# Supralapsarian - am I the minority?



## Mathias321 (Jun 2, 2017)

I am strongly convinced of the supralapsarian side of lapsarianism. By strongly convinced I do not mean I will divide over it  - but that I find it personally important and very convincing. Agreed, this is a minor point of discussion and probably not worth fighting over about. But is it true I am the minority here even in the reformed camp?

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## Ray (Jun 3, 2017)

No your not in the minority

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## greenbaggins (Jun 3, 2017)

As to your question, there are plenty of supralapsarians out there. I find the question somewhat moot, myself. Those who debate this question will claim up one side and down the other that they are only arguing for a logical priority among the decrees, and yet they always lapse into temporal categories when describing their position. The decree of God is a seamless whole. There is no before and after. I conclude, therefore, that God decrees election of people seen as sinners (a tip to infra), while simultaneously decreeing all for His own glory (a tip to supralapsarians). There is no before or after in the decree.

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## Dachaser (Jun 3, 2017)

greenbaggins said:


> As to your question, there are plenty of supralapsarians out there. I find the question somewhat moot, myself. Those who debate this question will claim up one side and down the other that they are only arguing for a logical priority among the decrees, and yet they always lapse into temporal categories when describing their position. The decree of God is a seamless whole. There is no before and after. I conclude, therefore, that God decrees election of people seen as sinners (a tip to infra), while simultaneously decreeing all for His own glory (a tip to supralapsarians). There is no before or after in the decree.


The main Confessions of the faith and the ones such as Dort do seem to imply the Infra position though, but does allow to hold Supra also!


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## Romans922 (Jun 3, 2017)

Dachaser said:


> The main Confessions of the faith and the ones such as Dort do seem to imply the Infra position though, but does allow to hold Supra also!



So, basically, you just confirmed Lane's position by referring to other confessions.


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## Dachaser (Jun 3, 2017)

Romans922 said:


> So, basically, you just confirmed Lane's position by referring to other confessions.


How so?


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## Romans922 (Jun 3, 2017)

You said it allows for both essentially. You said it implies infra but allows for supra. Which means it allows for both. And really when it comes down to it, it all depends on how you read those confessions. You can come at from a supra point of view and see it, and vice versa. Your comment only affirmed what Lane was saying. Lane said, "I conclude, therefore, that God decrees election of people seen as sinners (a tip to infra), while simultaneously decreeing all for His own glory (a tip to supralapsarians)." That's what the Confessions do, it allows for both views.


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## timfost (Jun 3, 2017)

Bavinck masterfully wrote about the subject, and basically came to Lane's conclusion. Even though it's a technical discussion, Bavinck's work is devotional.

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## Dachaser (Jun 3, 2017)

Romans922 said:


> You said it allows for both essentially. You said it implies infra but allows for supra. Which means it allows for both. And really when it comes down to it, it all depends on how you read those confessions. You can come at from a supra point of view and see it, and vice versa. Your comment only affirmed what Lane was saying. Lane said, "I conclude, therefore, that God decrees election of people seen as sinners (a tip to infra), while simultaneously decreeing all for His own glory (a tip to supralapsarians)." That's what the Confessions do, it allows for both views.


Thanks for the further explanation. The Infra position would be the viewpoint of the majority of reformed, correct?


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## Andrew P.C. (Jun 4, 2017)

greenbaggins said:


> while simultaneously decreeing all for His own glory (a tip to supralapsarians). There is no before or after in the decree.



Both agree on both of these points, so I'm not sure how this is a "tip" to Supralapsarianism.


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## MW (Jun 4, 2017)

Someone wrote a post. I then read it. This came to pass. God has decreed all things which come to pass. God decreed someone to write a post which I would then read. The decree itself is one and eternal. But this decree includes succession and causal connection between a multiplicity of events. There is a succession between writing and reading. One cannot read what is not written. There is also causal connection and means to the end, e.g. internet, keyboard, sight, reading capacity, etc.

