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The doctrine of predestination is probably the most controversial aspect of Calvinism.
Calvinism = the theological system of John Calvin and his followers emphasizing omnipotence of God and salvation by grace alone

The downtown I remember — drab, Calvinistic, with white men in dark overcoats marching in lockstep on the sidewalks, interspersed with the occasional woman, in regulation high heels, gloves and hat, clutch purse under the arm, eyes front — is simply gone, but then it's been gone for some time.† (source)

Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking.† (source) Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air, 1997

Centuries ago Calvinist faith turned the cathedral into a hangar, its only function being to keep the prayers of the faithful safe from rain and snow.† (source)

Major Major's father had a Calvinist's faith in predestination and could perceive distinctly how everyone's misfortunes but his own were expressions of God's will.† (source) Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961

But because Lincoln never attached himself to an organized religion as an adult, his ability to combine the secular and the religious in the way he goes about his life will later have everyone from atheists to humanists to Calvinists claiming that he is one of theirs.† (source)

This was a junta of Calvinist fanatics who felt that the Estates-General, controlled by the privileged classes, no longer represented the skilled workers, had lost touch entirely with the people.† (source)

I felt a sharp pang of homesickness, and abruptly wondered what in God's name was I doing here in the unimaginable reaches of Brooklyn, an ineffective and horny Calvinist among all these Jews?† (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

Indeed, I'm sure it was both my residual Calvinism and my clerical disguise—also that damnable church bell—which helped cause me to falter so badly when Sophie woke me.† (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

No, against all dictates of conscience and the Calvinist work ethic, and despite ,the fact that I was far from tired, I lay flat on my back in bed, immobilized like one near prostration, bemused in the realization that the fever which I had run for these recent days had caused my muscles to twitch, and that one could actually be taken ill, perhaps seriously so, with venereal ecstasy.† (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

Eugene looked at the dull earnest faces, lured from the solid pews of Calvinism to the shadowland of metaphysics.† (source)

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It was the Calvinists, sir, who reduced it to this condition.† (source) Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 1856

Such is Calvinism,[239] Quakerism,[240] Swedenborgism.† (source)

Having fairly well advanced his own affairs, Angel listened in a willing silence, as they jogged on together through the shady lanes, to his father's account of his parish difficulties, and the coldness of brother clergymen whom he loved, because of his strict interpretations of the New Testament by the light of what they deemed a pernicious Calvinistic doctrine.† (source)

A definition which tho' savoring of Calvinism, by no means involves Calvin's dogmas as to total mankind.† (source) Herman Melville, Billy Budd, 1924

The power Barbara wields here—the power that wields Barbara herself—is not Calvinism, not Presbyterianism, not Methodism— UNDERSHAFT.† (source)

There were still people in Clyde who remembered the frontier, and like America itself, the town lived by a mixture of diluted Calvinism and a strong belief in "progress," Young Sherwood, known as "Jobby"—the boy always ready to work—showed the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that Clyde respected: folks expected him to become a "go-getter," And for a time he did.† (source)

Their lodgings were in a cottage a little further along the lane, but they came and assisted Tess in her departure, and argued that she should dress up in her very prettiest guise to captivate the hearts of her parents-in-law; though she, knowing of the austere and Calvinistic tenets of old Mr Clare, was indifferent, and even doubtful.† (source)

I've heard a deal o' doctrine i' my time, for I used to go after the Dissenting preachers along wi' Seth, when I was a lad o' seventeen, and got puzzling myself a deal about th' Arminians and the Calvinists.† (source) George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859

Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines — election, predestination, reprobation — were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.† (source) Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847

La Rochelle, which had derived a new importance from the ruin of the other Calvinist cities, was, then, the focus of dissensions and ambition.† (source)

Once more he saw himself the young banker's clerk, with an agreeable person, as clever in figures as he was fluent in speech and fond of theological definition: an eminent though young member of a Calvinistic dissenting church at Highbury, having had striking experience in conviction of sin and sense of pardon.† (source) George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1872

It became necessary, therefore, to destroy this last bulwark of Calvinism—a dangerous leaven with which the ferments of civil revolt and foreign war were constantly mingling.† (source)

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