see ELECTION
Source: Hispanic World Bible Dictionary
God has everything “present”, the past and the future, therefore He already knows who is going to be saved. and this does not take anything away from freedom, justice, or the love of God. because, in any case, he is always more and better, “the being, than the not being”, Rom 8: 2, Rom 8: 9-11, Eph 1: 5.
In any case, it is a “mystery” that God has revealed to us, but that we do not understand, just as we do not understand other “mysteries”, such as the stars, the atoms, why we have five fingers.
Christian Bible Dictionary
Dr. J. Dominguez
http://bible.com/dictionary/
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
†¢Choice.
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
type, DOC
see, CHOICE
vet, (from the gr. “proorizõ”, “mark in advance, predetermine”). In Ro. 8:29, 30 forms a link in the chain that connects God’s foreknowledge in the past with glory in the future. Election is God’s appointment of individuals; predestination is a blessing (cf. Eph. 1:5, 11, where believers are predestined to be adopted children, according to God’s purpose). Predestination does not imply that God has marked some for wrath. Actually, God’s desire is “that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). To ensure that some are, He predestined, called, justified, and glorified them in his sovereign councils (cf. Rom. 8:29, 30). (See ELECTION for a more detailed discussion of these issues, and bibliography.)
Source: New Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Christian mystery that alludes to the divine forecast on human salvation. It is a subject that has always worried men and theologians in particular. And it is also a theological question that can make young people reflect deeply.
God knows everything that is going to happen before it happens. God knows of each man if he is going to be saved or damned. How to harmonize the divine science, infinite and total, until getting to know what is to come and what depends on the free will of men? How to make divine knowledge compatible with the actual freedom of the human being? Sometimes young people can ask themselves: “If God knows everything, he knows if I am going to be saved or damned. Why, then, exert myself in trying to achieve salvation?
1. Clear concepts
We need to understand that the mystery of predestination is, as the Council of Trent declared, “a profound mystery, indecipherable as long as we live in this world.” (Denz. 805) Perhaps in heaven we will understand it, but in this world it is an insoluble question, although we can consider some very clear postulates that are condensed into the following:
+ Postulates from God are:
– That God knows everything. The divine science prior to the facts is indisputable in light of the nature of God and his infinite wisdom
– God knows everything also if each one of us will be saved or condemned.
– But God wants and will want all men to be saved, even though he knows that some of them will not want to be saved.
+ Human freedom is an equally indisputable dogma in the Christian message:
– God has created us free and capable of choosing. Whoever is saved will be because he, with divine grace, wants to be saved. He who is damned will be damned because, despite divine grace, he wanted to be damned.
– Self-salvation or damnation must necessarily be a result of one’s own freedom.
+ The compatibility between these two theological realities is possible, although mysterious. That is why we will never fully understand it. God wants everyone to be saved. God knows if each one will want to be saved. God has made us free and respects our freedom. We are saved or condemned not because God knows it, but he knows it because we want to condemn or save ourselves.
Do not confuse “predestination” and “divine foreknowledge” of what is going to happen. Predestination is an active concept: God saves and God condemns: knowledge is a passive concept: God knows if there will be condemnation or salvation. In man it is different to want and to know. In God it is the same thing because it is infinitely simple.
But, from our human point of view, the fact that God knows it does not mean that God wants it. God does not want anyone to be condemned, but he has made the intelligent being free because he has mysteriously wanted to do so.
2. Historical explanations
+ There have been various theological and historical attempts at explanation. Some have been condemned by the doctrine of the Church as unacceptable.
The Council of Trent condemned the doctrine of Calvin, and in part of Luther, that God saves and condemns men only by his will and not by the merits or actions of men. Calvin and the post-shelf radicals defended salvation or condemnation “ante previsa merita”, before taking into account the merits: God condemns or saves, because he wants, without further ado.
And he left clearly defined the salvific will of God and the radical freedom of man. He clearly condemned those who maintain that “the grace of justification is given only to those predestined to eternal life and that others, although they are called, do not receive grace because they are predestined to evil by divine power” (Denz 827).
+ Among the Catholic attempts at clarification are the doctrine of Báñez, a Dominican, defended by many Dominicans, and the doctrine of Molina, a Jesuit, defended by many Jesuits.
