Chosen in Christ (Book Review)

 

Chosen in Christ: Revisiting the Contours of Predestination by Cornelis Venema (Reformed Exegetical Doctrinal Series, Christian Focus, Fearn, Ross-shire, 2019) 

It's been a while since I've done a book review on blog, despite having read a number of excellent Christian books in the last year. So, I thought it was high time to do one and the book I have just finished, is well worth reviewing and recommending.

The difficult doctrine of predestination or election has long been of particular interest to me and Cornelis Venema's book on the subject is an excellent contribution to this area of doctrine, often regarded as being at the heart of Reformed theology. As might be expected, Venema takes a Calvinist point of view and endorses unconditional election. This is reflected both in his positive presentations of his view and in his critiques of other approaches to election and predestination.

The book reads like a collection of essays on topics concerning predestination rather than a single cohesive treatise or argument on the subject. 

The first part of the book takes a biblical theological tour of the Bible's teaching on election and predestination across three chapters that look at, in turn, the doctrine of election in the Old Testament, the doctrine of election in the New Testament (excluding Paul) and then the doctrine of election in Paul's epistles. This material takes up about a third of the book.

The remaining chapters take a more historical theology perspective, with chapters on election and predestination in Augustine, Reformation theology, Arminian conditional election, Karl Barth's doctrine of election, and what Venema calls "Neo-Arminianism" - more commonly called Open Theism. As expected, Venema's treatment of Augustine and Reformed theology is positive, while his assessment of Arminianism, Barthianism and Open Theism are negative critiques.

The final chapter is entitled Concluding Theological and Pastoral Reflections where the author presents his own reflections on some common objections to the Reformed doctrine of predestination, such as regarding evangelism and the gospel offer.

Election and predestination are scarcely the simplest of Christian doctrines and any treatment of them is bound to be somewhat complex. Venema's book is no exception. In my view, this is at least a semi-technical treatment, aimed at theology students and pastors more than a general Christian readership, I think many people would find it difficult to work through this book. It offers an in depth treatment, particularly of the various deviations from the Reformed doctrine. I would not recommend it as a first read on this topic by any means. For that, I would suggest various other works, whether one of the many books on the Five Points of Calvinism, or A. W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God or James White's The Potter's Freedom. In addition, the relevant chapters of a good Reformed systematic theology, such as Berkhof, would be worth reading before turning to this book from Cornelis Venema. 

The work is valuable for a more in-depth study of the subject, particularly as I said, for the historical analysis and context.

The Difficult Doctrine of the Will of God

Some years ago, Don Carson wrote a short and important small book called The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. In that book he explains how what may appear to be the most straightforward of doctrines, that the God of the Bible is a God of love is, in fact, quite a difficult doctrine once we explore its various implications. 

If Dr Carson was so inclined, I'm sure he could write another book called The Difficult Doctrine of the Will of God.

God's will is an area of theology that might appear to be straightforward at first glance. Isn't the will of God simply what God wants? Well yes, but it is a lot more complicated than that. Whatever else it is, the doctrine concerning God's will is actually far from simple or straightforward once we begin to explore the subject in some depth. And even as simple a definition as 'what God wants' requires much exploration and careful balancing of various parts of the biblical evidence to create a rounded doctrine of the will of God.

The Will of God is One 

The first point that needs clarified is that God truly has but one will. God does not have two separate or conflicting wills. He is not divided in himself. Not only does this truth flow from the simplicity of God, but it also from the express truths of Scripture.

The Appearance of Two Wills in God

Although in himself God only has one will, yet in appearance to his us, his creatures, God's will is customarily discussed as having two senses.

The theologians discuss these two senses of God's will in a number of different ways, each of which is valid and useful. They all view the same distinction in the will of God in similar ways; yet, each has a distinct element also.

1. The Secret Will and the Revealed Will (Voluntas Arcana and Voluntas Revelata)

2. The Decretive Will (Will of Decree or The Sovereign Efficacious Will) and the Preceptive Will (Will of Precept or Command)

3. The Will of Good Will (Voluntas Beneplaciti) and the Will of Sign (Voluntas Signi)

4. The Will of God's Purpose and the Will of God's Delight (also called the Will of Good Pleasure (Eudokia) and the Will of Complacency (Euarestia).

There is a similarity between each of these types of distinction. They all involve the word "will" being used in different senses.

In some ways the secret/revealed will distinction is the least useful or accurate. The secret will is God's sovereign will which is always accomplished. The revealed will is what God wants us to do in order to please him. So, for example, God's revealed will is clear that he does not want us to murder; yet his secret will permits murders to happen every day. The main issue for me with this terminology is that God has revealed that he has a secret will (i.e. that he has a sovereign decree) and so although the details of it may be secret prior to events happening, the fact that he has such a will is no secret. 

For this reason, I prefer the distinction between a will of decree and a will of precept or command. This makes the same point as the secret/revealed will distinction, but in a clearer more accurate manner.

God's will in one sense is what his commands and prohibitions say. Do not steal is God's will. Preach the gospel to every creature is God's will—in the preceptive sense. But in the decretive sense, God's will is what ordains everything that comes to pass. Both types of will ultimately spring from the character and attributes of God, though the will of decree includes within it things that God chooses to permit that he does not approve of, for a greater purpose.

The distinction between the Voluntas Beneplaciti and the Voluntas Signi is very similar, with the former being the decree and the latter being the will of command.

Likewise, the will of God's purpose is the decree and the will of God's delight is his preceptive or revealed will.

