Category: Bible

This is a common question, and many have tried to answer it online.

Most of the answers are unsatisfying. They tend to do one of two things:

1. Say a lot of stuff that doesn’t really address the issue and instead just talk “around” the subject instead of tackling it head-on
2. Say it’s a mystery

Many of the answers you’ll find spend a lot of words on these two things (frankly, a painfully large number of words), but the first is irrelevant and the second is not very informative.

It’s true that, since God’s mind is infinite and ours are finite, we often can’t give definitive answers about his decisions, so an element of mystery remains.

However, we can often give partial answers—or at least make informed proposals. In other words, we often can do better than saying, “We just don’t know; it’s a mystery.”

I think we can do better in this case.

 

Keeping the Issue Focused

To avoid going off on tangents, let’s make the issue as focused as possible. Suppose there is a person—we’ll call him Bob—and the following is true:

• In his eternal perspective outside of time, God knows that—if he creates Bob—then Bob will freely choose to go to hell.

We’ll also assume that:

• In his eternal perspective outside of time, God could freely choose not to create Bob (i.e., God has free will).
• God is just.
• God is loving and thus does not want anyone to go to hell.

Given these things: Why would God create Bob? Let’s look at some possibilities . . .

 

Possibility #1: There Is a Competing Good

Even if people don’t want something, they may tolerate it for the sake of a competing good.

I may not want the pain of having to get an injection, but I may tolerate it in order to avoid getting a disease.

In the same way, God may not want Bob to go to hell, but he may tolerate it for the sake of some other good or set of goods.

What might these be?

 

a) Free Will (and Love)

An answer that some propose is free will. In other words, God tolerates the decisions of some to go to hell because he wants to preserve their free will—which he does for the sake of genuine love.

Love is God’s most important priority (Matt. 22:37-40), and he wants people to be able to freely choose love. Programmed, robotic “love” would lack something and not be fully genuine. This means he must tolerate the possibility that they will misuse their freedom and reject love.

All that’s true, but it doesn’t really address our issue.

If our starting assumption is true—that God knows what Bob will freely choose if he creates him—then God could simply decide not to create him.

In that case, he could stop Bob from going to hell without seeming to violate his free will. Bob would simply never have existed.

The free will defense thus doesn’t seem to work if our starting assumption is true, so what other possibilities are there for a competing good that would lead God to tolerate Bob going to hell?

 

b) God’s Glory

Perhaps the most commonly proposed answer is God’s own glory. The idea here is that it brings glory to God to have illustrations of his character that actually exist.

Bob’s going to hell provides a concrete example of God’s justice in that God did give Bob the offer of salvation—and Bob freely rejected it. He’s thus an object lesson that illustrates certain aspects of God’s character and brings glory to God.

Many will find this answer unsatisfying. If a human being were willing to let someone go to hell simply for the sake of his own glory, we would say that human was a raging egomaniac.

Of course, God is not a human being. We have only finite value, but God has infinite value, so his glorification would be worth more—even infinitely more—than the glorification of a human.

This would make it more understandable how God might tolerate the loss of Bob’s soul.

 

c) Something Else

It’s also possible that there might be a different good for the sake of which God tolerates Bob’s loss.

The history of the world involves a complex tangle of the billions of interrelated choices people make, and you could propose that—in order to set up the free will decisions of some to go to heaven—God must tolerate the misuse of free will by others.

Thus, God might tolerate Bob’s misuse of free will for the sake of making it possible for others to use theirs properly.

Or, since the universe is vast and we know only a tiny part of it, there might be some other good—perhaps one that we haven’t even conceived of—that justifies God tolerating Bob’s misuse of free will.

While both of these suggestions are possible, they are both very speculative, which means many will find them unsatisfying.

So perhaps we can look at the issue from a different angle.

 

Possibility #2: God Isn’t Being Unjust

One of our starting assumptions is that God is just. In the present context, that means it isn’t unjust for God to tolerate Bob’s free decision to reject salvation.

(You could challenge the justness of anybody going to hell, but that’s a different discussion. Here, we’re assuming that it is just for God to allow people to go to hell.)

In this case, God has genuinely given Bob the offer of salvation, and he has freely chosen to reject it, so God is not being unjust by respecting his choice.

Bob cannot—and, if he’s thinking rationally, would not—accuse God of injustice. God has been fair with him.

