Predestination

10-20-2024Weekly ReflectionJen Arnold, M.A.

Today, I'm going to discuss the topic of predestination. This is a topic we don't hear much about, perhaps because it involves a bit of mental gymnastics. Predestination is scriptural (cf. Rom 8:29-30, Eph 1:5) and a truth that all Christian religions teach, though how it is taught and understood among denominations varies. Here, I will present the Catholic view of predestination.

Let’s begin with what predestination does not mean. Some faiths hold that God has predestined only certain souls to go to heaven. They maintain that a good sign that you are predestined for heaven is when you accept and declare Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and invite him into your heart as your Savior. Also according to this view, only the souls that are predestined for heaven receive the grace necessary for their salvation, while all others are denied this grace and are thus predestined to hell. The term for this concept is “double predestination,” which is not the position of the Catholic Church. Since God will not predestine a soul for hell, there must be another way to understand how predestination works.

God is a loving and creative God and cannot hate anything he creates. Therefore, at the moment of our creation, heaven is the destination God desires and intends for all of us. The Catechism states:

God freely wills to communicate the glory of his blessed life. Such is the “plan of his loving kindness,” conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son: “He destined us in love to be his sons” and “to be conformed to the image of his Son,” through “the spirit of sonship.” This plan is a “grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,” stemming immediately from Trinitarian love. - CCC #257

Clearly, God has a plan, and the plan is for every one of us to be his adopted child, conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus. It is also clear that this plan involves grace, the supernatural help and assistance he offers us for our journey out of his love.

The first fundamental principle of predestination is the primacy of Christ. We are only saved by Jesus Christ through the blood he shed for us on Calvary. Through the effects of Original Sin, we are each trapped in a cycle of sin and weakness. Even at times when we know what we ought to do or ought not to do, we often find it difficult because we are prone to disordered desires. So, for obvious reasons, we cannot save ourselves, and we need a savior. Jesus Christ is the only savior of the world and has opened the possibility of salvation for us.

The second fundamental principle of predestination is the primacy of grace. From Christ’s passion and death, grace flows out to the world. Grace is a free and unmerited gift of assistance to help us do what we cannot do through our own power. Our natural human power is already limited in its ability. On top of that, it is weakened by sin, so the supernatural assistance of God’s grace is necessary for us to merit anything of any consequence, especially salvation. That said, we must cooperate with God's grace in our free will. He can send many lifeboats to us in a storm, but if we don’t get in one of them, we will drown. So, our efforts or our works alone do not save us, but our active cooperation with God by his supernatural grace does.

Remember, since we have free will, we can also reject God’s grace, leading us deeper into sin and darkness. God will continue to offer us help, but if we don’t accept it, that is our choice, and we will walk the road of our choosing. Unfortunately, the road that leads us away from our savior, Jesus Christ, and away from his saving grace is the road to hell, but again, that choice is ours, not God's. God does not cause sin, but he permits it because he loves us and wants us to choose to love him freely in return. Therefore, God does not predestine any soul to evil or to hell; he allows a soul to choose its own path.

Now, we have arrived at the mind-bending key to understanding predestination: God's omnipotence. You and I think in linear time, and it is impossible for us to think in any other way because we are human beings living in a temporal world. God is living in an eternal now where he sees everything — past, present, and future — in one eternal moment. This means he can see you reading this article right now, but he can also see every choice you will make tomorrow. So, God does not pre-determine on your behalf whether you are destined for heaven or hell; he simply already knows whether you will turn toward Jesus and his saving grace or away over the course of your life.

To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination,” he includes it in each person’s free response to his grace. “In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. - CCC #600

Unlike some other Christian denominations, Catholics don’t hold the belief that we can accept Jesus one time and then presume our future is settled. The beautiful thing about our understanding of predestination is that we always have the opportunity for ongoing conversion. We can choose to turn toward him again and again. In the passage from the Catechism above, we can see, for example, that Herod's and Pontius Pilate's actions were necessary for the plan of salvation and were, therefore, permitted by God. Still, they both also had the opportunity to repent and convert at any time after that. We may all be surprised by who we find in heaven!

This week, reflect on the belief of predestination and God's omnipotence. He can see your life in its entirety right now. He knows every step you've taken to where you are now. He knows every pain and joy that is yet to come your way, and he will continue to offer his grace through all of it. Take comfort in knowing that truth. Consider the primacy of Christ and the primacy of grace on that journey. Be resolved in engaging your will to cooperate with God’s saving grace more so that you can reach the destiny for which you were created: heaven.