– Luis Molina (1535-1601, in his works such as “Agreement between the arbitrary book and divine grace regarding divine foreknowledge and predestination”, came to make things clear in his own way. God knows the freedom of man and the He respects. He knows everything, but leaves man free. With complete clarity, it must be defended that God leaves man to act and waits to see what his will decides. And nothing determines without the free choice of man, purely and simply because he has made free. We are to act as if God does not know what is going to happen.
And we have to ask for the grace so that we incline to good and want to save ourselves. That’s how simple the reality is.
– Domingo Báñez (1528-1604), in the “Relection on merit and charity” and in his “Comments on Sto. Thomas”, teaches that God knows and wants everything.
As a Supreme Being, he cannot be marginalized from the decisions of the creatures. He has made man free, but he knows all that he is going to do, though he does not force him to do what he does. He knows if he is going to be saved or damned because he knows what he is going to decide.
3. The clarification
In Theology, these two positions are irreconcilable. It is an incomprehensible mystery and has no explanation. But pastorally and pedagogically, it is necessary to highlight, when presenting it, the effect of freedom and the convenience of doing good
It is a dogma of faith that God gives us all the graces necessary to be saved. He cares for us day and night, every moment of our lives. And he is aware of each man: the good and each sinner so that he repents and is saved.
In the Scripture it is clear that God’s desire “Although your sins are red, they will be white as snow” (Is. 1. 18). God has predestined no one for damnation. On the contrary, he has created everyone for salvation. It is the “Universal Salvific Will of God” clearly taught by the Sda. Scripture “God does not want the sinner to die, but that he repent and live.” (1 Tim. 2. 4). Because “God chose us before the creation of the world and determined from all eternity that we should be his adopted children” (Eph. 1, 4-5). And Saint Paul also wrote: “Those whom he foreknew, he also destined to be like his Son, similar to him… Therefore, those whom he chose beforehand, he also calls, and when he calls them he makes them righteous, and after making them righteous, he will give them glory.” (Rom. 8. 29-30).
It is true what Saint Paul says: “By the grace of God you have been saved, through faith. You have no merit in this matter: it is a gift from God” (Eph. 2, 8). “He is the one who produces in you both wanting and acting trying to please him.” (Philip. 2. 13). But what Jesus said is also true: “How many times have I wanted to welcome you as a hen welcomes her chicks and you have not wanted!” (Mt. 23.37)
Consequently, in Christian education one must always make an effort of clarity together with another of humility, if one wants to properly educate Christians on this point. The one of clarity must try to make clear the saving will of God and the reality of the free choice of man. In humility we must make it clear that we can never understand the reality of this mystery and therefore we must ask God to give us his help.
Pedro Chico González, Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy, Editorial Bruño, Lima, Peru 2006
Source: Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy
The contents of the concept “predestination” can be summarized in two: a prior, free and loving choice of God from eternity; a destiny of salvation in Christ for eternal life (cf. Eph 1,3-12; Rom 8,28-30). This destiny of salvation includes the adoption to be children of God by Jesus Christ, the configuration with him and the “recapitulation of all things in Christ” (Eph 1,10) through the Church.
In “predestination” there is, therefore, a prior datum (the election) and an eschatological datum (the final destination), both on a personal and community level. “The Eternal Father, by a most free and arcane disposition of his wisdom and goodness, created the entire universe, decreed to elevate men to participate in divine life” (LG 12). After Adam’s sin, God himself predestined those who had been chosen from eternity to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:19 ).
This prior and gratuitous choice arouses, on the one hand, gratitude and trust, while, on the other hand, it helps to assume one’s own responsibility to be faithful to God’s plans. No one, save by special revelation, can be sure of final salvation; but neither is anyone excluded from God’s salvific will. All those who are saved achieve it through a gift from God, which makes possible the free collaboration of each one. God respects the freedom and responsibility of each one. God’s grace does not eliminate human freedom, but rather makes it possible and sustains it.
Supported by the love of God, both presumption and despair are avoided. Jesus invites us both to trust in the goodness of God who “wants to give us the Kingdom” (Lk 12,32), and to “vigilance and prayer” so as not to fall into temptation (Mt 26,41). He has to work with confidence, “with fear and trembling” to achieve salvation (Phil 2,12).
Wanting to “conceptually” decipher the problem of the relationship between divine science about the future and its infinite goodness, combining, at the same time, a human history of freedom and the possibility of damnation, is to enter into philosophical concepts perhaps…