Is this enough to resolve our dilemma?

It certainly helps to realize that God isn’t being unjust, but it doesn’t seem to fully resolve the matter.

Our starting assumptions didn’t simply involve God being just. They also involved God not wanting people to go to hell.

So, if we’re not appealing to a competing good that would lead God to tolerate Bob’s loss, why wouldn’t he act on his desire to keep Bob out of hell and simply not create him?

There doesn’t seem to be a good answer to this question. So, while realizing God isn’t being unjust helps, it provides an incomplete answer.

 

Possibility #3: God Is Actually Benefitting Bob

But perhaps God is being more than fair with Bob. Perhaps he is benefitting him by creating him, even though he will spend an infinite amount of time in hell.

Some have argued that it’s better to exist—even in hell—than not to exist at all.

If that’s the case, then God is actually being generous to Bob by creating him, despite his damnation.

And we would know what the competing good is that leads God to tolerate Bob’s misuse of free will: It’s Bob’s own existence.

If it’s better to exist in hell than not to exist at all then that’s why God chooses to create him. Bob will actually benefit!

Whether you find this solution plausible will depend on how bad you imagine hell to be and how great a good you suppose existence to be.

Based on some of the images in Scripture (e.g., hell as a lake of fire; Rev. 20:14-15), many have thought that it would be better not to exist than to go there.

However, the images that Scripture uses to describe the afterlife are accommodated to our present understanding, which is limited by our experience of this life, and they should be read with some caution.

It could turn out that, from the greater perspective the next life will offer, even the damned will see that it is better for them to exist in their current condition than not to exist at all.

Some, even in this life, have made this argument.

 

Possibility #4: God Doesn’t Create Bob

Suppose that it’s better not to exist than to spend eternity in hell. In that case, if there is no competing good that would lead God to create Bob, he might simply not create him.

However, Bob is only a representative of an entire class of people—those who misuse their free will and reject God’s offer of salvation.

In that case, it would seem that God would not create anybody that would reject his offer, in which case hell would be empty.

This idea has been explored by various figures down through Church history, including the recent theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), who discussed it in his book Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?

Von Balthasar frames his proposal carefully. Since the Church teaches that hell is a real possibility, he only proposes we may be able to hope (not assert) that hell is empty.

The difficulty for this view is found in various statements in the New Testament that appear to indicate some people actually are in hell (Matt. 7:13-14, 21-23, Luke 13:23-28).

(For a careful analysis of part of this issue, see Cardinal Avery Dulles’s insightful article The Population of Hell.)

 

Possibility #5: Reject the Starting Assumption

If the above possibilities are not fully satisfying, perhaps we should revisit our initial assumption concerning Bob, which was:

• In his eternal perspective outside of time, God knows that—if he creates Bob—then Bob will freely choose to go to hell.

This assumption holds that God knows what Bob would freely choose to do if he existed.

Does God have that kind of knowledge?

Historically, theologians have recognized that God has two types of knowledge:

1. Knowledge of all possible things
2. Knowledge of all actual things

Both of these kinds of knowledge cover everything past, present, and future.

If God creates Bob and makes him an actual thing, then God also knows what Bob’s actual choice is, which is to reject salvation.

However, suppose that God doesn’t create Bob. What does God know in that case?

By his knowledge of all possible things, God knows from his eternal perspective that it is possible for Bob to accept his offer of salvation. He also knows that it is possible for Bob to reject salvation.

But that doesn’t reveal which Bob does choose because Bob doesn’t exist and never makes the choice.

 

Middle Knowledge?

For God to know what Bob would choose if he were created, God would need an additional kind of knowledge that lets him know what people would freely choose if they are placed in certain circumstances (such as being created).

In the last 500 years, theologians have begun to explore this idea and have named this third kind of knowledge “middle knowledge,” since it seems part way between God’s knowledge of the possible and the actual.

In his book Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott holds that the Church has definitively taught that God knows all possible things and all actual things, and they are matters “of the Faith” (de fide) (pp. 40-42).

However, he lists middle knowledge as only the “common opinion” (sent. communis.) of theologians (pp. 42-43).

There are a passages of Scripture that one can appeal to in support of God having middle knowledge (e.g., 1 Sam. 23:1-13, Wis. 4:11, Matt. 11:21).

However, there are only a few such passages, and they can be read in ways that don’t require middle knowledge.

