Clarifications on "Temporal Predestination" I was just perusing the wikipedia article on predestination, and came across an interesting blip on "Temporal Predestination":


  Temporal predestination is the view that God only determines temporal matters, and not eternal ones. This Christian view is analogous to the traditional Jewish view, which distinguishes between preordination and predestination. Temporal matters are pre-ordained by God, but eternal matters, being supra-temporal, are subject to absolute freedom of choice.


Can someone knowledgeable elaborate on this view for me?


Would a scholar from this camp reject the idea of God preparing a place for the elect in Heaven, or would they just say that while God does know those who will end up in Heaven, and does prepare a place for them, ultimately it is their choice?
Are there any major Christian denominations or scholars who hold this view?
EXTRA CREDIT: If this was the traditional Jewish view, why was it abandoned by Christians?
Bullet Points


The "elect" in this view is the same as Arminianism - God knows all who will freely choose Him ("those He foreknew... he also glorified") and He elects to save all who believe in Jesus Christ.
Ken Grider (one of the translators for the NIV Bible) is the only major/well-known theologian I know of that holds this view. I would bet many in Arminian churches hold this view without realizing it (assuming there is a real difference between the two; Arminianism allows but does not require libertarian free will).


Temporal Predestination

Temporal predestination attempts to reconcile the facts of both God's foreknowledge and His eternal plan with our free will (limited in this view) - while He predestines our actions in time and what happens in the world, He allows each of us full freedom in choosing whether to follow or reject Him. For example, God determined that Judas would hand Jesus over to the chief priests (Luke 22:22), but Judas freely chose to reject Christ.

Proponents of temporal predestination sometimes claim that in every place that the Greek word proorizo ("to predestinate") is found in the New Testament (as well as other terms signifying His knowledge, actions, and decrees), not one of them refers to God predetermining our eternal destiny1; a better term for this view might be temporal-only predestination, as I have seen people use "temporal predestination" when they specifically want to refer to the predestination of events, regardless of whether or not our destinies are predestinated.

J. Kenneth Grider explains the concept via commentary on Scripture:


  Take the Romans 8:29, 30 instances of proorisen. There we read, "For those God
  foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be
  the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he
  called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." Here, "predestined," is
  probably not used with reference to eternal destiny-although perhaps a better possible
  case could be made for such reference in v. 30, than can be made for such a reference in
  any of the other predestination passages. This passage states that "those God foreknew,"
  meaning surely those He foreknew would believe, "he also predestined to be conformed
  to the likeness of his Son." That is, He pre-determined that the ones who would believe
  would be conformed to Christ's likeness... The point here, however, is that eternal destiny does not enter into the picture at all.


The obvious problem with his reasoning is that Paul draws a clear link from God's predestination to our glorification. He answers this objection by claiming the glorification of the predestined is almost a side-effect rather than the intended result (that is, Paul is explaining a chain of causality rather than the process by which God works):


  It is also to be noted that in the next verse the same kind of non-destiny meaning
  probably obtains. There, "those he predestined" (based on His foreknowledge according
  to the previous verse), he "called," and the ones He called He "justified," and the ones He
  justified He "glorified." Here, unlike what obtains in the previous verse, the writer does
  get around, finally, to a word that has to do with destiny: glorification. So it could
  conceivably be interpreted that the predestination has to do with destiny-and it does,
  finally. But the passage states that, having predestined or predetermined for believers,
  through His foreknowledge (v. 29), that they would freely believe, He called them and
  justified them-and, perhaps because of His foreknowledge of their continuing as
  believers, He "glorified them." As mentioned, destiny does get referred to in this
  passage; but the reference is so much disjoined from what is itself said to be
  predestinated that this glorification destiny can hardly be said to be what is itself
  predestinated.


Temporal predestination is probably closest to an Arminian (conditional predestination) view than to other major views (sublapsarian, supralapsarian, etc). In fact, the only people I have seen who distinguish between them are those who hold to temporal-only predestination2.



Footnotes

1: I find this unconvincing. This claim concerning some passages is dependent upon the interpretation of the text, which is the very point in question.

2: My personal opinion is that temporal-only predestination is merely a subpar method of explaining an Arminian view that denies full libertarian free will.

*: Concerning temporal predestination being the traditional Jewish view, see Tomáš Frydrych, Living Under the Sun: Examination of Proverbs and Qoheleth, Volume 90 of Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, in which he argues that the author of Ecclesiastes did not hold such a view because of the statement "why should you die before your time?"