be seen in John 6:37, 44–45:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out … No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, “And they will all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

Acts 13:48 also says, “as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” The description of “appointed to eternal life” conveys the concept of intentional ordering or arrangement.

Also noteworthy is 2 Timothy 1:9, “[God] called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”

Our effectual calling was given to us in Christ before the ages, and it was not based upon our future works but rather God’s own purpose.

The most substantial passages of Scripture which teach election are found in Romans and Ephesians. Romans 8:28–31 demonstrates the chain of divine causation in our salvation and grounds effectual calling and final glorification in predestination. Romans 9:11, 15–16, and 21–23 each attribute election to the divine will and to the exclusion of human works.

Ephesians 1:4 states that God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world.” Ephesians 1:5 states that God predestined us “according to the purpose of his will.” Ephesians 1:11 grounds this predestination in God’s eternal counsel: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”

Reprobation and preterition

The doctrine of reprobation is usually defended as a necessary corollary of election, but it is also mentioned in the Scriptures. Romans 9:18 says that God “has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” Romans 9:22 adds, “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.”

1 Peter 2:8 states, “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” Finally, Jude 1:4 states, “certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation” (emphasis added).

Counterarguments are made from the Bible against the perceived implications of predestination. These have to do with the nature and efficacy of the gospel, its universal offer, and God’s desire that people not perish. Examples of these apparent contradictions are Ezekiel 33:11, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”

1 Timothy 2:4, “[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”; and 1 John 2:2, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Additional arguments are also made regarding free will and the goodness of God. These considerations account for the differing perspectives on predestination that emerge in church history.

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What have Christians said about predestination over the years?

While the concept of election figures prominently in the Hebrew Scriptures, predestination as a theological topic begins to receive serious theological discussion in the Christian era. Irenaeus of Lyons makes an important and relevant remark in the second century,³ but it is Augustine of Hippo, writing in the late-fourth and early fifth centuries, who provides the most important early church contribution.

Augustine of Hippo

While predestination appears as a part of Augustine’s dispute with Pelagius over the relationship between human nature and divine grace in salvation, affirmations of the doctrine can be found across Augustine’s body of work. One famous example is found in City of God:

This race [the human race] we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil. This, however, is their end, and of it we are to speak afterwards.⁴

As Augustine develops his doctrine, he asserts that all good deeds done by men, even the first motions of faith, are given by God (On the Predestination of the Saints 1:3). He also maintains that the will of man is under God’s power, even those wicked human wills:

Not only men’s good wills, which God Himself converts from bad ones, and, when converted by Him, directs to good actions and to eternal life, but also those which follow the world are so entirely at the disposal of God, that He turns them whithersoever He wills, and whensoever He wills—to bestow kindness on some, and to heap punishment on others, as He Himself judges right by a counsel most secret to Himself, indeed, but beyond all doubt most righteous.⁵

Augustine does not here say that God causes any human to will wickedly, but he does say that God “turns” the will according to his secret decree. A few sentences later, he explains that any such turning of a wicked will towards more wickedness would necessarily be a judgment by God for other sins previously committed.⁶ Later commentators would debate the contours and boundaries of these sorts of affirmations, but a basic truth for Augustine is that mankind originally had free will. After the fall into sin, man’s will is still free in the most technical sense, though it is bent and therefore always works towards a partially bad end. God can also further bend this will, and this bending would be a punishment by God, but a deserved one.

For Augustine, the number of the elect is fixed from eternity (On Rebuke and Grace, 39), and all of the elect will necessarily be redeemed and persevere in grace.⁷ Augustine does not limit grace to those who will persevere, however, as he argues that “it must be believed that some of the children of perdition, who have not received the gift of perseverance to the end, begin to live in the faith which worketh by love, and live for some time faithfully and righteously, and afterwards fall away …”⁸.

Augustine, therefore, affirms the perseverance of the elect but not necessarily the perseverance of the saints. He explains that man falls by the misuse of his own free will, which God chooses to allow. In the case of the elect, God chooses to sustain their will in goodness throughout their lives.⁹

In summary, Augustine teaches an absolute or unconditional predestination whereby the elect are chosen by God’s grace according to his secret counsel.¹⁰ Those not elected are “left by the righteous divine judgment … in the mass of ruin” and condemned on account of their sin.¹¹ Augustine does affirm the concept of free will in humans, but he argues that this will is damaged by sin and is always under the control and influence of God’s power.¹²

Medieval Augustinianism

While Augustine is a giant of Western Christendom, a steady string of debates around the doctrine of predestination continued after him.

