Predestination (Christianity)

This term may be used in a wide sense to refer to the will of God in revealing Himself though creation and providence. It is a philosophical conception fundamental to religious belief, implying prescience (foreknowledge) and prevenience (acting upon that knowledge). In a narrower sense, predestination may refer to the predetermination of whatever occurs, in particular the destiny of good and evil, including eternal damnation of the wicked. There is some inconsistency here between human freedom of choice and moral responsibility for action, and foreknowledge of such action on the part of God. Such discrepancy is bound up with the concept of time and eternity and in the necessary limitation on human knowledge imposed by time. However, it has been argued that freedom of choice is not simply self-will but the growth in the faculty of cooperation with divine purpose; there is the choice to close one's self against assimilation of the proffered wisdom and life - "Our wills are ours to make them Thine".

According to Christian ethics, mankind is the end of physical creation, and history the progression by which means spiritual man evolves. It is the nature of God to actualize Himself in humanity and the human spirit recognizes itself as being divine in principle. In Christ there is perfect consciousness of this divinity and his incarnation demonstrates the unity of the human and the divine, revealing mankind's divine nature to mankind and stimulating the human spirit to new life. This revelation is an act of grace not of mankind's growth to consciousness of divinity. Christ's life, death and resurrection reveals the will of God for the salvation of mankind.