predestine
/priːˈdɛstɪn
/verb [with object]
1(Of God) destine (someone) for a particular fate or purpose: Calvinists believed that every person was predestined by God to go to heaven or to hell...
- Although Protestant reformers taught that God had predestined each individual to salvation or damnation, they still expected her to live a godly life, obeying God rather than man.
- The first act of God to remedy the damage and danger, was to predestine an elect people to be restored to the image of his son.
- It is through grace, as Augustine explains, not merit, that God predestines his elect.
1.1Determine (an outcome or course of events) in advance by divine will or fate: (as adjective predestined) our predestined end...
- Tenacious resistance was also demonstrated by the remnants of the First Army caught in the jaws of the German trap and knowing that the outcome was predestined.
- But I know I'm not going to pay any attention to those who tell me that the election result is predestined, even if… make that especially if they tell me what I want to hear.
- Of course Rhyann had absolutely no clue what exactly what predestined event her grandmother was trying to halt.
Synonyms
preordained, ordained, foreordained, destined, predetermined, fated
rare predestinated
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French predestiner or ecclesiastical Latin praedestinare (see predestinate).