Supralapsarianism or Infralapsarianism?

For those who are wondering, you can be neither: supra nor infra. McWilliams quotes Bavinck and Dabney that the debate should have never taken place. The reason why is that there are no succession of moments in thought in the mind of God. He knows everything exhaustively eternally. There is a creator creature distinction. Creatures think temporally in terms of causality and purpose. God knows everything in one moment harmonically. He does not have to think I am going to elect, create then permit the fall. It is all one decree in the mind of God.


Here are a few quotes

Dabney “It should never had arisen because the starting point, the view that the ultimate end must be first in eternal purpose could only be relevant to a finite mind. Since God’s mind admits no succession of moments, (Bavinck - since all things are eternally present in his consciousness - Doctrine of God p 393.), God’s decree is a unified single conception all parts of the decree are equally present and all are equally primary to his mind.”


Bavinck “because of the limiting character of our reasoning powers we proceed from the one to the other viewpoint, that is teleology and causality, succession of moments, this disharmony does not exist in the mind of God. He sees the whole and surveys all things in their relations. There is a rich all sided reciprocity. The history of the universe can never be made to fit into a little scheme of logic.”


Supra’s weakness and dangers. 1) Creation becomes merely a means to an end. 2) undermines the concept of common grace. All benevolence is for the elect, the good given to the reprobate for one reason only, to further damn them. There can be no free offer of the gospel. When Gods rain to just and unjust, compassion to human beings because they are human beings. It is not because it is to further damn them only. That is not what we get when we read the sermon on the mount. It is multifarious, but not merely to damn them. This is a pastoral problem. 3) predestination is an abstract doctrine that is cut adrift from the cross. It is not uncommon among supras to find theologians that God chose by means of the cross but he could have chosen otherwise by divine fiat, he could have forgiven sins. 4) it tends to make man a non-entity. He becomes an abstraction. It dehistorisizes him.

Infra’s weakness and dangers. 1) it can fail to harmonize the relationships between creation and election. It can view sin and creation independent of redemption. The greatest problem is that it is a speculative matter.