There also is an argument to be made against middle knowledge.

 

Omnipotence and Omniscience

Because God is all-powerful and all-knowing, one always should be hesitant to say there are things he “can’t” do or know, but there are limits to omnipotence and omniscience.

Omnipotence means that God can do everything that can be done—in other words, anything that is logically possible. However, it does not mean that God could make something that involves a logical contradiction, where the terms themselves conflict.

For example, God could not make a square circle or a four-sided triangle, because these involve contradictions in terms. They are just nonsense—a kind of word salad that has no real meaning.

Similarly, omniscience means that God knows everything that can be known. However, it does not mean that he knows logically impossible things.

For example, God does not know the shape of a square circle or the shape of a four-sided triangle.

What about Bob’s choice to go to hell?

 

To Be or Not To Be?

If Bob exists, then he freely makes the choice, and God knows it.

But if Bob is never created, then he would never make this free will decision, and God would have to know the outcome of a free will decision that is never made.

“The outcome of a free will decision that is never made” sounds a lot like “square circle” or “four-sided triangle.”

The essence of a free will decision is that it is really possible for a person to make one choice or another when the moment comes. But if the moment never comes, then there simply is no outcome, because the choice is never made.

There is thus a case to be made that “the outcome of a free will choice that is never made” involves a contradiction in terms.

In that case, God would not know Bob’s decision—unless he creates Bob.

 

The Free Will Defense Returns

If middle knowledge involves a logical contradiction, then God wouldn’t have it, and so he would not be able to foresee what Bob will freely choose and refrain from creating him.

To know what Bob will actually choose, God would need to create him.

And in that case, the free will defense that we discussed in Possibility #1 would work!

God would create Bob, see his decision to reject salvation, and the counterbalancing good that explains why God tolerates this is his desire to let Bob have free will so that he can make an authentic choice between love and non-love.

 

Mystery Remains

While “It’s just a mystery” isn’t a satisfying answer, it is true that we can’t always propose a single, definite answer to matters involving God.

However, while his mind is infinite and ours are only finite, we often can at least sketch the outlines of possible reasons he makes the decisions he does.

In this case, I haven’t settled on a final answer to the question we began by posing, so mystery remains.

But we have fleshed out possible reasons that shed light on this question.

Which solution you find most likely will depend on your views of various matters, but at least we can have the assurance that there are solutions.

And that God is just. And that he really does offer us salvation.

In the last 2,000 years, a lot of theological baggage has developed around the idea of predestination as theologians have discussed it.

Today, people associate the idea of predestination with being inexorably fated to either heaven or hell. To many people, if something is predestined, then it not only will happen, it will happen in an unstoppable way.

This leads to the idea that predestination is incompatible with free will. Further, many suppose that God predestines things arbitrarily—with no basis for his decisions. He simply picks some people to go to heaven and leaves the rest to go to hell.

Not surprisingly, many people are uncomfortable with the idea of predestination, and many don’t like it.

But the Bible uses the word predestination. It does talk about God predestining things.

The question is: Does the Bible mean that God predestines things the way people today understand the concept?

 

Language Changes

It’s easy for people familiar with one way a term is used to read their understanding of it back onto an older text.

For example, if someone today said, “That actor’s performance was awful,” they would mean that it was really bad, and if they read a theatre review from Shakespeare’s time and saw that statement, they likely would assume it meant the same thing: the actor put in a bad performance.

But the critic from Shakespeare’s time actually would have meant something very different. The word awful comes from the roots awe and full, and it originally meant something full of awe.

Back in Shakespeare’s day, to say an actor’s performance was awful would mean either that the performance itself was full of awe (i.e., the actor was very reverential when delivering his lines) or that it inspired awe in the audience.

Because language changes, we always have to check ourselves—when reading an older text—and ask whether a term had the meanings we attribute to it today.

So: Does the Bible understand predestination the way modern people tend to?

 

The Greek Word

The term that gets translated “predestine” in the New Testament is proorizô, and it is not very common—either in the New Testament or in Greek literature.

As Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament notes, it is “a comparatively rare and late word.”

This is a sign that we need to be very careful. If we don’t have a lot of examples of how a word is used, we can’t build a good case that it must mean this rather than that. The fewer the examples we have, the less we can flesh out our understanding of the word and the more ambiguity and uncertainty there is.

