# Prosper of Aquitaine: predestination is not fatalism



## Reformed Covenanter (Mar 5, 2022)

OBJECTION: By God’s predestination men are compelled to sin and driven to death by a sort of fatal necessity.

ANSWER: No Christian who is a Catholic denies God’s predestination. But fatalism many, even non-Christians, reject. Sin, indeed, leads to death, but God compels no one to sin. For _He hath commanded no man to do wicked_. And: _Thou hatest, Lord, all the workers of iniquity; thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie_. Accordingly, one who preaches fatalism under cover of predestination is no less worthy of disapproval than one who censures predestination on the plea of fatalism.

Fatalism as a theory is groundless and born from falsehood. But faith in predestination is based on many texts of Holy Scripture. And it is altogether wrong to attribute to predestination the evil deeds of men. Their propensity to evil does not come from God’s creation but from the sin of their first parent. And no one is freed from the punishment of this sin except by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was prepared and predestined in God’s eternal design before the creation of the world.

For more, see Prosper of Aquitaine: predestination is not fatalism.

N.B. Not all Reformed people would concur with Prosper's use of terminology regarding predestination.

Reactions: Like 1


----------

