Providence and predestination

From a theological perspective, there are at least two kinds of benevolent, end-directed divine action: providence and predestination. Given that the goal of predestination is salvation, purportedly the ultimate goal of human life and divine direction in regard to that life, predestination and providence ought to share much in common from a theological perspective. But predestination has been and remains one of the most contentious issues in theology and has often been reduced to a divine and unilateral selection of human beings to heaven or hell, a kind of religious determinism or predeterminism. In this chapter, I argue that new research and images of the life of grace drawn from scriptural narratives imply the need for a broader and richer understanding of predestination that takes proper account of human responsiveness and providence, including the possibility of incomplete predestination and degrees of blessedness