Predestination

dictionary definition:

Predestination: “The act of appointing beforehand by irreversible decree or unchangeable purpose; the act of

foreordaining, decreeing, beforehand, or predetermining events; the purpose of God from eternity respecting all events;”

as, “God’s infallible providence and predestination” (Joyce); and, “If God pre sees events, he must have predetermined them” (Hale); also, as “By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting

life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men are predestinated and foreordained.” (Westminster Confession of Faith.)

Predestination is Fatalism carried to its logical conclusion; Predestination holds that God appoints and determines beforehand by irreversible decree or unchangeable purpose— arbitrarily and irrevocably predetermines—the events of the

universe, first and last, great and small, in general and in detail. Not only the universe as it is at present, but as it must have been

forever through all eternity, and as it will be forever through all eternity. If the Divine Fiat has so gone forth, then everything is

predetermined, and the Eternal Universe is but an automaton registering the Divine Decree, down to the minutest detail. In

this case, everything, indeed, is caused by “the Will of God.”