Most of the religions of the world have a belief in the idea of predestination. Predestination is the doctrine in which it is thought that one’s life events are already decided in advance, once one takes birth.
According to the doctrine of predestination, one’s life achievements are destined in advance. One will achieve those achievements irrespective of one’s high or low efforts. That means one will not get anything even after doing huge disciplined efforts for it, if it is not in one’s destiny.
The doctrine of predestination has different meanings in different religions, though the doctrine is the same.
In Hinduism, Makkhali Ghosala ( Born in 600 BC ) is the exponent of predestination or niyati. According to him, one’s destination or niyati is already defined. One will get salvation or not, is not dependent on one’s actions in this life. So the followers of niyativada did not bother about their actions as their actions did not have any impact on their future salvation. So, these people did not have any fear of their bad actions.
In Christianity, there is a sect called Calvinism. In Calvinism, there is also the belief of predestination. But the followers of Calvinism do not know whether they are selected or not for salvation by God. They are not able to comprehend the wish of God. The consequence of this doctrine for the believer must have been one of unprecedented inner loneliness. To overcome this inner loneliness, the Calvinists engaged themselves in good constructive actions which led to the growth of capitalism in Europe in the 19th century.
In Islam, there is also the belief system of predestination. According to it, every person has the destiny to spread the glory of God. To spread the glory of God, these people tried to capture more and more land and Islamised the new territories after the birth of Islam in the 7th century AD. They believed that they would get either salvation through death while fighting with the enemy or new empires.
To conclude, the same idea of predestination has a different understanding and different consequences in different religions.