All of these distinctions recognise that although God's will is one, there are two senses in which Scripture talks of the will of God. 

In all instances, in one sense, God's will is what he decrees to take place, what his purpose represents, and it is all encompassing, including things which God does not like or approve of. He permits sin to occur for his own purposes, including ultimately to manifest his own glory in the display of his justice and wrath. All things that happen are God's will in this sense. Yet we may not utilise the fact that something happened to conclude that it is God's will in the other sense of being something God approves of, delights in, or enjoys.

If we want to get an idea of what God likes, delights in, approves of, or wants us to do. If we would seek to please God by our actions, then we must look to the revealed will, the preceptive will, the will of the sign, the will of God's delight. We dare not try to extract this from analysing God's decree, since it includes both what God delights in, and what God detests. The revealed will of God is our guide for how God wants us to live.

If God's word commands us, guides us, invites us or asks us, we can be sure that such an action as complies with God's word pleases him. Likewise, if God's word commands us not to, warns us, forbids us, then we can be sure than doing what God commands us not to do will displease God and refraining from any prohibition pleases him.  

The Simple and the Complex Sense

Another useful distinction made by theologians regarding God's will is known as the simple and complex (or compound) senses. The Reformed theologian, Francis Turretin, deals with this in his Institutes.

As I understand the concept, the simple sense involves looking at an event in isolation, as an event in itself. The complex or compound sense involves looking at the thing in relation to everything else.

The value of this insight is obvious when we look at some examples. Take for example the murder of a person. In the simple sense, God clearly condemns and opposes the unlawful taking of a human life. However, in the complex sense, God does permit murders to take place for his own ultimate purposes. Similarly, in the simple sense God wills that everyone who hears the gospel would respond in faith and find salvation in Christ. Yet in the compound sense, God wills only to save his chosen ones, the elect, and not to save everyone who hears the gospel. This is not mere double-talk. We must remember that the simple sense looks at each event as a thing in itself where the complex sense looks at the overall picture, including all things.

This approach is essentially that adapted by John Piper, who talks about looking at God's will in a narrow lens and a wide-angled lens. God can, in this way, be said to desire the salvation of all, viewed in the simple or narrow lens, but only to desire the salvation of the elect in the wide-angled sense, because although in a sense God desires to save all, his desire to glorify himself in the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate is his highest motivation.  

Delight, Desire and Wishes

A final distinction worth mentioning is another important one. The distinction is between God's constitutional attitudes and God's volitions. The former are part of God's nature but need not be part of God's actual will. The latter also stem from God's nature but are also part of God's volition, his will.

The distinction recognises that God may have delight in certain things, and desires or wishes for certain ends that stem only from his constitution or nature but are not part of his sovereign or decretive will, though such desires may find expression the revealed or preceptive will. 

Conclusions

It will be clear from these descriptions that there is a close relationship between what has alternatively been called God's constitutional attitudes in his nature, the simple sense and "revealed" or "preceptive" "will" of God. Likewise there is a correlation between God's volitional choices, the complex or compound sense, and God's sovereign will or the will of decree.

Bearing these distinctions in mind helps us safely and accurately chart a course through the Bible and all that the Scriptures teach concerning the will of God. When we forget these distinctions or blur them or flatten them out we will run into serious theological errors if not heresy. This is one of the false trails that all those who deny God's decree take. They oversimplify and fail to take into account all the Scriptures teach. 

Reformed theology, on the other hand, gives full scope to the entirety of Scripture regarding this difficult doctrine of the will of God. 

Why Does God Choose Some and Not Others?

As ever, John Piper gives an excellent response to the question, "Why does God choose some and not others?" based on Romans 9.

 

 His book that he mentions, The Justification of God is an excellent exposition of Romans 9 as well.

Supralapsarian Theologians

Although the minority view among Calvinists, the list of theologians who are supralapsarian with respect to the logical order of God's decrees (or more accurately, the order of the elements in God's single eternal decree) is an impressive one. The following people have been identified (or call themselves) supralapsarians:

• Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562)
  
• John Knox (1505-1572) 
• Jerome Zanchius (1516-1590)
• Theodore Beza (1519-1605)
• William Whitaker (1548-1595) 
• William Perkins (1558-1602)
  
•  Franciscus Gomarus (1563-1641)
• William Ames (1576-1633)
  
• Johannes Bogerman (1576-1637) - president of the Synod of Dort.
  
• William Twisse (1578-1646) - prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly
  
• Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676)
  
• Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680) 
• Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)
  
• Alexander Comrie (1706-1774) 
• Augustus M. Toplady (1740-1778)
  
• Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)
• Geerhardus Vos (1862-1949)
• G. H. Kersten (1882-1948)
• Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)
  
• Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965)
• Gordon H. Clark (1902-1985)
• Robert L. Reymond (1932-2013)
  

It is debatable whether the first generation of Reformers, Martin Luther (1483-1546), Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) and John Calvin (1509-1564) should also be regarded as supralapsarians., but a good case could be made that they were, along with their contemporaries such as Vermigli, Knox, Zanchius and Beza.

Infralapsarianism Considered

Having previously provided some links to supralapsarian resources online, it only seems right to bring together some resources on the more common Reformed view of predestination, known as infralapsarianism.

Essentially, infralapsarianism is the view that the decree to elect some for salvation and reject others for salvation comes logically after the decision to permit humanity's fall into sin. Hence the term—infra (below, beneath or after) and lapsus (the fall).

