predestination

9 synonyms and 2 antonyms for predestination, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.

Noun — The Christian doctrine that God has decided in advance who will be saved, so that a person's eternal fate is settled by divine choice rather than earned by their own actions.

Synonyms

Everyday swaps

Common words most readers know — safe in any writing.

election fate

Less common

Still standard English, but they carry more weight.

destiny

Rare, literary or technical

Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.

foreordination divine decree predetermination preordination determinism kismet

Synonyms by Meaning

1. noun

The Christian doctrine that God has decided in advance who will be saved, so that a person's eternal fate is settled by divine choice rather than earned by their own actions.

“Calvin's account of predestination split the Reformation church.”

election foreordination divine decree predetermination preordination

2. noun

More broadly, the belief that everything that happens has been fixed in advance by God or by fate.

“He treats every coincidence as evidence of predestination.”

destiny fate determinism kismet

Opposites

free will chance

How to use predestination

The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.

doctrine of predestination Calvinist predestination predestination and free will double predestination

Theological and formal; outside religion it appears mainly in philosophical discussion of free will.

Etymology

From Latin praedestinare meaning 'to determine beforehand', from prae 'before' and destinare 'to appoint'.

Full origin of predestination →

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between predestination and free will?

Predestination holds that outcomes, especially salvation, are settled in advance by God. Free will holds that people genuinely choose their own actions. Many theologians argue the two are compatible — that God's foreknowledge does not force the choice — but the tension between them is one of the oldest debates in Christian thought.

What is the difference between predestination and determinism?

Predestination is a religious doctrine: a personal God has decreed what will happen. Determinism is a philosophical or scientific claim: every event follows necessarily from prior causes and physical laws, with no divine agent required.

What is double predestination?

Double predestination is the stricter version of the doctrine, holding that God actively chooses both those who will be saved and those who will be damned. Single predestination holds that God elects the saved while simply passing over the rest rather than condemning them by decree.

People also searched

chance election fate destiny foreordination kismet determinism

Nearby words

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