Does Supralapsarianism make God the Author of Sin?

"If our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?" (Romans 3:5-7).

A common accusation against supralapsarianism, especially from Arminians, but also even from professing Calvinists, is that it makes God the author of sin. They point out, correctly, that supralapsarianism teaches that God predestined the Fall. Therefore, they say, He forced Adam and Eve to sin. However, that is a false equivalency. Predestination does not imply force, as Calvinists have always said: "Nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established" (Westminster Confession of Faith III:1). Adam and Eve chose to sin. The fact that their choice was consistent with God's decree doesn't change the fact that it represented what they wanted to do. 

Furthermore, the choice of Adam and Eve was to commit an evil act. They knew the commandment of God regarding the tree. They understood that they were disobeying that commandment. And they knew that the desire underlying that choice was to achieve Satan's promise of autonomy from the lordship of God (Genesis 3:5). In every way, what they sought was wickedness. And that was why their choice properly brought them under the judgment of God.

In His decree, however, God had a very different purpose, as Paul describes in the verses above. God's decree of the Fall was certainly not to grant autonomy to Adam and Eve. That would, indeed, have been to seek a sinful end. Rather, the decree was intended to bring about His own glory, the highest good that is possible! That is, God's decree that Adam would fall into wickedness was to the highest good that any end could be.And, therefore, the cavil of the Arminian is refuted.

Fair and Equal, Versus the Justice of God

"The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble" (Proverbs 16:4).

In American culture, there is a high value placed on fairness and egalitarianism. Anyone with at least two kids has experienced the protests of, "That isn't fair!" Or, "he got more than I did!" The standard parental response is, "Well, life isn't fair."

I am not saying that there is necessarily anything wrong with either fairness or equality. However, I do object to their being turned into overriding considerations. That is how we get socialism, the assumption that fairness requires, not equal rights, but equal outcomes. If two people, one hard-working and the other lazy, are paid the same, is that fair and equal? Certainly. However, is it just? I would say "no." If a rich man dies, and leaves his children well-provided, while another man, a poor one, dies and leaves his children destitute, is that fair and equal? Obviously not. Is it just? In this case, I would say "yes." Would it be fair and equal to deprive the rich man's children of their inheritance, in order to make to everyone's outcome the same? Ah, there is the crux of the matter!

The question is this: If one person benefits from a thing that another person does not have, is that fair and equal? Think about Christmas. If your parents could afford to give you a ten-speed bike, but the parents down the street can only afford to give their kids a new pair of gloves, what do we do? Take away your bike?

This is the difference between justice and fairness in the examples I have described: the ability of some parents to give more is nowhere by depriving other parents of the same ability (I am not talking about criminals, of course). That is, the children who have received less in my examples would have received what they did, no matter what had happened to the richer children.

The same principle applies to the purposes of God. When the Scriptures are read that tell us that God has determined His use for every person who has existed or ever will, is it fair that the purpose is positive for some, but negative for others? "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" (Romans 9:21). But asking that question is to ignore that we exist only because He has given us existence. And, as Paul implies, it is the right of the creator to create things according to his own purposes, not according to the desires of those things.

People, including professing Christians, hate that truth! they snarl and proclaim their devotion to fairness and equality, while sweeping aside the proper issue of justice. If we had not been created to serve the purposes of God, then we would have had no existence at all! therefore, the purposes of God do not deprive us of anything that we would otherwise have had. Therefore, "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have You made me like this?'" (Romans 9:20).

The Promise of a Church in the Intra-Trinitarian Covenant

We are taught to pray by claiming the promises of God - and I consider that a good thing. In fact, I believe that is what is meant by John, when he tells us to pray according to God's will (I John 5:14). One of the things that amazes me about this is that Jesus followed the same principle.

In two places in Isaiah, the Father promises a people, a posterity, to the pre-incarnate Son. In Isaiah 42:6, He says, "I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take You by the hand and keep You; I will give You as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations." The promise is even grander in Isaiah 49:6: "It is too light a thing that You should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make You as a light for the nations, that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth." The first could refer just to the Jews, but the second expands the promise to the Gentiles, as well, to give a fuller glory to the Son.

The Son responds in Isaiah 8:18, "Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion." And again in Psalm 22:22: "I will tell of your name to my brothers." As the Father glorifies the Son with a posterity, so does the Son glorify the Father to that posterity. These last two verses are explicitly applied to the Son in Hebrews 2:12-13.

In the New Testament, we see Jesus claiming these promises of the Father in the Gospel of John. He refers to "those You have given me" in John 10:29: "My Father has given them to Me" [i. e., His "sheep"]. He makes similar remarks several times in John 17:4, 6, 9, 11-12, and 24. 