This is by far the more common view among Reformed theologians, with some estimating that historically around 5% of Calvinists have been supralapsarians and 95% infralapsarians.

As with some other issues, it is difficult to neatly class John Calvin himself as either definitively infralapsarian or supralapsarian. The dispute among Reformed theologians that gave rise to these terms happened a generation or two after Calvin's death. However, at least in some passages, Calvin seems to view election as being from fallen mankind, which tends towards the infralapsarian view.

Likewise, some theologians seem to reject both infra- and supra- views, most notably Herman Bavinck, while Robert Lewis Dabney objected that the question had even been raised in theology. In the modern day, people like John Frame seem to reject having to choose between either option.

Others, such as Louis Berkhof and Robert Letham, do not decisively come down for infralapsarianism, seeing some logic to the supralapsarian stance, though they do not affirm it, they at least show some sympathy towards the other viewpoint.

The Canons of Dort are infralapsarian in their teaching. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms likewise tend towards the infrapsarianism held to by most of the Westminster divines, while being carefully enough worded that the supralapsarians in the Assembly could also support the chosen wording as far as it goes.

Some useful materials on infralapsarianism include the following:

"Infralapsarianism and Supralapsarianism" by Loraine Boetter: https://covenant-presbyterian.blogspot.com/2024/10/supralapsarian-links.html

"Divine Decrees" by Sam Storms: https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/divine-decrees  

"Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Barry Cooper: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/simply-put/supralapsarianism-and-infralapsarianism 

 "Predestination and the Divine Decree" by Robert Letham: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/predestination-divine-decree/

 "Theological Primer: Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Kevin DeYoung: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/theological-primer-supralapsarianism-and-infralapsarianism/ 

 "Notes on Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Phillip R. Johnson: http://www.romans45.org/articles/sup_infr.htm 

Personally, I favour a modified supralapsarian view. The standard infralapsarian view is correct insofar as it goes. I just rhink there is more interconnectedness in the internal workings of God's decree than infralapsarianism usually allows for. Infralapsarianism has a decision to create, then (logically, not chronologically) a decision to permit the fall, neither of which's purpose can be explained before a third decision to elect and reprobate. I believe that behind these is an overarching purpose which these elements of the decree serve, namely for God to glorify himself in Christ, in all things, through having a covenant people to glorify and enjoy him forever in love, friendship and fellowship with him. This primary purpose is alluded to in Ephesians 1:5: "he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will."

And this purpose or counsel of God ultimately is to the praise of his own glory. As Scripture describes God's purpose " The purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:11-12) and "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever" (Romans 11:36).  

God's Natural Knowledge and His Decree

One of the most difficult areas of theology concerns the interplay between God’s knowledge (or foreknowledge) and what comes to pass in space and time. Every theological position comes at this issue in a different way, depending on their other theological commitments.

The specific issue is between the content of what is often termed "God’s Natural Knowledge" (also sometimes called "God's Necessary Knowledge") and everything that happens in reality from the first instant of creation through to the final consummation of all things in the new creation.

God’s natural knowledge could be defined as that part of God’s knowledge by which he perfectly knows himself, his very nature or essence. Since his essence is necessary, it follows that his natural knowledge includes all necessary truths. Since God's knowledge of himself must, by definition, include knowledge of everything God could do or permit in his creation, this knowledge includes knowledge of all possible creations, all possible creatures and all possible events that could happen to all those possible creatures. His natural knowledge contains every logically possible truth.

God's natural knowledge is often spoken of by Molinists, who distinguish between God's natural knowledge of possibilities and God's free knowledge of what will come to pass. Molinists also posit a third type of knowledge called "middle knowledge" which comes between the other other two and is God's knowledge of what free creatures would do in all feasible circumstances in which they could be placed.

Calvinists, by contrast only speak of God's natural (or necessary) knowledge and God's free knowledge of what will come to pass because God has decreed it.

Because Molinists often speak of natural knowledge, some of the best defintions of natural knowledge come from the Molinists. Here are some definitions:

“God knows all possibilities, including all necessary truths (e.g., the laws of logic), all the possible individuals and worlds he might create, as well as everything that every possible individual could freely do in any set of circumstances in which that individual found itself and everything that every possible stochastic [chance] process could randomly do in any set of circumstances where it existed…God knows his natural knowledge…as indispensable to his very nature, such that God could not lack this knowledge and still be God.” —Kirk R. MacGregor, Luis Molina: The Life and Theology of the Founder of Middle Knowledge (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, Kindle Edition, p. 92)

“With natural knowledge God knows everything that could logically happen.”—Max Andrews, An Introduction to Molinism (Kindle Edition, pp. 38-39)

“God’s natural knowledge includes knowledge of all possibilities. He knows all the possible individuals he could create, all the possible circumstances he could place them in, all their possible actions and reactions, and all the possible worlds or orders which he could create. God could not lack this knowledge and still be God; the content of God’s natural knowledge is essential to him.” —William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God.

