ABSTRACT
The roots of the controversy over predestination extend back into the earliest days of the church. Does humanity possess a measure of free will, so as to determine their own fate? Or, does God select those who will ultimately be redeemed, and conversely, those who perish? While there remained a diversity of opinion, Augustine, bishop of Hippo (354–430), emerged as a strident defender of the notion of God as the sole agent in predestining humanity to their eternal end. Augustine’s ideas would later be reinforced by the Genevan reformer John Calvin (1509–64). Calvin accepted Augustine’s conclusions and took his formulation a step further through the doctrine of ‘limited atonement.’ Already an austere notion, the Augustinian-Calvinist formulation of predestination garnered a scholastic emphasis through the thought of Calvin’s disciple, Theodore Beza (1519–1605). Beza contributed to the doctrine of predestination by arguing for the idea that God’s decree of predestination superseded even the fall of humanity, making predestination an absolute function of the will of God, regardless of human sinfulness.