Medieval synods

The 529 Synod of Orange defended a moderate form of Augustinian predestination. Among its teachings are, “If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism through mercy, but others through their own free will … one shows that one has departed from the correct faith.” And, “free will has been so distorted and weakened by the sin of the first man that thereafter no one could love God as was required or believe in God or perform for the sake of God what is good, unless the grace of the divine mercy first attained him.”¹³

At the same time, this synod also emphasized the restoration of free will after grace and its cooperation in ongoing salvation: “we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all the baptized, if they are willing to labor faithfully, can and ought to accomplish with Christ’s help and cooperation what pertains to the salvation of their souls.”¹⁴

It also ascribed evil entirely to the will of man, saying, “Not only do we not believe that some are predestined to evil by the divine power, but if there are any who wish to believe such an enormity, we with great abhorrence anathematize them.”¹⁵ That final statement reveals some ambiguity in the implications of predestination. If God predestines all things, how is it that he does not predestine some “to evil”?

Theologians would thus take up the precise meaning of “to evil.” Pope Adrian I, writing at the end of the eighth century, offered this explanation, “Therefore, God in the eternity of his changelessness has prepared works of mercy and justice … but for the wicked he has not prepared evil wills or evil works, but he has prepared for them just and eternal punishments.”¹⁶

This statement demonstrates a distinction between the evil itself (the evil will or work) and the punishment assigned to the evil. Since evil is opposition to and separation from God, God cannot be said to approve of it. Nevertheless, God can choose in advance to not intervene and prevent a creature from using his or her will towards evil, and God can also ordain appropriate punishment for that evil.

In the ninth century, the Synod of Valence (quoting Florus of Lyon throughout) summarized the developing position in this way: “God foreknows and has foreknown eternally both the good deeds that good men will do and the evil that evil men will do,” and “that the good certainly have known that through his grace they would be good and that through the same grace they would receive eternal rewards; that the wicked have known that through their own malice they would do evil deeds and that through his justice they would be condemned with eternal punishment.”¹⁷

This synod denied that men do evil by “necessity,” arguing rather that they sin according to their own will. However, it still applied the term “predestination” to their judgment:

We faithfully confess the predestination of the elect to life and the predestination of the impious to death; in the election, however, of those who are to be saved, the mercy of God precedes the merited good. In the condemnation, however, of those who are to be lost, the evil they have deserved precedes the just judgment of God.¹⁸

In this understanding, the “destinies” are predestined but according to different logical orders. The predestination of election unto life is unconditional and prior to any consideration of merit. Condemnation, or reprobation, while eternally decreed, is based upon the actual evil of men.

Anselm of Canterbury

Anselm of Canterbury attempted to solve the apparent difficulties in the relationship between predestination and free will in a work written at the very beginning of the twelfth century called De Concordia, or The Compatibility of God’s Foreknowledge, Predestination, and Grace with Human Freedom. In it, he makes use of technical philosophical concepts to explain, “the goodness which consists of uprightness is really something that exists, whereas the evil which is called unrighteousness lacks existence entirely.”¹⁹ For Anselm then, God “causes” all good and real things but not their motions away from him: “God causes in all volitions and good actions both that they actually exist and that they are good, while in evil actions he is not the cause of their evil but only that they exist.”²⁰

Anselm argues that God truly grants man a free will at creation; however, this will was misused and effaced at the fall of Adam. After the fall, it stands entirely in need of grace before it can return to doing good. It is free in that it is under no compulsion outside of itself, and when God restores it, he restores it towards goodness, thus also preserving freedom. This relationship is considered compatible, for Anselm, because God stands outside of created space and time and always allows for secondary causes to retain their integrity:

Even though God predestines actions of that nature, he causes them not by compelling or constraining the will but by leaving it to its own devices. And even though the will employs its own power, it still causes nothing which God does not also cause by his grace in the case of good deeds. In the case of evil ones, however, the evil is not due to any fault of God, but to the same free choice.²¹

Thomas Aquinas

This perspective was further developed by Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas in the following centuries. In his commentary on Lombard’s Sentences, Thomas explains that sin or evil is the opposite of “being.” Since creatures were created “from nothing,” they have “nothing” as their nature apart from what God gives them. Insofar as they participate in God’s existence, creatures have existence. But when they move away from God, they revert to “nothing.” In the event that God withdraws or fails to add grace to the creature, they also revert to their inherent nature, which is non-existence.