The following quote is from the Reformed theological perspective:

“Natural knowledge is God’s knowledge of all necessary truths. What this means is that God’s natural knowledge includes those things that are impossible not to be true, such as the law of non-contradiction (LNC) and God’s attributes. For example, there is no possibility that an object while being a rock is not a rock (LNC), or that God can be other than holy (divine attribute). We might observe up front that objects of natural knowledge are true without God willing them to be so. Rather, objects of natural knowledge are true because they are grounded in God’s unwilled nature. In addition to these sorts of necessary truths, God also knows all possibilities according to his natural knowledge. From a distinctly Reformed perspective, God’s natural knowledge of all possibilities correlates to God’s self-knowledge of what he can do. Which is to say, God can actualize all possibilities, which is not a tenet of Molinism.” —Ron DiaGiamo, “The Reformed Doctrine of Divine Foreknowledge – A Call for A Coherent and Unified Voice (https://philosophical-theology.com/2024/07/01/the-reformed-doctrine-of-divine-foreknowledge-a-call-for-a-coherent-and-unified-voice/)

This is an excellent point. Everything that God could have decreed (i.e. absolutely everything you could ever imagine having been decreed that is not illogical) and God’s natural knowledge of all possibilities are two ways of looking at the same body of possibilities. One limitation of Molinism is that there may be no feasible worlds in which person A would freely do act B at time C. But, provided A, B and C are not illogical nonsense, there is always a possible world in which God could decree that A would do B at time C in a Calvinist paradigm where free will means compatibilist freedom. There is less constraint on God—thanks to compatibilist free will—in Calvinism than there is in Molinism.

Also of interest are Paul Helm’s views found in his blog article “Shunning Middle Knowledge” (http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2009/05/shunning-middle-knowledge.html)

Helm’s views have been influencing on me (as they have been on theologians like Terrance Tiessen I believe) that in Reformed theology with a determinative decree and compatibilist freedom, there is no need for the concept of middle knowledge at all. All we need is natural knowledge (the knowledge God has in himself by his own nature as God) and the free knowledge of everything that will be in line with what he himself has decreed.

I believe this is correct and I think some Calvinists muddy the waters by arguing that all counterfactual truths and possibilities are also part of the decree and are dependent for their existence on the decree. I can see no need why anything other than what comes to pass needs to be part of the decree.

Finally, look at Terrance Tiessen who seems to hold a view similar to what I am proposing: https://www.thoughtstheological.com/introducing-calvinism-and-middle-knowledge-a-conversation/

It is interesting that it seems to be always Molinists who talk about God’s natural knowledge. Why don’t Reformed theologians make greater use of this concept?

Linking God's natural knowledge of all possibilities by way of the eternal decree to God's exhaustive free knowledge of what will come to pass seems to me to be a very fruitful way of approaching subjects such as God's sovereignty over evil and his power to decree evil to occur without in any way being the author of sin.

If God has natural or necessary knowledge in himself of all possibilities, this means he has such knowledge of all possible evils, as well as all the matrices and nodes of secondary causation, free choices, and the circumstances that precede any evils as well as the impact or outcomes of any evils. If God has such knowledge, his ability to sovereignly decree evil to occur is entirely possible by a purely permissive decree. 

In other words, by way of natural or necessary knowledge of all possibilities and by a permissive decree, God can allow evil to certainly occur without in any sense having to be the author of sin. He merely has to let creatures act in ways of their own choosing. This concept destroys criticism of Calvinism from Arminians and others who mistakenly think that if God decrees an evil to take place this means God somehow has to positively bring that evil about. 

A "Calvinist" God who knows all possibilities and chooses to allow certain evils to take place is no more blameworthy than a "Molnist" or "Arminian" God who does the same thing.

I believe this approach is fully in line with the relevant teachings of the Westminster Confession of Faith as outlined in these excerpts:

WCF, II.2: “In His sight all things are open and manifest; His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to Him contingent, or uncertain.”

WCF, III.1: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”

WCF, III.2: “Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.”

WCF, III.3: “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.”

WCF, V.1: “God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”

WCF, V.2: “Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly: yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.”

WCF, V.4: “The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be, the author or approver of sin.”

I don’t think Calvinists make enough use of God’s natural knowledge in our theology. I have heard Calvinists say that the reason God knows what will happen is because God decreed it to happen. That is true as far as it goes, but it is like looking at a cropped picture. This is where I think natural knowledge, which is prevolitional and logically before the decree comes in.

God’s decree does decide what will happen. As the Confession says: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass” (WCF, III.1). But God’s decree does not simply come out of nowhere. God has natural knowledge logically prior to the decree and the decree flows out of God’s natural knowledge. We might even say that God’s natural knowledge of all logical possibilities includes knowledge of all possible decrees God could have put into effect. From all these, he chose one to be the decree that ordains everything in this world. 

I think the important point, in terms of God not being the author of sin, is that God does not have to actively decree anything evil to happen. He can decree is permissively, genuinely permissively, as long as he has natural knowledge that an actor will behave in a certain way in certain conditions. While this is similar in some respects to the Molinist explanation of foreordination via middle knowledge of libertarian choices, this Reformed providential mechanism is different because it is based only on natural knowledge of all possibilities along with a compatibilist view of freedom. Compatibilist freedom or free will is the view that free will and divine determinism are compatible. The explanation for this is because the view accepts a choice was made freely as long as (a) the actor did what he wanted to do, (b) he was neither forced nor coerced so to act.

If God has natural knowledge of all possibilities, this must include knowledge of what any creature would choose to do in any possible matrix of characteristics, desires, conditions and situations, and all causal linkages from the first nanosecond of creation. That knowledge, in combination with a compatibilist view of human free will, is enough to account for a providential model in which God can decree everything which comes to pass yet is in no sense the author of sin.

And this is the Reformed or Calvinist model of providence I believe best accounts for the entirety of scriptural teaching.

