The Infralapsarian Or Supralapsarian Debate

[Big Ben]

I read this interesting post on a blog recently, and thought it was worth repeating. Any comments welcomed.

Why the Lapsarian Debate is Irrelevant

This is a response to Calvinism and the Divine Decrees – Correcting a Misunderstanding over at the excellent Parchment & Pen Blog.

First, to clear up what this post is not: this is not a disputation as to whether decrees can precede one another. Even lacking a temporal order, a logical order may be necessary. Patton explained it very well (and I think the debate would be in general better phrased) in terms of means and ends, rather than order of decrees. He uses the example of marriage: does one marry for the sake of love, with children as a happy consequence, or marry for the sake of an heir with love as only the necessary prerequisite? Neither is unheard of. This distinction is then extended to God’s relationship to humanity: Were humans created for the sake of salvation and reprobation, or were salvation and reprobation created for the sake of humans?

Seen thus in light of means versus ends, the debate becomes less arcane. Its irrelevance also becomes more apparent – for neither of these things are ends in themselves. God’s only final ends are his own glory, and all of creation and history are those ends playing out. It is not the case that the infralapsarian versus supralapsarian debate hinges on whether or not God is the author of sin – neither position has any bearing on God’s passivity or activeness in decreeing the fall. In neither case can the existence of evil be laundered through passivity on God’s part, free will or otherwise: the active-passive distinction is meaningless when applied to the Sovereign (a fact also relevant to the single/double-predestinarian debate).

It is the heart of Calvinism – and thus both lapsarian strands – that all of creation, including evil, exists for the magnification of the glory of God by display of his attributes. Therefore, the only divine decree which can be said to logically precede any other is the decree that the glory of God should be declared. Everything else is a means to that. Ultimately both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism place mankind as ends in the designs of God – a place which mankind is not warranted to occupy.

The fact of our existence is proof that we serve the glory of God better than our nonexistence. This fact, the Leibniz principle, levels all further means and ends into uniform means: humanity is not for salvation and reprobation, nor are salvation and reprobation for humanity, but all are for the glory of God. Any benefit to us means we’re just tagging along for the ride.

Author: Unknown

[Gameboy]

I read this interesting post on a blog recently, and thought it was worth repeating. Any comments welcomed.

Why the Lapsarian Debate is Irrelevant

This is a response to Calvinism and the Divine Decrees – Correcting a Misunderstanding over at the excellent Parchment & Pen Blog.

Thank you Ben.
  That was acrtually quite good and thought provoking. I thought it makes a lot of sense.

[Bruce]

I read this interesting post on a blog recently, and thought it was worth repeating. Any comments welcomed.

Why the Lapsarian Debate is Irrelevant

This is a response to Calvinism and the Divine Decrees – Correcting a Misunderstanding over at the excellent Parchment & Pen Blog.

Thank you Ben.
  That was acrtually quite good and thought provoking. I thought it makes a lot of sense.

 Ditto!

[lpowell]

Just wondering if it should be asked if this debate must rest upon first answering the question of whether law was present in creation anticipating mans separation from God.  In other words, was man born perfected and ready for eternal life with God before he fell. Or was man born just good and temporally acceptable to God and thus had to be accompanied by Law pointing toward Christ.

Rom 7:8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.
9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

Lloyd

[Trevor]

I believe that the Supralapsarian position illustrates the holiness of God in relationship to the fall and the logical order of His decrees and justice much better than Infra. I read this interesting article by Geerhardus Vos and thought I would share it with you to see if you had any comments or disagreed with this conclusion.

http://feedingonchrist.com/geerhardus-vos-supra-infra-lapsarianism/