These verses describe what I have called the Intra-Trinitarian covenant. It is also called the covenant of redemption. There is more to that covenant than I describe here; I am merely describing one aspect of it. It is the basis of our salvation. The Father elected a church from all eternity, and gave it to the Son for redemption. I don't describe it here, but the Holy Spirit is also involved, undertaking to apply the redemption to the elect. This covenant, however, as much as we benefit from it, is not about us. it is about the glory that each Person of the Trinity gives to the others. I compare it to life insurance. Since it only pays upon the death of the party insured, he receives no benefit from it; rather, the benefits go to the beneficiaries, who are third parties to the contract. In the same way, the elect are the beneficiaries of the intra-Trinitarian covenant: we were not consulted, nor is it for our glory, but from it we receive redemption from our sins.

This covenant goes against two false doctrines. The first is that the love of God and the atonement of the cross are intended for everybody, but not necessarily effectual to anyone. The second is far more heinous, i. e., the doctrine of the Oneness pentecostals, who deny the Trinity, deny the person of the Father and the Holy Spirit. All three Persons of the Trinity are, and have always been, involved in our salvation. Without the Trinity, therefore, there can be no one saved.

This doctrine is described in the Westminster Confession of Faith (VIII:1): "It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only-begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and men, the prophet, priest, and king; the head and Savior of the Church, the heir or all things, and judge of the world; unto whom He did, from all eternity, give a people to be His seed, and to be by Him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified."

A Supralapsarian Song

A theme song for supralapsarians! Kind of jazzy with nice guitar. It's instrumental only, so I don't know how it is meant to be supralapsarian. But I'll take it!

Just Thinking About Some Theological Stuff: Supralapsarianism

For the last couple of days, I have been pondering one of the deeper issues in Reformed theology: the division between supralapsarians and infralapsarians. How are those for fifty-cent words? Anyway, what I say below is my thinking process. I am not completely decided, so I in no way intend what I say to be taken dogmatically.  I am just laying out where my thinking is.

The issue is a division over the order of the decrees. Supralapsarians place election in the mind of God before the fall into sin. That is, from Latin, "supra," above, "lapsus", the fall. Infralapsarians (also called "sublapsarians"), in contrast, place the fall ahead of election. That is, "infra," below, "lapsus," the fall. The difference is over whether God elected a people, then used the creation and fall of Adam to attain the goals of election. Or did He create Adam, who then fell, and then God elected a people as a remedy for the fall. Note that these are not intended to be considered actions in time, but rather the purposes in the mind of God.

To my mind, supralapsarianism reserves election to the issue of God's glory, alone. God is glorified when His attributes are exhibited. Accordingly, election served to satisfy God's existence, not man's. For example, Paul explains that predestination reveals the glory of His mercy (Romans 9:23), of His grace (Ephesians 1:6), and of His riches (Ephesians 1:18). While predestination certainly occurred in love (Ephesians 1:4-5), even that was first His love to us, not ours to Him (I John 4:19, but also in the entire passage of verses 7-21). In other words, to glorify His attribute of love.

In addition, it seems to me that only the supralapsarian view gives full credence to Romans 9:21: "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel to honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" That certainly seems to place God's will as the a priori principle of predestination and reprobation, not a posteriori as required by infralapsarianism.

While both supralapsarians and infralapsarians place the decrees in the mind of God before the Creation, i.e., before time (see Ephesians 1:4, Hebrews 4:3, and Revelation 17:8), infralapsarians still view election as a remedy for the fall. Their reasoning is that to do otherwise makes God the author of sin. And I certainly grant that as a serious issue. However, I suggest that the objection must be made to Paul, not to supralapsarians. I don't know how to resolve this particular question. However, since I consider all of Scripture to be the Word of God, I must submit to what the Scripture says, and let my own doubts or questions fall wherever they may. And the question is, indeed, acknowledged even in the Scriptures themselves. In Isaiah 45:7, God says, "I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, Who does all these things."

And finally, I have a problem with the idea of God's doing something to remedy an action of man, as if He were caught by surprise. That makes the purposes of God subject to men, while Scripture puts men subject to the purposes of God (Isaiah 42:8, 43:7, and 48:11).

The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism correctly states that the chief end of man is "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." However, fallen man turns it around and acts as if God's chief end is to glorify man! Reformed theology is a correction to that crowning error of humanism. And supralapsarianism seems to me to be the consistent application of Reformed, i.e., biblical, theology.

Addendum on 12/1/13: I am reading the Reformed Dogmatics of Dutch-American theologian Herman Hoeksema. His answer to the question of God as author of sin seems reasonable. He says that sin lies in the motivation, not in the act per se. He gives the example of killing. Murder for gain is sinful; the execution of a criminal as an act of justice is not. Therefore, God's purpose in predestining the acts of the reprobate contains no sin, because His purpose is to further His plan of redemption of the elect. The act may be sin in the person committing it, because his motivation in the act is sinful, but that motivation is the responsibility of the sinner, not of the providence of God.