Supralapsarian Links

The following is a list of links to supralapsarian resources online. It should not be presumed that I agree either with the contents of these links, far less with other things these authors may have written, but I think they are useful in seeing what supralapsarians really believe. My own views are what I term a kind of "modified supralapsarianism" as outlined here which seeks to take into account some of the infralapsarian criticisms of standard supralapsarianism.

"Supralapsarianism" by Bernard Woudenberg: https://sb.rfpa.org/supralapsarianism/

"Suprlapsarianism is not a dirty word": https://www.apostolictheology.org/2013/01/supralapsarianism-its-not-dirty-word.html 

"Why Is Supralapsarianism The Correct View": https://www.baptists.net/history/2022/08/21-bible-doctrine-why-is-supralapsarianism-the-correct-view/ 

"Why Is Supralapsarianism An Important Issue?": https://www.baptists.net/history/2022/08/22-bible-doctrine-why-is-supralapsarianism-an-important-issue/

 "Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Herman Bavinck: https://www.the-highway.com/Bavinck_predestination2.html. Note that Bavinck gives pros and cons for each view and ultimately rejects both attempts to put the decrees in any order as all are eternal.

"Did God Foreordain Evil and Evil Doers?" by Al Baker: https://banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2010/did-god-foreordain-evil-and-evil-doers/

"Super Supralapsarianism" by Al Baker: https://banneroftruth.org/uk/resources/articles/2010/super-supralapsarianism/

"Supralapsarianism Preferable" by Herman Hoeksema: https://cprc.co.uk/articles/supralapsarianism/ 

"Supralapsarianism and Its Practical Implications" by Ward Fenley: https://www.pristinegrace.org/article.php?id=768 

"Supralapsarianism" by Vincent Cheung: https://www.vincentcheung.com/2010/05/11/supralapsarianism/ 

"The Counsel of God (11): Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Herman Veldman: https://sb.rfpa.org/the-counsel-of-god-11-supralapsarianism-and-infralapsarianism/

A List of Supralapsarians: https://www.semperreformanda.com/theology/eschatology/list-of-supralapsarians-by-supralapsarian/

These links were working at the time this post was published. 

RC Sproul on Unconditional Election

This video with RC Sproul speaking on unconditional election is one of the clearest explanations of the Reformed doctrine I have come across.

 

The Five Points of Calvinism - 2. Unconditional Election

The second of the so-called "Five Points of Calvinism" is known in theology as unconditional election. 

Warning! This is long post.

Unconditional Election is often thought of as the central and distinctive doctrine of Calvinism. That is arguable, but it is certainly the first distinctive doctrine of the Five Points of Calvinism that clashes with Arminianism and other forms of Christianity.

The word "election" in theology is part of the more general doctrine of predestination and refers to God's choice of who will be saved, made prior to the beginning of creation. Election is plainly taught in Scripture and accepted by all Christians who accept biblical authority.

However, many Christians believe in what is called "conditional election." In simple terms this means that God's choice of who will be saved is based on a condition or action done by those who are saved. It is as if God, prior to creation, uses his foreknowledge to look through time and then those he sees as meeting the condition, he then chooses for salvation. The condition to be met is usually regarded as faith in Jesus Christ. So "conditional election" means God chooses those to be saved whom he foresees or foreknows will have faith in Jesus Christ.

The problem with his view is that it reduces God to choosing to save those he sees will choose him. The basis for the choice is not God, but the human being.

A second non-Calvinist view of election is known as "corporate election". This is the view that God chooses the group which is saved, for example God chooses to save the Christian Church, but whether an individual person is part of the favoured group or is excluded from it is up to the human being, not God's choice. This view is very similar to the conditional election view in practice.

For Calvinists, neither of these views does justice to the Bible's teaching about the sovereignty of God in general, and his sovereignty in salvation in particular.

Calvinists, therefore, believe in unconditional election, which means that the choice of who is saved is made solely by God. 

In negative terms, God's choice is not based on any condition (attitude, thought or action) that those who are chosen must meet or are foreseen as meeting. In particular, election is not based on God foreknowing who would believe, nor does election only relate the choice of a group for salvation, it relates to each individual chosen for salvation.

In positive terms, God's choice is made solely within himself, for his own glory and to display his grace on those chosen for salvation. It is this sovereign choice by God which is the ultimate cause of each person's salvation.

The Calvinist view, unconditional election, means, as theologian R. C. Sproul says: "Election rests on God’s sovereign decision to save whomever He is pleased to save." 

The disputed word between Calvinists and non-Calvinists is obviously "unconditional," but I believe the Bible strongly supports the view that God chooses individuals for salvation yet not based on any condition those chosen must meet. 

Unconditional election does not mean "arbitrary" or "capricious" election, though the opponents of Calvinism frequently paint it in that light. Election is made for good reasons as far as God is concerned; however these reasons are not to do with the fitness, character. actions or even foreseen faith of the elect. The reasons are God's reasons, primarily for his own glory.

Unconditional election also does not mean that God will save people irrespective of faith in Christ or irrespective of a how a person lives out their faith. Unconditional election is the reason some are brought to faith and it is the guarantee of the elect evidencing their saving faith in good works. As Ephesians 2:8-10 says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Unconditional election simply means that God chooses the elect not on the basis of any characteristic or condition in those chosen, but for his own reasons, out of love for those who are chosen and for his own glory and praise.

