How to Use predestination in a Sentence

predestination

noun
  • But the facts of her culinary upbringing do have that glitter of predestination.
    — Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 15 Oct. 2019
  • The questions raised by the doctrine of predestination are real and profound.
    — Marilynne Robinson, New Republic, 12 Dec. 2017
  • This is a fun twist on the ancient idea of prophecy or predestination and, as such, makes for some compelling narrative uses—for a while, anyway.
    — Jennifer Ouellette and Sean M. Carroll, Ars Technica, 24 Nov. 2023
  • The doctrine of social class as predestination has rarely been presented so succinctly.
    — Washington Post, 22 Sep. 2021
  • By Adam Smith’s time, however, Protestant thought had turned away from the idea of predestination.
    — Benjamin M. Friedman, WSJ, 14 Jan. 2021
  • In a place where both psychohistory and predestination exist, how much does personal choice matter?
    — Marah Eakin, WIRED, 14 July 2023
  • Their faith in predestination left them in a state of chronic existential dread; although one’s fate was fixed, worldly success could be taken as a sign of divine favor.
    — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
  • Her surname—like several others in this story—seems to bear the mark of predestination; in this case, the ashes-to-ashes sense of circularity.
    — Lisa Wells, Harper's Magazine, 28 Sep. 2021
  • Many white evangelicals had already begun to shun vaccines altogether, and part of their rationale is this sense of predestination.
    — Monica Potts, The Atlantic, 21 July 2021
  • There's still room out there for a time-travel/alternate-reality story that really grapples with the issues of predestination.
    — Sean Carroll, Discover Magazine, 29 Dec. 2010
  • The Puritan belief in predestination dictates that salvation is predetermined and that no amount of good works (or bad) will change one’s fate in the afterlife.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 6 May 2021
  • This book is meant to be read as a novel, from first page to last, but regardless, the pieces emerge and resonate with one another in an arc that begins with generational predestination and ends in transformation.
    — Literary Hub, 21 Apr. 2026
  • Thus, David seeks to regain control of his life, presenting a thrilling exploration of the philosophical tension that exists between free will and predestination.
    — Travis Bean, Forbes, 21 Sep. 2024
  • With this as the prewritten outcome, Jack dramatizes the heartbreak of predestination while suggesting that the details and contours of a life—or a love—matter even if, in the end, that life or love will seem to come to nothing.
    — Jordan Kisner, The Atlantic, 11 Sep. 2020
  • Request a Demo Rorty’s version of redemption stands out against certain religious strands in that it is explicitly set against predestination or essentialism.
    — Big Think, 14 June 2024
  • Weber pointed in particular to the Calvinist notion of predestination—the belief that God decided whether each individual would be saved or damned before the person was even born.
    — Benjamin M. Friedman, WSJ, 14 Jan. 2021
  • John Calvin put major emphasis on the doctrine of predestination, which holds that an individual’s salvation (or damnation, as the case might be) is determined by God before that person is even born.
    — Win McCormack, The New Republic, 23 Dec. 2020
  • Which of these two pandemics any given American will experience will be determined by a morbid mix of a sort of demographic predestination—shaped strongly by inequality—and purely random chance.
    — Joe Pinsker, The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2020
  • And the day after his address, the president had an appointment with predestination, as the Senate was scheduled for a Wednesday vote that would, barring shocking news or mass hypnosis, acquit him on impeachment charges.
    — James Poniewozik, New York Times, 5 Feb. 2020
  • Belief in predestination actually hindered the emergence of modern capitalism’s key idea—that human beings can rationally advance their own and others’ economic condition.
    — Benjamin M. Friedman, WSJ, 14 Jan. 2021
  • Up next was Anderson, a Holocaust denier who gave a rambling sermon against Calvinist theology, which includes predestination, the belief that God has chosen certain people to go to heaven before they’re born.
    — Los Angeles Times, 2 Aug. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'predestination.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: