I maintain that supralapsarianism (whether or not one thinks Calvin himself espoused it, in kernel, or primitive form) amounts to the proposition that God is the author of evil and sin. Infralapsarianism escapes this inherent difficulty. Supralapsarianism seems to me to be a more logically coherent but morally objectionable Calvinism, and damaging to the true doctrine of God.
Calvin taught concepts of various types of Aristotelian causation. In Inst. 2.17.2 Calvin accepts formal, secondary, proximate, causation. In 1.16.2 he cites formal, material, instrumental and principal causes. In 1.17.1 he has intermediaries, which are essentially second causes. Indeed, in 1.17.6, he discusses principal and secondary causes, and in 3.14.21, he notes efficient, material and instrumental causes.
But then, what does Calvin mean, when he says (I.17.1; Vol. 1, 210): “God’s providence . . . is the DETERMINATIVE principle of all things . . .?” The mere existence of secondary causes doesn’t necessarily resolve the difficulties inherent in supralapsarianism, vis-a-vis God’s character. Does such a position, then, mean that Calvin acknowledges a “permissive will” in God, contrary to various Protestant scholars cited above? If not, Calvinists need to explain the logical distinction between “permissive will” and these nuances presently under consideration. The problem comes when Calvin delves into positive reprobation, not positive election, which is Thomistic and Catholic indeed. Does Calvin apply the same reasoning to reprobation that he does to election in this section?:
These do not prevent the Lord from embracing works as inferior causes. But how does this come about? Those whom the Lord has DESTINED by his mercy for the inheritance of eternal life he leads into possession of it . . .
In other words, nuances and causal complexities notwithstanding, God still “destined” (not just foreknew) certain ends. This is no problem with regard to the elect, as it involves no injustice or violation of God’s goodness, but when it comes to reprobation, if this “destiny” doesn’t flow from God’s permissive will only, the logical conclusion would seem to entail a blasphemous notion of God as the author and active agent of sin, as condemned at the Council of Trent, in its Canon 6 on Justification:
If anyone says that it is not in man’s power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil God works as well as those that are good, not permissibly only, but properly and of Himself, in such wise that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of Paul; let him be anathema.
It appears quite difficult to deny that this is the supralapsarian view. What Catholics object to is God actively “willing” and “causing” sin, in any sense. He can permit it, but He need not (and must not) will it in the sense of a predetermined, predestined, preordained decree wholly independent of man’s demerits, will, and actions. In Inst. III, 22, 11 and III, 23, 1-2, Calvin strongly asserts that there is no cause for reprobation other than God’s “will,” a reprobation which is “solely by his decision,” etc. God either takes into account man’s demerits and sinful actions (as in the Catholic and Arminian views) or He doesn’t.
There exists another option, which is the Catholic (Molinist or Congruist) one: God knows beforehand how men will respond to His grace and decrees accordingly. If they will to be disobedient and spurn His grace and righteousness (e.g., Satan, the Chaldeans, Pharaoh, Judas), He will indeed actively use them for his purposes, but this doesn’t entail His being the cause of their sin; rather, He uses it to achieve His ends by virtue of His Providence and foreknowledge. The supralapsarian view, to the contrary, reduces to God predetermining sin, whether or not the person committing it is said to be “free” in a voluntaristic sense.
A fish born in a ten-gallon aquarium believes itself to be quite “free,” but it doesn’t really know “freedom” until it gets freed out into a lake. Merely acting out what I must do “voluntarily” according to nature doesn’t make me any more “free” than the fish in the tank. “Freedom” is thus by nature a relativistic term. God is big enough to include our freedom of will and action in His eternal Providence. It poses no problem for Him, only for man-made systems such as supralapsarianism.
Merely removing the efficent cause from God (as many Calvinists attempt to do) does not overcome the ethical and logical objection, if the person could not in any reasonable sense have done otherwise, and was predetermined by God’s “secret” decree and alleged active “will” to do what he did. No one is denying God’s Providence and Superintendence of all things. That is not at issue between Catholics and Calvinists (much as the latter falsely imply that free will is somehow contrary to God’s sovereignty).
God doesn’t will evil or harm upon His creatures any more than I would will such a thing for my own children. That He allows it is clear, so then He can “will to allow” things, rather than “be pleased to allow evil by His will.” Surely all can agree that God takes no pleasure in allowing (or predetermining?) evil.
These are deep waters indeed. I certainly don’t have all the answers as to the excruciating dilemmas that evil creates for the Christian of any stripe. I’ve long regarded it as the most troublesome objection the non-believer can offer to theism, and I look forward to finally understanding this in the next life, where we will no longer “see through the glass darkly.” The difficulty is readily seen in the proposition that this is the best of all possible worlds, because the all-Good, all-Powerful God created it, yet the “best of all possible worlds” would seem to be one in which no sin and evil were present at all.
In light of that, it would appear that God highly valued human freedom indeed, and must have thought it worthwhile enough to allow evil, even to an extent incomprehensible to the human mind. If human freedom of will is in actuality that important to God, then it is foolish for Calvinism to take great pains to diminish and qualify it — almost define it out of existence in certain senses. Catholics assert that God working in men, and men therefore working in cooperation with God, is no contradiction, but rather a biblical mandate and a necessity.
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