Hello Nancy,
One of the best sources for the explanation of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and the elect is available at the following URL. This is by a well-known 19th century Baptist theologian and preacher, P.H. Mell. It is a loooong read but very well articulated. Mr. Mell was an ardent Calvinist. Many Southern Baptist churches (as well as Reformed churches) at that time preached predestination, although the particulars of Calvinist doctrine are not quite so prevalent among Southern Baptists today as they were 150 years ago. Some churches do not mention it at all, while others make it a central tenet of their message.
founders.org
The references to Arminianism relate to another Reformation doctrine of the 16th Century, put forth by Jacobus Arminius, conflicting with the Calvinist doctrine that anyone was somehow predestined to go to hell (that is, to be non-elect) and the Calvinist doctrine of "once saved, always saved". Arminianism to some degree formed the basis for Methodism and various other denominations. It emphasizes man's free will, that God respects the existence of free will in man and (by His own choice) does not control everything that has happened and will happen, as pure Calvinism opines.
The doctrine of Predestination can easily be misused, and often has been. From the text URL'd above:
"Now, God's eternal decree, by which He makes all things in time fixed and sure, is nothing but His eternal plan, by which He governs Himself in His relations towards His creatures. And His works of providence and of grace are but the revealment of that eternal plan and, consequently, of His eternal purpose. Is it true that the elements and all inanimate nature are controlled by Him? Then all their conditions and mutations are foreordained by Him before the beginning of time. Is it true that He rules with as sovereign sway in the moral as in the physical world?- That the hearts of all men are in His hands and that He turns them as the rivers of water are turned? -- Does He send His Spirit to a certain number and no more and convince them of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment? Call them effectually by His grace-regenerate, sanctify, and save them? And does He do all this in accordance with a plan entertained from eternity? Then it follows that they were predestined to this grace according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. Has moral evil entered into His system, and do wicked men sin against Him, he not paralyzing their faculties nor changing their hearts? And does He leave some, as vessels of wrath, to hardness of heart and blindness of mind that they might be damned? And does all this occur too in accordance with a plan entertained from eternity? Then it follows that from all eternity He decreed for wise purposes to permit the entrance of moral evil into His system to permit men to use the powers He gave them in opposition to His authority; then, it follows that some were before of old (i.e. from eternity), ordained to condemnation (Jude 4). Finally, it follows that the world, in all its physical and moral details, is just as God designed it to be."
A basic potential misuse of the doctrine of predestination (to me at least) is to state that God has secret purposes for the world's greatest evils, and that therefore they are somehow "justified" because we as mere mortals cannot know God's ultimate purposes, that at some point the real reason will be known to us. And even that we therefore should not worry about them too much or try to do much about them. In the case of Southern Baptists prior to the Civil War, for example, this line of reasoning was often used to justify slavery. Other potential misuses are the line of reasoning that the Holocaust was somehow "necessary" in order to bring about the formation of the state of Israel for example, that it was just part of God's grand design. |