With this philosophical perspective, sin is understood to be “non-being” and thus can be neither “created” nor “caused” by God. Therefore, God can “incline” the will without necessarily “causing” it. Thomas writes:

God does not incline the will to good and to evil in the same way. In point of fact, he inclines the will to good by supplying the power to act and by directly moving to the good, but he is said to incline to evil inasmuch as he does not afford the grace whereby one would be withdrawn from evil, not because he directly orders the will to evil.²²

And also:

Sin is referred to the will as its cause. And although the will is created by God as a kind of being, the fact that a defect can arise from it is not. For it has the possibility of defect from the fact that it is from nothing. Now, even though God is the cause of the will by making it from nothing, it does not have the fact of being from nothing from another, but from itself. Hence in this respect it does not have another cause. And thus, the defect that follows from it insofar as it is from nothing need not be traced back to a further cause.²³

These dense philosophical explanations were deemed necessary in order to explain the apparent contradiction in the asymmetry of divine predestination. God ordains all things, but he does not cause evil. And since God does not cause evil, God is not the cause of any creature’s sin or evil. God does, however, foreknow evil and ordain appropriate judgement against it. In the case of good, God is an active causal agent, preceding and even intervening in the created order to bring it about. In the case of evil, God chooses not to intervene, but rather allows secondary causes to freely choose evil, from which he then brings about his purposes.

Election, then, is based on God’s mercy in the face of man’s demerit. Reprobation is based on God’s justice in judging man’s sin. In his Summa Theologica, Thomas explains that reprobation includes both God’s permission of the evil action, which is done solely by the creature, and God’s will to impose “the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”²⁴ According to this explanation, both election and reprobation were eternally decreed by God in his immutable counsel; however, they are executed differently in time, according to different orders, and with different means.

The Reformation

Predestination was the common Augustinian heritage of the Western Church at the time of the Reformation. But it was again brought into controversy as Martin Luther, and then others like John Calvin, made use of the doctrine in ways that challenged the Catholic Church’s theology of salvation.

Martin Luther

From his earliest writings, Luther appealed to divine predestination in relationship to man’s salvation. Against the emerging notion of “preparation for grace,” Luther said, “The best and infallible preparation for grace and the sole disposition toward grace is the eternal election and predestination of God.”²⁵

At times, Luther used traditional theology from both the early church and the medieval period against his contemporary opponents. But at other times, Luther employed more extreme rhetoric. In one place he said, “Free will, after the fall, exists in name only,”²⁶ and in another place, “all things happen by necessity.”²⁷ While Luther would qualify these statements using more traditional language,²⁸ they nevertheless served as flashpoints for his opponents. Later Lutheran theologians would work out a more systematic approach to what they understood to be the substance of this doctrine in a way that was consistent with their other commitments.

John Calvin

John Calvin is now famously associated with the doctrine of predestination. In fact, many people refer to a belief in predestination simply as “Calvinism.” This is understandable in light of sociological and political factors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is quite incorrect if considered strictly from the doctrinal or theological perspective. Calvin did not conceive of himself as making a particularly new use of the doctrine. Instead, he thought it was both a biblical and traditional commitment. He regularly appealed to Augustine for precedent. It is also not clear that predestination was any sort of fundamental or guiding doctrine for Calvin. Still, the association between Calvin and the doctrine of predestination did begin even in his own lifetime.

He was first accused of teaching an extreme version of the doctrine by the peripheral figure Jerome Bolsec. But Calvin quickly also came under the scrutiny of other leading Reformed theologians; namely, Heinrich Bullinger.²⁹ Unsatisfied with the conclusion to this controversy, Calvin published his treatise Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, which had originally been written as a response to the Roman Catholic critic, Albert Pighius.³⁰ Calvin dedicated this work to Philip Melanchthon in the hopes of proving a broader unified front, but he was disappointed to learn that Melanchthon believed that he had actually gone too far in his formulation.³¹ Calvin’s Protestant critics felt that he had not sufficiently observed certain traditional theological qualifications and risked compromising the universality of the gospel and also implying that God is the cause or author of evil. For his part, Calvin believed that his critics were inconsistent and on a slippery slope toward abandoning the doctrine of gracious election altogether.³²

The degree to which Calvin actually departed from the earlier established Augustinian tradition is unclear. At times he can appear to dismiss traditional distinctions like that between God’s “willing” a thing and God’s “permitting” it. Calvin can also, like Luther, appear to argue for a comprehensive “necessity” of all things (see his discussion in Institutes 3.23.1–11). At the same time, Calvin will also say that he acknowledges the limited validity of the traditional explanations,³³ and he concludes his explanation of predestination by stating that man’s fall was ordained by divine providence but also by man’s “own fault.”³⁴

Calvin also asserted a version of the doctrine of perseverance which went further than Augustine’s and Luther’s, arguing that God’s granting of true faith was so connected to predestination that only the elect receive “the living root of faith,”³⁵ and possess “the fear and love of God” and that this could not be lost.³⁶

Debates about the appropriate articulation of predestination within both Lutheran and Reformed churches would continue for at least a century.

