John Calvin: Supralapsarian

The Supralapsarians, more logically, include the fall itself in the efficient and positive decree; yet they deny as fully as the Infralapsarians, THOUGH LESS LOGICALLY, that God is the author of sin . . .

But while his [Calvin’s] inexorable logic pointed to this abyss, his moral and religious sense shrunk from the last logical inference of making God the author of sin; for this would be blasphemous, and involve the absurdity that God abhors and justly punishes what he himself decreed. He attributes to Adam the freedom of choice, by which he might have obtained eternal life, but he wilfully disobeyed. Hence his significant phrase: ‘Man falls, God’s providence so ordaining it; yet he falls by his own guilt’ [Inst., III, 23, 8]. Here we have supralapsarian logic combined with ethical logic . . .

Here is, notwithstanding this wholesome caution, the crucial point where the rigorous logic of Calvin and Augustine breaks down, or where the moral logic triumphs over intellectual logic . . . The most rigorous predestinarian is driven to the alternative of choosing between logic and morality.

(Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 8, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 3rd rev. ed., 1910, 553-555)

Notwithstanding its seeming pretensions, it [supralapsarianism] does not give a solution to the problem of sin. It would do this, if it dared to say that God decreed to bring sin into the world by His own direct efficiency. Some Supralapsarians, it is true, do represent the decree as the efficient cause of sin, but yet do not want this to be interpreted in such a way that God becomes the author of sin. The majority of them do not care to go beyond the statement that God willed to permit sin. Now this is no objection to the Supralapsarian in distinction from the Infralapsarian, FOR NEITHER OF THEM SOLVES THE PROBLEM. The only difference is that the former makes greater pretensions in this respect than the latter . . .

Infralapsarianism really wants to explain reprobation as an act of God’s justice. It is inclined to deny either explicitly or implicitly that it is an act of the mere good pleasure of God. This really makes the decree of reprobation a conditional decree and leads into the Arminian fold.

(Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, Eerdmans, 4th rev. ed., 1949, 121, 123)

Abraham Kuyper, too, has reflected on the difference between supra and infra. His criticism of supra is sharp: it is a theory which is open to severe criticism, especially because thus the fall into sin is not only deduced from man, but forms a link in the divine decree; moreover, it evokes the idea of a divine creating in order to destroy. Kuyper speaks of this as a horrible thought, in flagrant opposition to the concept of God’s inscrutable mercies.

But that does not mean that Kuyper therefore chooses the infra presentation. For, says Kuyper, the infra presentation entails almost equal objections, because it seeks the solution in the ‘praescientia,’ the foreseen fall. Neither in supra nor in infra does he see a solution, and he further mentions the unyielding fact ‘that the connection between God’s eternal decree and the fall is inscrutable to us.’ . . . “According to Kuyper, we must conclude with the acknowledgement that the connection between God’s sovereignty and man’s sin ‘is not revealed to us.’

(Gerritt Berkouwer, Divine Election, tr. Hugo Bekker, Eerdmans, 1960, 262)

Earlier, I noted that Charles Hodge had criticized supralapsarianism on grounds that “it is not consistent with the Scriptural exhibition of the character of God,” who is “declared to be a God of mercy and justice.” (Systematic Theology, abridged ed., 326)

Calvin deals with related issues in Institutes, III, 23, 2,4,5 and III, 24, 14 (Battles / McNeill ed.):

. . . devote to DESTRUCTION whomever he PLEASES . . . they are PREDESTINED to eternal DEATH SOLELY by his decision, APART from their own MERIT . . .

(III, 23, 2, Vol. 2, 949)

For when it is said that God hardens or shows mercy to whom he wills, MEN ARE WARNED BY THIS TO SEEK NO CAUSE OUTSIDE HIS WILL.

(III, 22, 11, Vol. 2, 947)

Those whom God passes over, he CONDEMNS; and this he does FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN THAT HE WILLS TO EXCLUDE THEM . . .

(III, 23, 1, Vol. 2, 947)

. . . we must always at last return to theSOLE DECISION of God’s will, the cause of which is hidden in him.

(III, 23, 4, Vol. 2, 951)

With Augustine I say: the Lord has created those whom he unquestionably foreknew would go to destruction. This has happened BECAUSE HE SO WILLED IT. But WHY he so willed, it is not for our reason to inquire, for we cannot comprehend it.

(III, 23, 5, Vol. 2, 952)

What of those, then, WHOM HE CREATED FOR DISHONOR IN LIFE AND DESTRUCTION IN DEATH . . .?

(III, 24, 12, Vol. 2, 978)

. . . his immutable decree had once for all DESTINED THEM TO DESTRUCTION.

(III, 24, 14, Vol. 2, 981)

. . . the fall of Adam is not presupposed as preceding God’s decree in time, but IT IS WHAT GOD DETERMINED BEFORE ALL AGES . . .

(II, 12, 5, Vol. 1, 469)

There is much we can’t comprehend in this area, as all parties readily admit, and much fine-tuning and nuance in Calvinist thought, yet we aren’t forced to make positive pronouncements that God is acting with regard to the reprobate in a way which makes Him the active, “sole” cause of their damnation, and thus the author of sin, whether or not such logical implications are acknowledged or not. For all Catholics, Arminians, Wesleyans, and other non-Calvinist Christians, this belief is utterly unacceptable.