Let's review the evidence, remembering that the discussion is not whether or not God chooses people for salvation—Scripture plainly teaches that much—but whether God's choice is based on something within those who are chosen (conditional) or based on nothing within those who are chosen (unconditional). Is there something about those who are saved that somehow made them more suitable for being chosen than others? The Arminian has to say "yes"—the elect are those who had more spiritual insight or less hostility because they believed in Christ where others in exactly the same position spiritually did not believe. Only the Calvinist says "no"—there was nothing about the elect that made them any more worthy of salvation than anyone else. When the Calvinist says we are saved by pure grace, he really means it.

The starting point for any discussion of unconditional election has to be the wider subject of the sovereignty of God. God is in control of the universe and does what pleases him without reference to anything outside his own will. 

Job 23:13 - "But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does."

Job 42:2 - "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted."

Psalm 115:3 - "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

Psalm 135:6 - "Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps."

Isaiah 46:9-10 - "Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’."

Daniel 4:35 - "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'"

Ephesians 1:11 - "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will."

Once this point is understood, that God is God and he is the One who does whatever he desires and pleases with his creation, unconditional election is merely the application of this same doctrine of the sovereignty of God to the salvation of human beings.

The Bible is consistent from Genesis to Revelation that God is sovereign and he chooses those whom he wishes, without consultation or limitation, whether the choice is for salvation (which is our main concern) or for service.

Exodus 33:19 - "And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord’. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy."

This verse makes it clear that God is in control of his grace and mercy. He has the sovereign right to show grace and mercy wherever he wishes. He also has the right to withhold grace and mercy when he wishes. Therefore, God is never obligated to save anyone, nor prevented from saving anyone either when he chooses. Paul quotes this verse in Romans 9:15 to show that God was neither obligated to save every ethnic Jew, nor prohibited from extending salvation to the Gentiles.

Deuteronomy 7:6-8 - "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

This passage makes it clear that God's people, Israel, were not chosen because they met any criteria for being chosen. They were chosen because Yahweh set his love upon them. We can therefore speak of God's sovereign love being the reason he chooses some and not others, whether this be one nation over another or some individuals and not others.

Psalm 65:4 - "Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!"

This verse makes it clear that, contra those advocating for corporate election and not individual election, that God chooses individuals, not only nations or groups.

Matthew 11:25-26 - "At that time Jesus declared, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.^'"

Here Jesus is speaking directly about htose who would accept or reject him. It is remarkable that his reflection on this is not firstly about human free will or autonomy, but about the Father's purpose, will, and choice.

John 6:37-40, 44 - "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day..No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.."

John 10:14-15, 25-30  - "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep...I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

These passages from John's Gospel, the direct teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, are among the strongest and clearest teachings on unconditonal election in the whole Bible. Not only is the order of salvation clear in John 6, that the Father chooses first and gives a people to the Son, all of whom he will save, but Christ makes a distinction later in John 10 between those who are his (his flock) and others who are not his flock. Most strikingly he does not say to some "You are not part of my flock because you do not believe" which is what we would maybe expect from an Arminian Jesus, but rather "You do not believe because you are not part of my flock" or in other words, because they were not given to him by the Father. The concept of unconditional election is central to the argument of these passages.

John 15:16 - "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you."

This verse is important in making the point that the choice of the disciples was completely unconditional. Christ chose those whom he wanted. It is quite foreign to the concept of election in the Bible to read into it conditionality. Christ never said, far less implied, that he chose the disciples because he knew in advance they would say "yes". The reverse is true, they would say "yes" because he sovereignly chose them.

Arminians sometimes make much of the fact that the choice here is strictly speaking to be disciples and apostles. They try to drive a wedge between election to salvaiton and election to service. Such a distinction is man-made and not derived from Scripture. In choosing these men to lead the church this was merely an extension of them being chosen for salvation, because the eleven here (Judas had already left the room - John 13:29-30) were all elected for salvation and to serve as church leaders.

Acts 13:48 - "And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed."

This one of the strongest verses on unconditional election or sovereign election in the New Testament. The order of events is the opposite of Arminian claims. It is those who were appointed ("ordained" - KJV) for eternal life who believed, not those who believed who were appointed for eternal life. An Arminian would never write this verse the way Luke wrote it.

Before we move on to look at the apostle Paul's teachings on election, it is perhaps worth noting that some people believe that unconditional election is a peculiarly Pauline concept. It is worth recognising that hitherto we have only examined the writings of Moses, the Psalms, Matthew and John mainly quoting Jesus himself, and Luke in Acts. Unconditional election is clearly established by these and many more non-Pauline texts. Paul only writes more extensively and explicitly but holds to the same teaching as the other biblical writers and the Lord himself.

Romans 8:28-30 - "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

This passage is a wonderful testimony to unconditional election when read properly and in context.

Perhaps in passing we might first note how difficult it is to conceive how God can make all things work together for good to those who love him (v.28) in a world where everyone has libertarian free will outside God's control, but we will let that pass.

The main point is about the "golden chain" of salvation here in verses 29 and 30. The order given by Paul is foreknown > predestined > called > justified > glorified.

In this context "whom he foreknew" cannot refer to pre-knowledge of facts or things about people (i.e. it cannot refer to God foreknowing who would believe) for the simple reason is that since God is omniscient, he knows all things about all people. It would make no sense to talk about "those whom he foreknew" as a distinct group if the Arminian view is correct since God foreknows everything about everyone. No, this has to be referring to "knowing" in the biblical sense of intimacy and love. Those who are foreknown here are "foreloved". This is knowing in the same way as Jesus meant when he said to the damned "I never knew you" (Matthew 7:23).