What are the different confessional positions on predestination?

While nearly all schools of thought within orthodox Western Christianity affirm some notion of predestination, the various debates mentioned led to the codification of more precise explanations according to theological tradition or “denomination.” These can be seen in the broad body of literature within each tradition but chiefly in the confessional statements of the churches.

Roman Catholicism

While it is able to appeal to the legacy of Augustine and his successors, the Roman Catholic Church does not formally teach any particular doctrine of predestination. Surprisingly, the Council of Trent nearly passes over the debate in silence. The only declarations it makes about predestination are that it exists, that no man can know if he is among the number of the predestined, and that the grace of justification cannot be limited to the elect (see Trent 6.12; also canons 15 and 17).

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (sometimes called the “Roman Catechism”) does affirm God’s universal divine providence. Intriguingly, it explains the doctrine in this way: “Not only does God protect and govern all things by His Providence, but He also by an internal power impels to motion and action whatever moves and acts, and this in such a manner that, although He excludes not, He yet precedes the agency of secondary causes.”³⁷

The current Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) makes several statements about predestination, but they do not possess the systematic precision of earlier affirmations and denials. This makes it hard to know exactly how to apply them to a more focused theological discussion.

It affirms divine providence as “absolute sovereignty over the course of events” and it applies this “from the least things to the great events of the world” (CCC, 303). It affirms the distinction between prime and secondary causes, and it argues that, while God is “the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes” (CCC, 308), humans also have free choice (CCC, 311). The Catechism uses language of God’s permissive will (CCC, 311). It also makes a distinction between what it calls “physical evil” and “moral evil,” allowing the former to be an innate component of the finite and contingent creation, whereas the latter is an act of man’s free choice (CCC, 310, 311). It states directly that “God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil” (CCC, 311).

When it comes to predestination specifically, the Catechism only states that predestination “includes in it each person’s free response to his grace” (CCC, 600) and that “God predestines no one to go to Hell” (CCC, 1037). While this appears to exclude certain aspects of Augustinianism and certainly the more developed Reformed understanding, it is not actually clear which positions are intended to be positively included. It is possible that subtle distinctions could be invoked to reconcile such a statement with Anselm or Thomas Aquinas.

In the broader Roman Catholic theological world, the two most common positions on predestination are the Thomistic reception of Augustine and “Molinism.” The Thomistic understanding, as explained above, affirms predestination and even states that God is the cause of all good things while he sovereignly permits the evil actions of the creatures in order to bring about other good ends.

Molinism is a school of thought associated with the Jesuit thinker, Luis de Molina, which asserts a category called “middle knowledge” to allow for more freedom and contingency among secondary causes. Middle knowledge is an attempted mediating category between God’s eternal knowledge of future events and the freedom and contingency of temporal creatures and their actions. Richard Muller defines middle knowledge as “a conditioned and consequent knowledge of future contingents by which God knows of an event because of its occurrence. In other words, it is a knowledge eternally in God consequent on, and causally independent of, events in time.”³⁸

Muller adds that this middle knowledge formulates the divine knowledge as itself “consequent on and conditioned by the contingents themselves.”³⁹ Molinism is rejected by Lutheran and Reformed theologians, but is largely affirmed by Arminian theologians.

Lutheranism

The Lutheran tradition developed from Martin Luther’s apparent strict determinism towards what might be considered a modified Augustinian position. The Lutheran position affirms predestination and election but only in the case of the redeemed (FC 11.5). It explicitly states:

The eternal election of God, however, vel praedestinatio (or predestination), that is, God’s ordination to salvation, does not extend at once over the godly and the wicked, but only over the children of God, who were elected and ordained to eternal life before the foundation of the world was laid, as Paul says, Eph. 1:4. 5: He hath chosen us in Him, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. (FC 11. 5)

The Augsburg Confession (AC) affirms that man has free will in earthly matters, but it denies that man is able to use this will to “work righteousness” unless it is aided by the Holy Spirit. The next chapter denies that God is the cause of sin. The Formula of Concord (FC) explains this last point in more detail, attributing sin entirely to man’s will. It condemns both the view that says that God is the “cause of sin” and also that God is the “cause of punishment” (FC 11.81).

