"In Love He Predestinated Us..." Predestination. Sain Paul, Saint Augustin and Vladimír Boublík

The doctrine of predestination in Western theology had for centuries been burdened by the dualistic conception of Saint Augustine. The bishop of Hippo held that it is God?s intention to reveal His mercy on a small number of those predestined to salvation and His justice on a far larger mass of rightly damned sinners. He came to be convinced that salvation is an utterly undeserved gift and consequently he negated the importance of human freedom. His interpretation would rather give rise to anxiety than the hope Scripture speaks about. Vladimír Boublík dared to oppose Augustine?s authority and presented an entirely different solution based on modern exegesis of the Pauline epistles. He defined predestination as an irreversible divine decision the content of which is the participation of all humanity on divine life in Christ. The present paper shows that Boublík?s theology stems from not just academic, but above all existential search for the answer to the question of human destiny marked with sin, suffering and death. It is already apparent on the pages of the spiritual diary the author kept during his studies. All his writing shows the intention to address his contemporaries and lead them to Christ who stands in the centre of the author?s thinking. This paper attempts to follow up on the work of the Czech exile theologian. It presents his conception of predestination and further develops it in some respects. Besides other things, it throws light on the previously unclarified problem of Christ?s primacy in predestination. Vladimír Boublík?s thesis is confronted with objections that have been raised against it and its content is compared with the content of today?s contribution to the topic