This week on Things Unseen, we've slowed down on the breakneck speed of last week when

we took a helicopter tour of the whole of Paul's letter to the Romans.

And this week we're going back to visit just one of the sites, Romans chapter 8, verse

30, and it's four big words, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.

Let's start with predestination.

It means deciding on a destiny, deciding the destination of the journey, and doing that

before it actually begins.

I think I've referred before to my old church history professor in university.

He didn't publish much, but he did write a book on the Scottish reformer John Knox.

And one of his chapters is on John Knox's teaching on predestination.

In fact, the one real work of theology that John Knox wrote was on the subject of predestination.

As I recall in that chapter, my professor said something like this, the Bible is a book

about predestination.

I recall how that simple sentence arrested my attention, of course.

God didn't just let creation happen.

That's an idea that's nonsensical, I mean it's nonsense.

God planned it.

That is to say, he predestined it.

He had a plan even before he created anything, because Moss didn't one day think to himself,

it would be a good idea if I existed, did it?

It's a laughably incoherent idea.

But God's purpose, his plans, his predestination, involves more than the original creation.

...