Preterition

[Timothy Duff]

In the deterministic view...

The Elect -- Those who are "chosen", those meant to be saved
The Reprobate -- Those who are certainly damned
The Preterite -- Those who are damned because they were never meant
to be saved.  Or something like that.

The puritans, as was pointed out earlier, thought prosperity a 'sign' of 
election.  Another contributor to this list proposed that moderns seem to 
have shifted the emphasis to 'thinness.'  Since it does take money to 
keep most bodies trim, perhaps the thinness, in contrast to old 
prosperity, must be effortless?  It can't be money...we can't have all 
those preterite lotto winners getting into the land of heavenly bodies, 
can we?