Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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DIVINE ELECTION

The eternal choice by God of those whom he absolutely wills to be saved. It is a matter of Catholic faith that this divine election includes the foreknowledge of each person's merits before God. So that it does not mean, as some of the Reformers and Jansenists held, that God chooses for salvation those whom he wills independent of their free co-operation with his grace. The divine election, on Catholic principles, recognizes true human freedom in responding to the will of God.