The rest of the "chain" is clear, from God's choice through to final glory. None are lost along the way (cf. John 6:37). All who are foreknown and predestined are justified and glorified.

All actions are God's. He accomplishes these things. It totally disrupts the nature of the apostle's thoughts, and the beauty of the picture of grace presented, to insert human free will as the determining factor and upon which God's choice is supposedly dependent.

Romans 9:10-13, 15-16 - "And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, 'The older will serve the younger.' As it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'...For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy."

Paul further expands on his teaching on sovereign election in Romans 9. The whole chapter should be carefully read. Paul goes as deep as any human being ever has into the mind and purposes of God (see Romans 9;19-24). The teaching is clear. Paul contrasts God's purpose of election with human actions (v.16). The fact that God's choice of Jacob over Esau was before they were born or had done anything good or evil strongly suggests that election is not conditional on foreseeing who would believe.

1 Corinthians 1:27-29 - "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."

Here again Paul's argument, reminiscent of Jesus' words in Matthew 11:25-26 we looked at already, does not sound like someone who believes God's choice is based on anything in those who are chosen. If that were so, his argument would fall apart. The argument is that God chose those who are least likely to be chosen, precisely to glorify himself and rule out human boasting.

Conditional election does not achieve this. Instead those who are chosen do have something to boast about—that God foresaw they would believe where others would not. It is impossible to avoid the saved in Arminianism seeing that they are somehow better than those who are lost. In Calvinism by contrast, the saved have nothing to boast about whatever as even God's choice was not based on any difference between the saved and the lost.

Ephesians 1:4-5 - "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will."

Paul is explicit in this great passage in Ephesians 1 that predestination flows from love and that the choice was "according to the purpose of his will" not according to him foreseeing who would believe.

2 Timothy 1:9 - "[God] who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began."

Once again, Paul's thought is fully explicable if election is unconditional, but difficult to explain if God's choice of us is logically preceded by our choice of God. He explicitly says we were saved and called not on the basis of anything in us ("our works") but because of God's sovereign will ("his own purpose and grace"). And all this happened before the ages began!

Unconditional election may be the most hated doctrine of all because it glorifies God and humbles man more than any other doctrine. Unconditional election proclaims that God is indeed God. The Calvinist welcomes this and says "Let God be God". All other views cannot accept this and in one way or another make God's purpose dependent on human free will, a concept of which the Scriptures know nothing.

Modified Supralapsarianism

I have recently been thinking about the order of God's decrees and after much thought, I have decided that the correct view is probably what I would term a modified form of supralapsarianism. Though infralapsarianism is certainly the view taught in the Reformed confessions, such as the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession, it is also true that these confessions, particularly the Westminster Confession, certainly leave room for supralapsarianism as well, particularly as I will outline it in this post.  

As we will consider, there are significant problems with aspects of both the standard infralapsarian presentation and the standard supralapsarian view. As a result, I propose a modified view, which we will now discuss as a modified form of supralapsarianism which builds on the best points of both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism.

It was only after forming this view independently that I came to understand that something very like the view presented here was held historically by some who identify as supralapsarians such as the Dutch theologian, Peter van Mastricht (as explained here by Geerhardus Vos).

The differences between the two views should not be overemphasised anyway. Both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism agree that the creation, fall, election and reprobation are all included within God's all-encompassing decree. The only differences concern the logical order of the elements within the eternal decree, not a chronology as such. In both views, all the parts of the decree—creation, fall, election and reprobation—are eternal.

The view advocated here suggests a pre- or supralapsarian aspect to God's decree, a discrimination in the mind of God, so to speak, between one group who would ultimately be saved and another who would ultimately be lost, prior to the logical decision to create or permit the fall, but this is combined with a post- or infralapsarian view of the election of individuals into the two groups, the elect for salvation in Christ and the preterition or rejection of individuals and the decision to punish them for their sins.

The standard infralapsarian order of the decrees (or of the logical moments with a all-encompassing decree) is as follows:

• Decree to create humanity 
• Decree to permit the fall 
• Decree to elect some of the fallen mass of humanity to salvation and decree to reprobate the remainder of humanity to condemnation 
• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.
  

This order tracks the same order as the events play out in time and history beginning with creation then fall then election then salvation.

Though this is by far the most common presentation among Calvinists, it has significant problems, which we can list as follows:

1. The planning of God appears to follow exactly the same as the historical order plays out in time, but in planning a final goal the end point is decided first and then the steps to reach the end goal. A analogy would be a baker. He first decides to bake a cake and then assembles the ingredients, weighs them out, mixes them before putting the mixture in the oven to achieve the final aim. He does not take out ingredients and begin to mix them up and then finally decide to bake a cake!
   
2. What is the purpose of God in creation and permitting the fall if the decree of salvation only comes in after these two decisions have already been made? The normal infralapsarian order does not account for why God permitted the Fall to take place.
   
3. This order of decrees does not include the overarching purpose of all things being for the glory of the triune God in the display of his attributes of justice and grace.

The most common supralapsarian order of the decrees is as follows, and though this helps answer these questions, it is not without issues of its own difficulties: 

• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.
• Decree to elect some for salvation and reprobate others to condemnation
• Decree to create the elect and the reprobate
• Decree to permit the fall

This answers the problems of infralapsarian. Here creation and fall serve a prior and higher purpose to have elect to save and reprobate to condemn which will bring God glory. Here the order is the reverse of the historical playing out of the decrees. This order ties in better with God’s primary concern to display his own glory and the final state of the elect and the non-elect is foremost in God’s mind. However, the traditional supralapsarian scheme also has its own significant problems.