That, of itself, should tell us to be very careful not to read modern assumptions about predestination into the term.

If you want to advocate a particular understanding of predestination, you’ll need to prove it from the biblical text, because you can’t simply rely on the word having the sense that developed later in theology. At this time, that development had not occurred.

 

Where It Comes From

The origin of a word is known as its etymology, and it often is not a particularly good guide for what words mean, because of the way language changes over time.

How a word is used—not where it came from—is what ultimately determines its meaning. Otherwise, the English word “nice” would mean foolish, because it came from the Latin word nescius (“not knowing”).

But there is an exception to this rule: To the extent a word is late or rare, it lacks much of an established usage, and its word origins are a better guide to how people were using it.

Proorizô comes from two Greek roots: pro and horizô. The first means before and the latter is a verb that means things like set limits to, define, explain, determine, appoint, fix, set, designate, or declare (see BDAG).

Based on its word origins, proorizô could mean a lot of things, and they don’t all indicate inexorable fate. It could simply mean “to set limits beforehand,” “to explain beforehand,” “to appoint or designate beforehand,” etc.

None of those things involve inexorable fate. If someone sets limits or lays down guidelines before a discussion starts, if he explains something ahead of time, or if he appoints someone to a position before an event happens, none of those things involve overriding free will or random choices.

In fact, they don’t even guarantee that the thing will happen or that it was accurate. People in a conversation can exceed the guidelines they were given. An early explanation can be botched. And an appointed official can die before he takes office.

 

An Objection

“Wait!” someone may say. “But what if it’s God doing those things? He’s infallible and omnipotent, so if he does one of those things, won’t it definitely happen?”

Maybe. However, one glance around the world—in any period after the Fall of Man—illustrates that not everything is happening the way God willed.

God doesn’t will that people commit adultery, but they commit it nonetheless.

God is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9), yet some don’t repent.

So, if one used the Greek verb proorizô to say things like, “God determined beforehand that spouses should be faithful to each other” or “God appointed it ahead of time that men should repent” then we would be in a situation where God ordained something, but it doesn’t always come to pass.

Of course, there are particular situations where God has ordained something in such a way that it is guaranteed to happen, but this strong form of ordination can’t be presumed. It’s something that has to be argued in a given case.

In any event, it’s not the word proorizô that would tell you something is ordained in the strong sense—as illustrated by the fact one could use the same word to describe the action of an earthly king who made laws against adultery or failure to repent. Kings may preordain anything they want for their subjects, but it doesn’t mean the subjects will obey.

The word by itself thus is not enough to prove a strong sense of predestination. That’s something that will have to be argued from the biblical context, not the mere use of the word.

 

The Word in the Bible

The above understanding is based on interpreting proorizô in terms of its word origins. However, we noted that this isn’t always a reliable guide to what something means.

It’s perfectly possible to argue, based on later usage, that the meaning of a term drifted from its origins and should be taken in a different sense.

But here’s the thing: You have to argue that based on later usage. You can’t just assert it.

So what happens if we look at how proorizô is used in the Bible?

It turns out that it’s not found at all in the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Old Testament—and it only appears 6 times in the New Testament.

That’s not much.

It’s certainly not enough to build a case that the meaning of the term has fundamentally shifted away from its origins (the way “nice” and “awful” have). You’d need a lot more examples than 6.

The most you could show is that, in particular cases, proorizô had acquired a new meaning. But you wouldn’t be able to rule out that it still had its prior, expected meaning in other cases.

But let’s look at the New Testament examples and see what we find.

 

Acts 4:28

In Acts 4, we find Peter and John making a speech to the Sanhedrin in which they say:

Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place (4:27-28).

Here the text refers to the conspiracy against Jesus, which involved both Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate, as well as various Gentiles and Jews. It says that these people conspired “to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”

The verb “predestined” is singular in Greek, meaning that it was God’s plan that predestined what happened to Jesus—a rather interesting phrase, as it personifies God’s plan.

The association of God’s hand with his plan also suggests God was in some way involved in bringing these things about, though we are not given more detail about how.

What would this passage contribute to an overall doctrine of predestination?

The first thing to note is that the plan in this passage concerns Jesus. It’s true that God has plans for ordinary people, but those are not in focus in this passage, and we can’t simply generalize this passage to refer to things not under discussion.

