Gli esordi dell'idea di predestinazione

Abstract

The idea of predestination, although the word is not used in Biblical Hebrew, is rooted in Old Testament episodes in which God is said to ‘choose’ or to ‘call’ specific human beings He knew in advance (before they were born) for prophetic missions. The leading concepts are therefore the Creator’s foreknowledge and absolute sovereignty, so that the unfolding of all events on earth cannot but fulfil his eternally outlined plan. This idea is emphasized in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a similar way, Paul (Rom 8, 29), employing the Greek verb for ‘predefine’, explains the link between divine Foreknowledge and Predestination of those who are saved. Yet the predestinarian doctrine inevitably conflicts with the equally important requirement of free will and moral responsibility, performing the precepts of the Covenant; so, the prevailing tendency of pharisaic-rabbinical Judaism, and also of the Christian Church, has been an ambivalent coexistence of both God’s predestination and human freedom of choice. Gnosticism also embodies the ambivalence. In any case, the Gnostic predestination is very different from the Biblical one: it is not a divine absolute decision regarding single individuals, but the logical outcome of the kind of ‘nature’ to which they belong.

English title: The Beginnings of the Idea of Predestination