1. If the decree to create comes after the decree of predestination of individuals, how can there be individuals to elect or reprobate if their creation has not even been contemplated. This would seem to be a significant problem. Yet if the separation of elect and non-elect only happens after contemplation of their creation, then their creation must have been contemplated with another purpose in mind which seems contrary to the spirit of supralapsarianism.
   
2. The supralapsarian view has more difficulty avoiding charges of God creating people and then predestining them to damnation without first regarding them as sinful, indeed without any reference to sin, potentially making the purpose of God unjust, which cannot be.
3. The supralapsarian view tends to see creation merely as a means to an end, rather than having any independent divine purpose for the display of the divine glory in its own right.
   
4. The supralapsarian view posits a divide between elect and reprobate individuals that precedes and overrides any other consideration. This can make it difficult for supralapsarians to account for biblical passages that speak of God's love and goodness for all shown in common grace and mercy.
5. The supralapsarian view can sometimes be presented in a way that lacks nuance in presenting the elect as the recipients only of grace and the reprobate the recipients only of wrath and justice, when the reality of the divine decree is that the elect were children of wrath as much as the non-elect prior to their conversion and the non-elect remain recipients of divine benevolence and goodness despite their rejection for salvation.
   

A modfied supralapsarian position, which seeks to take the best of both traditional positions, could be set forth as follows: 

• Decree to glorify the triune God himself in the display of all his attributes and in the works of all persons of the Trinity in creaton, providence, the fall, salvation and condemnation.
• Decree to have two groups of people, one in covenant with him through Christ and the Holy Spirit and receiving salvation and the other outside of covenant with him and receiving condemnation and punishment (but without any individuals in either group). 
• Decree to create the world and humanity in God’s image – displaying God’s greatness, wisdom, glory, imagination, creativity, etc.
• Decree to permit the fall. 
• Decree to elect some individuals of the fallen mass of humanity to salvation and decree to reprobate the remainder of the individuals of humanity to condemnation (this part of the decree does concern individuals viewed as sinners)
• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.

It will be noted that the additional two points helps explain the purpose of the creation and the permission of the fall, while the remaining points follow the traditional infralapsarian order, all to God's primary purpose of glorifying himself and sharing the life of the Godhead with his image bearers in covenant with himself in supralapsarian manner. 

  

The key distinction in this scheme lies between God decreeing to have a saved covenant people and a non-saved group outside the covenant and this distinction and part of the decree is made prior to contemplating the fall and God determining which individuals will be elected for salvation, leaving others to be reprobated and condemned (which occurs only after the individuals are considered as fallen and sinful individuals). We could call this scheme a kind of hybrid with a kind of supralapsarian corporate election and reprobation, but a logically subsequent infralapsarian individual election of individuals and the reprobation only of sinful individuals. For this reason, I believe this remains a modified form on supralapsarianism, though it could equally be viewed as a modified form of infralapsarianism. It is distinct from either traditional presentation of the two views after all.

The fundamental objections to infralapsarianism are answered in this scheme without falling into the harshness of the traditional supralapsarian scheme because at the point individuals are elected or reprobated they are viewed in the divine mind as sinners, undeserving of salvation and deserving damnation:

1. That creation and the fall do serve a prior purpose of God in glorifying himself, displaying certain of his attributes and bringing about individuals to be elected and reprobated.
   
2. The order of events in time occur to bring about prior determined aspects of the decree (to have a covenant people in Christ and a non-covenant remainder of humanity to God's own glory)
3. This view is clear that any individual is only elected to salvation or passed by and condemned when viewed as a sinner, not merely a creature.
4. This view makes it clear that although there is double predestination, there is no equal ultimacy between the choosing of the elect and the reprobation of the non-elect. Election is a positive act; reprobation is a passive passing by and only an active judicial condemnation for sin.
5. Although this view sees a distinction between two groups from the first, there is not reason to reject a universal love and common grace to all humanity under this scheme, nor does it affect the free offer of the gospel being made to all.
   

This view recognises that what the ultimate goal is first in logical order and then the steps to reach the goal follow in the plan in historical order. It recognises that in the planning, the planner must also consider what the correct historical order of events needs to be to reach the goal.

It will be interesting to see what other Reformed theologians have made of this issue where they are infralapsarian but seek to address some of the objections to this view. I know that the great Dutch Reformed theologian, Herman Bavinck, rejected both supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, believing that God's decree is one organic whole. I would agree with this to a point, except that it seems necessary to account within the single decree for the logical decisions God must have made. As with the previous cake analogy, it is difficult to see how God would not first choose the ends he wants and then the means to achieve those ends (this is the essence of the supralapsarian view of course), yet the cake recipe also requires the steps to be ordered in the correct way that leads from assembling and weighting ingredients to the final cake. Most importantly, this view is clear that God elects and rejects actual fallen individual human beings, not just created human beings. 

Therefore, though sovereign, God cannot be regarded as unjust or arbitrary. His grace and mercy to the elect is truly grace and mercy shown to undeserving sinners and His justice and wrath to the reprobabte is truly justice and holy wrath shown to hell-deserving sinners. Thus the harsher aspects of supralapsarianism are avoided, but also the weakness of the traditional infralapsarian view which struggles to explain God's purpose in the creation and the permission of the fall.