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Unconditional election (also called sovereign election [1] or unconditional grace) is a Calvinist doctrine relating to predestination that describes the actions and motives of God prior to his creation of the world, when he predestined some people to receive salvation, the elect, and the rest he left to continue in their sins and receive the just punishment, eternal damnation, for their ...
Predestination of the elect and non-elect was taught by the Jewish Essene sect, [5] Gnosticism, [6] and Manichaeism. [7] In Christianity, the doctrine that God unilaterally predestines some persons to heaven and some to hell originated with Augustine of Hippo during the Pelagian controversy in 412 AD. [8]
In Christianity, particularly within the theological framework of Calvinism, election involves God choosing a particular person or group of people to a particular task or relationship, especially eternal life. Election to eternal life is viewed by some as conditional on a person's faith, and by others as unconditional.
Another way the New Testament puts this is to say that God chose the church in Christ (Eph. 1:4). In other words, God chose from all eternity to save all those who would be found in Christ, by faith in God. This choosing is not primarily about salvation from eternal destruction either but is about God's chosen agency in the world.
Calvin viewed Scripture as being equivalent to an utterance of God given from heaven: [6] Since no daily responses are given from heaven, and the Scriptures are the only records in which God has been pleased to consign his truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognised, unless they are believed to have come from heaven, as ...
[10] The Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible on the other hand, contends that "the nature of eternal life is only sketched in its essential elements in the New Testament". [9] John W. Ritenbaugh says that eternal life is knowing God, and that Jesus implies an intimate relationship with God that matures over time. [11] Ostromir Gospel of John, 1056
Some theological bodies, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, believe that only a selected minority of people, the 144.000 mentioned in Revelation, will be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, while all the other righteous men will live on the new earth, which will be governed by God as well. As such the Kingdom of Heaven would be part of the ...
Hilary of Poitiers: For obeying God's will and not calling on His name, shall find the way to the heavenly kingdom. [8] Pseudo-Chrysostom: And what the will of God is the Lord Himself teaches, This is, (John 6:40.) He says, the will of him that sent me, that every man that seeth the Son and believeth on him should have eternal life.