Predestination versus human liberty

In this first part, we restrict the meaning of prediction, discussed in the general introduction,to that of predestination. We must therefore examine in greater detail what the term can cover.

In French, the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française states that the term prédestinationis attested by the twelfth century and was borrowed from the Christian Latin praedestinatio used as early as the fifth century by Saint Augustine. The dictionary distinguishes between a theological definition and a second definition that is less common but applicable to mantic methods:

1. Effect of the will of God, who for all eternity decides human fates and destines some persons—the chosen—to receive a special grace leading to eternal salvation. In the fifthcentury, Saint Augustine defended the reality of predestination against the supporters of pelagianism. Protestant theologians argued the existence of the predestination of reprobates. The Council of Trent reasserted, against Calvin, that predestination does not rule out free will.

2. The fact, for a person, of not being able to escape a fate or, for the course of events, of being determined in an ineluctable and inevitable manner. The effects of predestination. Predestination to glory, misfortune, crime.

As examined in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 4, the second meaning is wholly congruent with the definition of astrology (inability to escape one’s fate) and eugenics (being determined ineluctably and inevitably by one’s genetic endowment). In this chapter, we generalize the notion to all forms of divination, i.e., mantic methods. The first definition, linked to religion, will be discussed in Chapter 5.

Similarly, in English, the OED gives a synthetic definition of predestination:

The theory or the belief that everything that has been decided or planned in advance by God or by fate and that the humans cannot change it.

God and fate are thus combined here as entities presiding over predestination, without the Académie Française’s distinction. We therefore prefer to keep the Académie’s definition as the reference for our purposes here.

In the first section of this chapter, we note the diversity of divination methods around the world, and discuss the reason for our special focus on astrology in Chapter 3; in the second section, we describe the origin of eugenics in human history; in the third and final section, we discuss the past evolution of the notion of freedom.