First, God's sovereignty is as important to us as it is to Calvinists; it is just that we do not believe sovereignty entails that God predestines everything that happens.
Thiel aims to be "congruent" with Catholic teaching that God is omnipotently good and predestines none to hell (92), but differs over dominant conceptions of death as divine retribution for original sin.
This focus also predestines Spanish poets to never getting beyond their formidable Italian primogenitor.