Richard Muller states that Lutheran orthodoxy explains the relationship between eternal divine election and human faith as “a conditioned decree, ordained by God in view of faith.”⁴⁰ This is not meant to imply that God elects because of faith, but rather as a way to affirm “a coordination of predestination and faith, on the ground of the atemporal nature of the decree.”⁴¹ Lutherans believe that this is the best way to reconcile the Augustinian notion of predestination with the universality of the gospel. Reformed theologians argue that it creates inconsistency within divine foreordination.

Reformed orthodoxy

It is common to see identifications of the Reformed tradition as “Calvinist.” While Calvin was one important figure in the international Reformed movement, and while critics of certain expressions of predestination have used the term Calvinist pejoratively, the Reformed churches have always had something of a constellation of key thinkers and influences. As noted, Bullinger took issue with Calvin on the topic of predestination in his own lifetime. Thomas Cranmer looked to men like Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli as authorities, rather than Calvin.⁴² More fully systematic works on predestination can be found in Jerome Zanchi, John Davenant, and Francis Turretin.

The two most important confessional documents for the Reformed view of predestination are probably the Synod of Dort and the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), though historically these only applied to the churches which subscribed to them. There are important areas of consensus among Reformed thinkers on the doctrines related to predestination, but there are also outlying views which were tolerated though not fully endorsed. To further complicate things, an advanced predestinarian (and one who would no doubt be labeled a rigid Calvinist) like William Perkins staked out certain minority views in the Reformed tradition while also being a respected and conforming minister in the Church of England.⁴³

And so when speaking of Reformed theology, John Calvin’s positions should not be used as the measuring stick, nor can any single confessional document necessarily speak for the whole. Debates have been more or less ongoing about exactly how to draw the boundaries of what constitutes the “Reformed” position on any number of doctrines, not the least of which surround the doctrine of predestination.⁴⁴

As a generalization, Reformed theology affirms an absolute or unconditional predestination. God ordains to elect from eternity as an immediate act within his nature, and so this must be without consideration of merit or future faith. God also ordains to reprobate those not saved, but this is not explained as a symmetrical parallel with election but is instead based upon the creature’s sin, brought about by the misuse of the will.

While some Reformed theologians, like Calvin, show impatience with the scholastic categories used to make these distinctions, others are perfectly happy to largely follow the presentation of Thomas Aquinas. A broad range of Augustinian options can be found among leading Reformed theologians. The common commitment is the denial that God’s eternal decree is in any way contingent in terms of either its intention or end.⁴⁵

The majority position within Reformed theology is that while God’s decree is eternal, he nevertheless elects from humanity’s fallen state. God chooses some men out of their sins and imparts to them saving grace. For the others, the reprobate, God passes them by and leaves them in their condition. This is the presentation of the First Head of the Canons of Dort (particularly articles 6, 17, and 15), as well as the Westminster Confession of Faith (3.6–7). This way of explaining the logical order of God’s decree is sometimes called infralapsarianism or sublapsarianism. An alternative view, called supralapsrianism, places God’s election prior to any consideration of the fallen state. Supralapsarianism is a departure from the strictly Augustinian presentation. While it elicited some strong criticisms among Reformed theologians, it was never formally condemned in the confessional documents.

Perhaps surprisingly to some readers, the Westminster Confession explicitly affirms the integrity of the “liberty and contingency of second causes” (WCF 3.1), and it even uses different technical terms to describe election and reprobation. In election, God is said to “predestinate,” whereas in the case of reprobation the term “foreordain” is used (WCF 3.3). Thus, while the Reformed confessions explicitly affirm a doctrine of reprobation, they make use of key distinctions which allow for various technical interpretations.

Peter Martyr Vermigli, for example, had argued that predestination properly only applied to election, preferring other terms for reprobation.⁴⁶ Francis Turretin explains that predestination can be used in three ways, “for every decree of God,” then “more specially for the counsel of God concerning men as fallen either to be saved by grace or to be damned by justice,” and then “Most specially for the decree of election, which is called ‘the predestination of the saints.’”⁴⁷

In all Reformed orthodox accounts, God’s eternal decree is never conditional, but the way in which he executes it in time can be. Thus, the Reformed consistently argue that predestination to life is founded exclusively on God’s grace apart from any consideration of the creature, while reprobation is grounded on the creature’s sin.⁴⁸

Reformed theology agrees with Lutheran theology that while humanity has earthly freedom and is under no natural compulsion, it has lost the capacity to will righteously until it is restored by grace (WCF 9).