Consequently, this passage would make a contribution to a doctrine of the predestination of Jesus and what happened to him, but it doesn’t tell us about God predestining people to heaven or hell.

Could what the plan predestined concerning Jesus have failed to happen? I’d be inclined to say no, but it’s primarily my theology that tells me that: God had determined to send his Son to die for us, and nothing was going to stop that. The reference to God’s hand in the passage also suggests this. But it is these factors—my theology and the reference to the hand—that tell me this, not the word for “predestined.”

Did God override anybody’s free will in the unfolding of these events? The passage does not tell us so. While the reference to the hand suggests God took some kind of role in bringing these things about, that doesn’t mean the parties involved didn’t have free will. God is active in the world in all kinds of ways, but that doesn’t mean people lack freedom.

Was the predestination in this passage arbitrary? The passage does not suggest this, and that holds true regardless of what one considers the subject of predestination:

• If it’s Jesus, there was a reason God had his Son die for us and not some random individual.
• If it’s Herod, Pilate, the Gentile soldiers or the Jewish leaders, there was a reason God used them (namely, because they were the ones with the ability and/or authority to put Jesus to death).
• And if one takes the events of Jesus’ passion as the subject of predestination, there was a rational basis for those as well, as illustrated by all the Christian literature devoted to the question of why God chose to have his Son die on a cross.

 

1 Corinthians 2:7

In 1 Corinthians, Paul is discussing his ministry and says:

We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed [proorizô] before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (2:7-8).

The secret wisdom he is discussing is the message of the gospel, as illustrated by the reference to Jesus’ crucifixion.

Paul says that God predestined the gospel before the ages, and he indicates one of the goals of the gospel: the glorification of those who accept it.

As before, we do not have the predestination of people to heaven or hell under discussion. Indeed, the subject of predestination here is not even a person. It’s a message: the gospel or “secret and hidden wisdom” that God preordained. Thus, this passage also has no direct relevance to the doctrine of predestination to heaven or hell.

Was it certain that the gospel would play the role God preordained for it? Again, I’d say yes, but it’s my theology that tells me that, not the Greek verb.

Also, this passage contains nothing about people lacking free will. Neither was the predestination of the gospel arbitrary. The fact Paul refers to it as “wisdom” indicates it had a rational basis.

 

Ephesians 1:5

In Ephesians, we find two references to predestination. First, Paul writes:

He destined [proorizô] us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will (1:5).

Here we do have a passage referring to the predestination of ordinary human beings (rather than Jesus or the gospel). However, the predestination in question is not to heaven or hell. Instead, it’s “to be his sons through Jesus Christ.”

Some might argue that whether you’re a son of God determines, infallibly, whether you will go to heaven or hell, but it would be their theology that tells them that—not the passage.

The passage does not say that a son of God cannot imitate the Prodigal Son, leave the Father, and be spiritually “dead” (cf. Luke 15:32). And Paul himself elsewhere warns that Christians must “continue in his [God’s] kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off” (Rom. 11:22).

The passage also does not require a strong, inescapable form of predestination. As we noted, the term proorizô can just mean to appoint something ahead of time. This passage is consistent with the idea of God appointing—in a general way—anyone who responds to the gospel to be a son through Christ. That does not mean that everyone who hears the gospel will respond to it.

Neither does it mean that free will was not involved in their response to the gospel.

Alternately, since proorizô can mean to declare something beforehand, the passage also is consistent with the idea of God declaring certain individual people to be his sons through Christ—based on their free will response to the gospel.

Would either of these be arbitrary? Some might think that the reference to God preordaining us his sons “according to the purpose of his will” might suggest this. But that would assume that the purpose of God’s will is arbitrary, and this would not be indicated if God predestined people to be sons based on their response to the gospel, as in the previous two possibilities.

Also, some translations render the last phrase “according to the kind intention of His will” (NASB), which would simply suggest God predestined us to be his sons out of kindness, without implying arbitrariness about who would become a son.

 

Ephesians 1:12

A bit further on, Paul writes:

We who first hoped in Christ have been destined [proorizô] and appointed to live for the praise of his glory (1:12).

Many commentators have taken “we who first hoped in Christ” as a reference to Jewish Christians, though it also could refer to simply a group of people who had been Christian longer than those Paul is envisioning as his primary audience.

Whichever is the case, the passage does not refer to predestination to heaven or hell.

