Home › Glossary › Letter P

Predestination

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Predestination is the doctrine that all events, especially salvation, are willed by God in advance, negating free will.

Detailed Definition
Poetry grapples with predestination through fate, doom, or divine election—often in tension with human agency. From Milton to Dickinson, poets explore the psychological weight of being chosen or damned, using theological language to probe autonomy and grace.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Milton’s "Paradise Lost" explores predestination through Adam and Eve’s fall as foreknown yet free; Anne Bradstreet’s Puritan poems wrestle with election and divine will; William Blake’s "The Tyger" questions whether a benevolent God predestined fear; Emily Dickinson’s poems often ponder whether choice is illusion before divine plan; predestination haunts Gerard Manley Hopkins’s "terrible sonnets," where grace feels withheld by fate.
Additional Notes
Predestination (Augustine, Calvin) denies free will in salvation; poetic treatments range from Milton’s theodicy to Dickinson’s anxious queries; students should note tension between fate and agency—e.g., does the speaker resist, accept, or reinterpret divine plan as historical or psychological determinism?
Also Known As
Divine Determinism Fatalism (in theological contexts) Election (in Calvinist contexts) Fatalism Qadar
Skip to main content