Dan Chapa

Calvinists generally face the issue of God punishing people for acts that they cannot avoid, since Calvinists deny libertarian free will and maintain we cannot do otherwise than what God has decreed for us to do, but supra-lapsarianism faces two additional issues: 1) God reprobates certain men for some reason other than their sins and 2) God necessitates the fall of mankind in order to accomplish election and reprobation. Supra-lapsarians believe that in the order of decrees ( which is a logical ordering of God’s plan from eternity, rather than a temporal order of the execution of His plan in time) election and reprobation come before the fall. In this sense the fall and sin are not the reasons God reprobates. So supra-lapsarians hold that God reprobates for some reason other than sin. After God has reprobated, He needs man to sin and be in a fallen condition, so He decrees the fall to accomplishing reprobation. Infra-lapsarians avoid these two issues by saying that in the logical or...

Calvinist Greg Welty states: Clearly then, the controversy between Calvinists and non-Calvinists over unconditional election is not the Calvinists’ assertion that God elects some for salvation, since non-Calvinists believe this too. Rather, the controversy is over the Calvinists’ negative claim , namely, the denial that divine election unto salvation is on the basis of works or foreseen faith. ( link ) It's interesting to me that while Calvinists are not united on the doctrine of election; they all agree Arminianism is wrong. So as opposed to formulating the doctrine of election in a positive assertion unique to Calvinism, they simply deny the Arminian view of foreseen faith. This has it's roots in the supra vs. sub lapsarian controversy. If they all agreed that God choose from among pre-fallen man or post-fallen man they could form such a positive assertion. But since they disagree on this point, they go with the enemy of my enemy approach and target Arminianism. The problem...

I recently read Herman Bavinck on supralapsarian and infralapsarian predestination. ( link ) Bavinck’s approach is intriguing. He argues that both the supralapsarian and infralapsarian systems have their strengths and weaknesses, so he cherry-picks the strengths and discards the weaknesses as he presents his own unsystematized views on the subject of predestination. To be clear, he is not saying that he is unable to systematize predestination, but rather that the topic cannot be systematized. This approach has its drawbacks. Without a logical order, the topic can’t really be explained, nor can Bavinck be sure his system is free from contradiction. Advocates of Bavinck's approach claim greater freedom to interpret scripture, but if your interpretation of one passage is in tension with another passage, you can never be sure your interpretation is correct. Systematic theology is a lot of hard work. You have to keep many pieces in view simultaneously to ensure you don't run int...