Indeed! It speaks of being predestined to a task in this life—namely, “to live for the praise of his glory.”

This is very interesting, and it reveals just how much flexibility there can be in the New Testament’s understanding of predestination. While some things—like what happened to Jesus—might be unalterable parts of God’s plan that are guaranteed to happen, that is not the case here.

Did all of the people Paul is speaking of—whether Jewish Christians or not—always live for the praise of God’s glory?

It would seem not! This is something that sin would interfere with, and Paul himself speaks of the reality of Christians sinning:

Apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? (2 Cor. 11:28-29).

Or, as in other translations, “Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” (NASB), “Who is caused to sin, and I do not burn with indignation?” (LEB).

Later in Ephesians, Paul will warn the readers:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice (4:30-31).

It is thus quite clear that Christians do not always “live for the praise of [God’s] glory,” despite being predestined to do so. Predestination, at least under some New Testament conceptions, thus can fail.

And, of course, free will is involved when that happens.

Finally, is this kind of predestination arbitrary? No. If Christians are predestined to live in such a way as to promote God’s praise and glory, that is non-arbitrary. It is a calling rooted in basic morality and the natural outworking of God’s grace in a person’s life.

 

Romans 8:29-30

I’ve saved this passage for last, because it is the one that people normally go to first. That makes it easy to unwittingly read modern conceptions of predestination into it, so it’s helpful to see what else the New Testament has to say on the subject before coming here.

In Romans 8, Paul writes:

Those whom he [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified (8:29-30).

There is more to say about this passage than we can cover here (look for a future blog post), but here we’ll focus specifically on what this passage says about predestination.

One thing to note is that the second reference to predestination (“those whom he predestined he also called”) simply resumes the thought initiated at the first mention. It doesn’t add to it. Therefore, we need to focus on the first mention to understand how this passage is treating the concept.

Here the subjects of predestination are “those whom [God] foreknew.” We’ll cover their identity in more detail another time, but for now suffice it to say that they are a group of people with whom God has a special relationship. It’s not everybody.

The object of their predestination also is explicitly stated. He predestined them “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (thus generating the many brethren of whom Jesus is the firstborn).

When does that happen? When do Christians receive the image of God’s Son?

This can be understood different ways. If Christians are understood as being sons of God right now, as in some passages (e.g., 1 John 3:1), then we have already received the image of God’s Son and have joined his “many brethren.”

Paul speaks of this transformation when he writes:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation (Gal. 6:15).

However, our transformation into being Christlike is still in process in this life and will not be complete until the next.

The text of Romans 8:29-30 does not give us the data needed to determine (though the rest of Romans might) whether Paul is envisioning the acquisition of Christ’s image as an accomplished fact or as a process that is still ongoing.

That means the passage itself is consistent both with the idea that the predestination in question has already been achieved or that it is still in progress.

Either way, this passage is not speaking about predestination to heaven or hell.

The most a strong predestinarian could hope for would be to mount a winning argument that the passage is conceptualizing predestination to the image of God’s Son is an ongoing process that will not be complete until we are in heaven, making it an implied predestination to heaven.

But that’s an argument that has to be made. It can’t simply be assumed.

Further, given what we saw with Ephesians 1:12, we’d have to take into account the possibility of human sin interfering with this pre-established goal on God’s part.

Even if the passage were speaking of a goal that awaits us in heaven, that wouldn’t mean those whom God foreknew couldn’t fall into sin and fail to achieve the goal—any more than “we who first hoped in Christ” couldn’t fall into sin and fail to live to God’s praise and glory.

The possibility of free will thus isn’t eliminated.

And neither does the passage speak of the predestination being arbitrary.

 

Conclusion

None of the passages where the New Testament uses the term predestination require the concepts that people today often associate with it:

• None of them explicitly refer to predestination to heaven or hell
• None of them say that such a predestination is inexorable
• None of them say that such a predestination doesn’t involve free will
• And none of them say that it is arbitrary

That’s not to say that one couldn’t argue for these ideas—either in passages that use proorizô or in other passages. But it is to say that they can’t simply be read into the texts.

Addendum: A while ago, I also did a similar study of the concept of election in Scripture and discovered that, the way the Bible uses language, “the elect”/”the chosen” are not simply those predestined to heaven, as so often assumed today. For information on that, see my Chosen by God: God’s Elect in the Bible and the Church Fathers.