Talk:Preterition

Could Preterition be similar to Predestination? Or, perhaps, have the same meaning?

Predestination is a Calvinist doctrine (also see St. Augustine of Hippo) which means: God can see/know everything, both past and future, so God knows who will go to Heaven or Hell. If God has all powers, then God would be presentient. Humans, on the other hand, would not know who was going either to Heaven or Hell but could get some idea by observing the kind of life that a person lived.

The concept has sometimes been explained with this metaphor: If an observer were standing at the top of a tall building and could see two cars speeding into an intersection in such a way that it was clear that neither driver could stop nor avoid the other, then the observer would know, in advance, that a collision was going to happen. The observer's knowledge of the future collision would not have caused the actions of either of the drivers, so the observer's knowledge of the future would not affect the "free will" of the drivers.

Predestination was a doctrine that attempted, in part, to avoid negating the concept that humans have free will while, at the same time, preserving the attribute of God as presentient. --Antigone2 06:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)