Basic HTML Version
110
This proceeds on the supposition that logically preterition precedes the decree to create and to
permit the fall, while condemnation follows this. The logic of this position may be questioned,
but it at least shows that the Supralapsarians who assume it, teach that God takes account of
sin in the decree of reprobation. p> <p>b. Positively, the difference does concern: (1) The
extent of predestination. Supralapsarians include the decree to create and to permit the fall in
the decree of predestination, while Infralapsarians refer it to the decree of God in general, and
exclude it from the special decree of predestination. According to the former, man appears in
the decree of predestination, not as created and fallen, but as certain to be created and to fall;
while according to the latter, he appears in it as already created and fallen. (2) The logical order
of the decrees. The question is, whether the decrees to create and to permit the fall were
means to the decree of redemption. Supralapsarians proceed on the assumption that in
planning the rational mind passes from the end to the means in a retrograde movement, so
that what is first in design is last in accomplishment. Thus they determine upon the following
order: (a) The decree of God to glorify Himself, and particularly to magnify His grace and justice
in the salvation of some and the perdition of other rational creatures, which exist in the divine
mind as yet only as possibilities. (b) The decree to create those who were thus elected and
reprobated. (c) The decree to permit them to fall. (d) The decree to justify the elect and to
condemn the non-elect. On the other hand the Infralapsarians suggest a more historical order:
(a) The decree to create man in holiness and blessedness. (b) The decree to permit man to fall
by the self-determination of his own will. (c) The decree to save a certain number out of this
guilty aggregate. (d) The decree to leave the remainder in their self-determination in sin, and to
subject them to the righteous punishment which their sin deserves. (3) The extension of the
personal element of predestination to the decrees to create and to permit the fall. According to
Supralapsarians God, even in the decree to create and permit the fall, had His eye fixed on His
elect individually, so that there was not a single moment in the divine decree, when they did
not stand in a special relation to God as His beloved ones. Infralapsarians, on the other hand,
hold that this personal element did not appear in the decree till after the decree to create and
to permit the fall. In these decrees themselves the elect are simply included in the whole mass
of humanity, and do not appear as the special objects of God’s love.
2. THE SUPRALAPSARIAN POSITION.
a. Arguments in favor of it:
(1) It appeals to all those passages of Scripture which emphasize
the absolute sovereignty of God, and more particularly His sovereignty in relation to sin, such as
Ps. 115:3; Prov. 16:4; Isa. 10:15; 45:9; Jer. 18:6; Matt. 11:25,26; 20:15; Rom. 9:17,19-21. Special
emphasis is laid on the figure of the potter, which is found in more than one of these passages.
It is said that this figure not merely stresses the sovereignty of God in general, but more
especially His sovereignty in determining the quality of the vessels at creation. This means that