Question Corner: What is predestination?

Q: Could you please tell me what exactly predestination is? Also, is this a dogma of the Catholic Church or is it heresy?

A: The term “predestination” can mean a few different things depending on the specific context. In some of these contexts, predestination is a heresy (i.e., a teaching or idea that directly contradicts the Catholic faith). But there are times when the word “predestination” can be used in accord with Catholic doctrine.

In very broad generic terms, “predestination” refers to the concept that some things are intended or planned by God before they happen. This should resonate intuitively with most people who believe in God, since God — as the supreme being and uncreated creator who orders all things — exists prior to and outside of time. Because God has a unique vantage point into the events of history, and knowing that he orders all things and sets them in motion, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that God would know things before they happen.

Likewise, people of faith often speak of God’s providential plan for humanity in general and for each individual person. So it makes sense to conclude that God would intend for certain things to happen ahead of time as part of his ongoing care and concern for his creatures.

The concept of predestination can veer into heresy, however, when it undermines the Catholic teaching that human beings have free will, or when it implies God might actively will harm to befall some people (that is, as opposed to God occasionally permitting some human suffering for the sake of the greater good of the person concerned).

For example, during the Protestant Reformation era in the 1500s, John Calvin promoted a heretical teaching on predestination. While modern Protestant theologians in the Calvinist tradition might explain this with varying degrees of differing nuances, essentially a Calvinist concept of predestination is centered on the idea of an “elect,” or some Christians apart from others whom God has already decided to save before the creation of the world. Certain strains of Calvinist thought on predestination would also posit that, conversely, God created some human souls whom He always knew or intended would not be saved, but would rather be condemned to hell.

This is in clear contrast with the Catholic understanding of how salvation works. In a Catholic view, although we do not “earn” our salvation by our own good works and efforts — because it is Christ who won salvation for us by His passion and death on the cross — it is up to us whether we choose to accept this gift of grace.

While God knows the future and thus knows what choice each one of us will wind up making, we nevertheless have complete and real freedom to make such a choice. On the other side of this same coin, we can also lose our salvation by freely choosing to turn away from God through sinful actions.

We can see this Catholic usage of the term “predestination” in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of ‘predestination,’ he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace.”

Another interesting and very beautiful Catholic use of “predestination” is in reference to Our Lady. In this sense, it refers to God always knowing he would ask Mary to be the mother of his son Jesus, which is why he saved her from original sin from even the very first moment of her existence. Incidentally, this is why we give Mary the title of “the Immaculate Conception.”

As we likewise read in the Catechism: “The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life.”

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