The lapsarian debate concerns this order of succession and causal connection in the things which God has decreed. It does not suggest there is temporality or succession within the act of decreeing itself.

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## Stephen L Smith (Jun 4, 2017)

timfost said:


> Bavinck masterfully wrote about the subject, and basically came to Lane's conclusion. Even though it's a technical discussion, Bavinck's work is devotional.


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## MW (Jun 4, 2017)

The advantage of Thomas Goodwin's Christological supralapsarianism is that one may take the benefit of both views by affirming that all things are for Christ in different ways depending on whether the means or the end is in view.

Thomas Goodwin, Works, 9:343-344: "There is a controversy among those that are orthodox in point of election, under and in what view in eternity the elect came up before God, whether in their fallen or unfallen estate, when they were the subject of his election. {344} Those that are called Superlapsarians, they say, Man came up into God's mind first, without the consideration of the fall; and that the creation, and then the permission of the fall, were but as means to bring about the designs of election, which were ordained before the fall. Others, whom you call Sublapsarians, account the creation and the fall but a matter of common providence, not intended as means to accomplish election, but only as antecedents; and that God began his election, having first foreseen man would fall. These are two extreme opinions; but there is a third, and that is, that both man unfallen and fallen, and all things that did or could fall out concerning man, being in one entire view before God at once, whose infinite understanding grasps and comprehends all in one prospect, as he doth all time into an instant, being all present to God (though of the things themselves one succeed the other in execution), that *God had respect to both estates in his election*, *and that some sort of his decrees respected man as unfallen*, *and some as fallen*. Now it is certain that some respect man as fallen; for to appoint man to faith in Christ his Redeemer, to appoint man to repentance, such decrees must be upon the consideration of man as fallen.

Give me leave to be of the latter's opinion, and I explain myself thus in it: that there is an election to the end, which is to the utmost glory which I have spoken of, and there is an election to the means, as Christ's redemption on his part, faith and repentance on ours, which are in the way to that glory. This notion I have elsewhere enlarged upon, but as to my present purpose, as God's election had these two respects, so suitably *Christ bears a twofold relation to us through God's ordination*, *the one of being Christ and an head to us*, *which suits his decrees of election as to the end*, *and which considered man as unfallen*; *the other of Jesus a Saviour*, *which wholly respects man fallen into sin*, *and to be restored out of it*."

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## jwithnell (Jun 4, 2017)



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## Mathias321 (Jun 4, 2017)

My current belief is that God decreed the ends and means of salvation (election) and reprobation (election being active on God's part and reprobation being active on man's part) in order to glorify Himself in both His display of mercy and justice. God decreed the death and resurrection of His Son before the foundation of the world to secure the salvation of the elect (the death and resurrection of His Son to secure the salvation of His elect is the chief purpose God made man in order to glorify Himself) - whereas the decree of the fall was the means by which the Cross was made necessary and by which the damnation of the reprobate can be just. So in my current belief the decree of election is logically before the decree of the fall.


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## KMK (Jun 4, 2017)

greenbaggins said:


> Those who debate this question will claim up one side and down the other that they are only arguing for a logical priority among the decrees, and yet they always *lapse* into temporal categories when describing their position.



I get it. Good one.

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## Dachaser (Jun 5, 2017)

MW said:


> Someone wrote a post. I then read it. This came to pass. God has decreed all things which come to pass. God decreed someone to write a post which I would then read. The decree itself is one and eternal. But this decree includes succession and causal connection between a multiplicity of events. There is a succession between writing and reading. One cannot read what is not written. There is also causal connection and means to the end, e.g. internet, keyboard, sight, reading capacity, etc.
> 
> The lapsarian debate concerns this order of succession and causal connection in the things which God has decreed. It does not suggest there is temporality or succession within the act of decreeing itself.


Regardless of position taken on this issue, all what was decreed happened from eternity past, as they all happened at the"same time"...