Reformed theology did contribute a development to (or departure from, depending on your point of view) more conventional Augustinianism in its understanding of the perseverance of the saints. For most of the Reformed theologians, the doctrine of “effectual calling” is grounded upon eternal election so that only the elect are truly called to salvation, only the elect possess justifying righteousness, and these benefits cannot be finally lost (see WCF 10.1, 11.1, and 14.3).

Arminianism

While almost no collection of churches use the name “Arminian” to refer to themselves, this title was frequently used as the foil against “Calvinism.” It represents those Dutch thinkers associated with the University of Leiden who objected to or “remonstrated” against the growing Reformed consensus. These thinkers formulated five points which were then deemed to be heretical and were condemned by the Synod of Dort.

Arminianism often employs the theological categories of Molinism to teach that God’s decree is contingent upon foreseen future actions, particularly a foreknown faith. Arminians believe that the free will of the creature is so important that the divine will stands in a causal relationship to it. Richard Muller states:

The Arminians divide the decree into parts, corresponding with God’s … antecedent will and … consequent will. In exercising his antecedent will, God ordains the means of salvation for all human beings; in exercising his consequent will, God decrees to save or elect all those who choose to have faith in Christ. Unlike the Lutheran decretum conditionatum, the Arminian concept of voluntas consequens makes the freely wiled faith of individuals the effective cause of divine election; election is grounded on a foreknowledge of faith.⁴⁹

Arminianism teaches a universal saving atonement in Christ, and it affirms that this salvation may be lost through serious sin or apostasy.⁵⁰ Its adherents argue that it provides a simple and practical understanding of the universality of the gospel and the reality of apostasy. Its critics say that it undermines salvation by grace and the classical doctrine of God’s attributes.

Anglicanism

The formularies of the Church of England (i.e., Thirty-Nine Articles, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, etc.) articulate a broadly Reformed theology. But on the doctrine of predestination they stand at the intersection of several traditions.

Starting from a fully Augustinian foundation, Anglican theology developed along with the Reformed orthodox tradition, but it refrained from enshrining a detailed explanation of predestination into its confessional standards. The English monarchs wanted to avoid “unnecessary disputations, altercations or questions to be raised which may nourish faction both in the Church and commonwealth.”⁵¹. Because of this, Anglicanism has always included a broader spectrum of opinions on predestination than other Reformed churches. James Overall, John Davenant, and Joseph Hall—all influential English divines participating in the international predestinarian debates of the early seventeenth century—allowed for a broad and conditional sense of election along with the precise and and unconditional one.⁵²

Whereas the Lutheran confessions positively teach predestination and apparently reject reprobation, and whereas the Reformed confessions positively teach both predestination and reprobation, the Anglican formularies positively teach predestination and remain silent on reprobation. Article 17 of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion explicitly teaches predestination unto life, even basing the doctrines of calling, justification, and perseverance on election. But it passes by the doctrine of reprobation without either affirming or condemning it.

Regarding the perseverance of the saints, the Anglican formularies teach that a “true” faith will persevere, but they do not explicitly limit saving graces to the elect. The Anglican Book of Homilies teach that a “true and lively faith” will necessarily persevere,⁵³ but they also warn about the danger “to fall from God.”⁵⁴ Therefore, fully Reformed theologians can confidently affirm the Anglican formularies, but so can other varieties of Augustinian thinkers who nevertheless stop short of adhering to a comprehensive Reformed orthodoxy.

The Church of England has always had among its clergy those whose opinions on grace and election, by the late-sixteenth century, were known as Arminian. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James, Arminians were in the minority. They could be controversial outliers, as in the case of James Montague, or much-loved, as with Lancelot Andrewes, depending on how and how often they expressed these views. By the middle of the seventeenth century, such views were commonplace, and there was fierce debate to define the official position of the church. By the early eighteenth century, Arminian views were dominant, though such views were never enshrined in the formularies and the anti-Arminian minority was respected.⁵⁵

Baptist

The Baptist movement emerged from the ferment of the hotter non-conforming English Protestants. Their emergence happened as the more significant debates over predestination were happening in England, and so the Baptist churches have been marked both by Reformed and Arminian variants. Certain Baptist expressions have perhaps moved into an extreme or “hyper-Calvinist” position,⁵⁶ whereas others attempted to find a middle ground between both Reformed and Arminian options.

