Predestination

The word conjures up lots of different opinions/feelings on God’s omniscience and omnipotence but I just read an interesting definition that I like. This is from the biblical scholar J. Clinton McCann, Jr. (with a name like that, could he be anything other than a biblical scholar?) in The New Interpreter’s Bible. Here he’s reflecting on Psalm 139: “Similarly, the discussion of Psalm 139 in terms of the doctrine of predestination will inevitably be misleading if this doctrine is heard in its classical sense; however, the word predestination may be appropriately applied to Psalm 139 if it is understood fundamentally as an affirmation that our lives derive from God, belong to God, and find their true destination in God’s purposes (bold mine). In Romans, the apostle Paul suggests that to be ‘predestined’ (8:29) means essentially that nothing ‘in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (8:39 NRSV).”