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## timfost (Jun 5, 2017)

MW said:


> Someone wrote a post. I then read it. This came to pass. God has decreed all things which come to pass. God decreed someone to write a post which I would then read. The decree itself is one and eternal. But this decree includes succession and causal connection between a multiplicity of events. There is a succession between writing and reading. One cannot read what is not written. There is also causal connection and means to the end, e.g. internet, keyboard, sight, reading capacity, etc.
> 
> The lapsarian debate concerns this order of succession and causal connection in the things which God has decreed. It does not suggest there is temporality or succession within the act of decreeing itself.



I see how a logical ordering of decrees make sense in the scenario you provided since it takes place in time in an ordered sequence. However, I cannot understand how predestination can ever be classified in a logical order since predestination never occurs in time.


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## Jack K (Jun 5, 2017)

Matthew G. Bianco said:


> But is it true I am the minority here even in the reformed camp?



Even if we limit the pool of Reformed people to those who understand the issue, I suspect the majority would fall into the "not sure"/"don't care all that much"/"maybe it's some of both" camp.

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## MW (Jun 5, 2017)

Dachaser said:


> Regardless of position taken on this issue, all what was decreed happened from eternity past, as they all happened at the"same time"...



The things happen in time in sequence with an order of means and end. They clearly do not happen at the same time. The decree was one, but the things decreed are diverse.


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## MW (Jun 5, 2017)

timfost said:


> I see how a logical ordering of decrees make sense in the scenario you provided since it takes place in time in an ordered sequence. However, I cannot understand how predestination can ever be classified in a logical order since predestination never occurs in time.



Predestination is the decree as it relates to individual destiny. Like the decree we distinguish the act of predestinating from the things predestinated. Like the things decreed things predestinated occur in time. E.g., to be conformed to the image of His Son, Rom. 8:29; unto the adoption of children, Eph. 1:5; to believe in Jesus Christ, Acts 13:48.

To borrow from Thomas Goodwin's reasoning, some of the blessings of predestination are ordained as the means, and some of the blessings are ordained as the end. Conformity to the Son would belong to the end. Faith would belong to the means.


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## Dachaser (Jun 6, 2017)

MW said:


> The things happen in time in sequence with an order of means and end. They clearly do not happen at the same time. The decree was one, but the things decreed are diverse.


All of what was to happen was decided upon by God at the "same time", but the end results were worked out in time as we know and live in....


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## MW (Jun 6, 2017)

Dachaser said:


> All of what was to happen was decided upon by God at the "same time", but the end results were worked out in time as we know and live in....



Yes; and the "end results" are worked out in a way that demonstrates order and purpose in the decree.


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## Dachaser (Jun 7, 2017)

MW said:


> Yes; and the "end results" are worked out in a way that demonstrates order and purpose in the decree.


The hardest thing for me to understand in all of this issue is keep trying to view these as happening one after the other in real time, not as part of overall decree from eternity past....


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## MW (Jun 7, 2017)

Dachaser said:


> The hardest thing for me to understand in all of this issue is keep trying to view these as happening one after the other in real time, not as part of overall decree from eternity past....



That sounds like the problem we all have in which our time-bound reason struggles to understand a reality that is eternal in and of itself. All theologians have managed to do in this case is to negate the limitations of time. They cannot really define eternity as it exists for God. Trying to define an act from eternity escapes us.


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## Dachaser (Jun 8, 2017)

MW said:


> That sounds like the problem we all have in which our time-bound reason struggles to understand a reality that is eternal in and of itself. All theologians have managed to do in this case is to negate the limitations of time. They cannot really define eternity as it exists for God. Trying to define an act from eternity escapes us.


The concept of Eternity itself eludes me, as cannot fathom " a time" when God first decided to decree things, but also always was decreeing those things....


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Jun 8, 2017)

Dachaser said:


> The concept of Eternity itself eludes me, as cannot fathom " a time" when God first decided to decree things, but also always was decreeing those things....


Try not to imagine "a time", rather think "_equally vividly_" as relates to how God perceives.


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