Methodism

The Methodist movement originally began as a subset of the the Church of England. Most of its leadership was anti-Calvinist, if not fully Arminian, though George Whitefield is an important early Methodist who adhered to Reformed views of predestination. The majority of North American Methodists have held to Arminian or perhaps Molinist views on predestination, whereas Methodism in Wales has been distinguished by a more Reformed doctrine.

Conclusion

The doctrine of predestination is widely affirmed across Christianity, but in varying senses. In its Augustinian form, it teaches that God eternally ordains all things that come to pass and that God graciously elects some to be saved apart from any consideration of their merits and solely based upon the divine will. In its more developed variants, the doctrine of predestination teaches that God eternally determines to save the elect and ordains to leave the reprobate in their sins. This is usually explained as an asymmetrical formula: predestination is based entirely upon God’s free grace whereas eternal punishment is always based upon man’s sin. The various traditions within Christianity disagree over how to explain the details.

All adherents of predestination affirm some form of free will. Arminian and Molinist thinkers argue that God allows for the human will to exist in a causal relationship to God’s will, providing for a fully free human will. Augustinian predestinarians assert that God is always the first and primary cause and that he makes use of secondary and lesser causes at his pleasure. But Augustinians further argue that humanity’s misuse of this will at the fall brought about a certain amount of inability in the human will which prevents them from doing truly righteous works and returning to God. They then maintain that divine grace is necessary to restore the will to righteousness and salvation. God’s decision to do this or not is based entirely on his free and good pleasure.

Predestination is connected with both the doctrine of God and the nature of salvation, and so theological explanations of predestination are integral to the larger systems of the various theological traditions. In each, predestination explains the sovereignty of God and the graciousness of salvation.

Dig deeper into the study of predestination and associated topics with these resources

The Works of Edward Polhill

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Predestination: An Introduction (Short Studies in Systematic Theology)

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The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23, 2nd ed.

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Chosen by God

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Divine Will and Human Choice: Freedom, Contingency, and Necessity in Early Modern Reformed Thought

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Reformed Thought on Freedom: The Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology

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Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will to the Venerable Mister Erasmus of Rotterdam

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1. All Bible quotations are from the ESV unless otherwise indicated.
2. Anselm of Canterbury, De Concordia 2.2, in The Major Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 450.
3. “God stands in need of nothing … He Himself in Himself, after a fashion which we can neither describe nor conceive, predestinating all things, formed them as He pleased, bestowing harmony on all things, and assigning them their own place, and the beginning of their creation.” Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 2:2.4, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 361.
4. Augustine of Hippo, City of God 15:1, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol. 2, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 284.
5. Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, 41, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol. 5, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 461.
6. “He inclined the man’s will, which had become debased by his own perverseness, to commit this sin, by His own just and secret judgment.” Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, 41. Also, “Therefore, whenever you read in the Scriptures of Truth, that men are led aside, or that their hearts are blunted and hardened by God, never doubt that some ill deserts of their own have first occurred, so that they justly suffer these things.” Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, 43.
7. “For these in their love for God continue even to the end; and they who for a season wander from the way return, that they may continue unto the end what they had begun to be in good. … Whosoever, therefore, in God’s most providential ordering, are foreknown, predestinated, called, justified, glorified—I say not, even although not yet born again, but even although not yet born at all, are already children of God, and absolutely cannot perish. These truly come to Christ, because they come in such wise as He Himself says, ‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will not cast out’; and a little after He says, ‘This is the will of the Father who hath sent me, that of all that He hath given me I shall lose nothing.’ From Him, therefore, is given also perseverance in good even to the end; for it is not given save to those who shall not perish, since they who do not persevere shall perish.” Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace, 23, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol. 5, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 481; see also On the Predestination of the Saints 1:32; 2:9, and “Sermon 2.13,” in Exposition of Psalm 69.
8. Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, 40.
9. Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, 34.
10. Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, 13, 17, 19; see also On the Predestination of the Saints 2:36.
11. Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints 2:35, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol. 5, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 539; see also On the Merits and Remission of Sins, and On the Baptism of Infants 2:26.
12. Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, 41–43.
13. See Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 136, 139.
14. Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, 140.
15. Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, 140.
16. Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, 206.
17. Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, 214–15.
18. Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, 215–16.
19. Anselm, De Concordia 1.7.
20. Anselm, De Concordia, 448.
21. Anselm, De Concordia, 451.
22. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences (Aquinas Institute, 2020), II d, 37, q2, a1, rep1.
23. Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, II d.37, q2, a1, rep2.
24. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd ed. (New Advent, 2017), I q. 23, a. 3, co.
25. Martin Luther, Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, 29, in Luther’s Works, Vol. 31: Career of the Reformer I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 11.
26. Martin Luther, “Heidelberg Disputation: Theological Thesis 13,” in Luther’s Works, Vol. 31: Career of the Reformer I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 40.
27. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, in Luther’s Works, Vol. 33: Career of the Reformer III, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 40.
28. For instance, Luther could write, “I could wish indeed that another and a better word had been introduced into our discussion than this usual one, ‘necessity,’ which is not rightly applied either to the divine or the human will. It has too harsh and incongruous a meaning for this purpose, for it suggests a kind of compulsion, and the very opposite of willingness, although the subject under discussion implies no such thing. For neither the divine nor the human will does what it does, whether good or evil, under any compulsion, but from sheer pleasure or desire, as with true freedom; and yet the will of God is immutable and infallible, and it governs our mutable will, as Boethius sings: ‘Remaining fixed, Thou makest all things move’; and our will, especially when it is evil, cannot of itself do good. The reader’s intelligence must therefore supply what the word ‘necessity’ does not express, by understanding it to mean what you might call the immutability of the will of God and the impotence of our evil will, or what some have called the necessity of immutability, though this is not very good either grammatically or theologically.” Luther, Bondage of the Will, 39.
29. see Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 206–09.
30. For this context, see J. K. S. Reid’s introduction to John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1982), 5.
31. see Gordon, Calvin, 162; also Richard Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 32.
32. Gordon, Calvin, 208.
33. For example, “Indeed, I will freely admit that foreknowledge alone imposes no necessity upon creatures, yet not all assent to this. For there are some who wish it also to be the cause of things.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.23.6, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, The Library of Christian Classics 21 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 954. Interestingly, in this same place, Calvin positively cites Lorenzo Valla. This could indicate a sort of impatience with scholastic distinctions without a necessary rejection of the substance of the theological affirmation.
34. Calvin, Institutes 3.23.8.
35. Calvin, Institutes 3.2.11.
36. John Calvin, Commentary: 1 John 3:8, trans. John Own (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1855); also on Matthew 13:19–23 in Harmony of the Evangelists.
37. Catechism of the Council of Trent 1.1, trans. McHugh and Callan (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1947), 30.
38. Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 325.
39. Muller, Dictionary, 325.
40. Muller, Dictionary, 274.
41. Muller, Dictionary, 274.
42. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 211.
43. see Bryan Spinks, Two Faces of Elizabethan Anglican Theology (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999).
44. For one illustration of this point, see Richard Muller’s review article, “English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology, by Jonathan D. Moore,” Calvin Theological Journal 43 (2008): 149–50; note also Muller’s book Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012).
45. Muller, Dictionary, 274.
46. Peter Martyr Vermigli, Predestination and Justification: Two Theological Loci, trans. and ed. Frank James III, The Peter Martyr Library 8 (University Park, PA: Penn State University, 2003), 16.
47. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 4.7.3, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992), 1:332.
48. The term “double predestination” is sometimes used to described this particular Reformed understanding of election and reprobation, but this is an imprecise expression that usually elides the most significant distinctions and categories.
49. Muller, Dictionary, 275.
50. see Keith D. Stanglin and Thomas H. McCall, Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 174; also Roger Olsen, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Lisle, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2006), 187.
51. Gerald Bray, Documents of the English Reformation, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: James Clarke and Co., 2019), 433.
52. For an exhaustive look at these attempts, see Anthony Milton, The British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (UK: Boydell Press, 2002), and Stephen Hampton, Grace and Conformity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021); see also Joseph Hall, Via Media: The Way of Peace in the Five Busy Articles, in The Shaking of the Olive Tree (London: J. Cadwel, 1660).
53. “First Book of Homilies: Homily 4,” in The Books of Homilies: A Critical Edition, ed. Gerald Bray (UK: James Clarke and Co., 2016), 31–33, 39–40.
54. “First Book of Homilies: Homily 8,” in Books of Homilies, 66.
55. For a good discussion on this, see Stephen Hampton, Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), and Jake Griesel, Retaining the Old Episcopal Divinity: John Edwards of Cambridge and Reformed Orthodoxy in the Later Stuart Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).
56. see Paul Helm, “The ‘Modern Question’: Hyper-Calvinism,” in A New Divinity: Transatlantic Reformed Evangelical Debates during the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Mark Jones and Michael A. G. Haykin (Göttingen: Vadenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 127–142, and Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon vs. Hyper-Calvinism (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010).