Ask Mr. Religion
Flatly Unflappable
This is the time of the year that living in Arizona makes the summer sweltering heat a distant memory for me. It is the time of the year that the brochures describe about my home state. 
When the cold weather starts (tonight the temps will drop to the mid-fifties), I find it a wonderful time to immerse myself into serious reading and study.
As I await the arrival of Beeke's Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life next week, I have seasoned my forthcoming studies with my reading of Young's Reformed Thought. Here is a man who has been overlooked by many and one that I recommend to everyone interested in an unabashed treatment of so-called High Calvinistic thinking. Young's decretal theology presented in Reformed Thought is challenging many of my presuppositions. Perhaps some here can lend me a hand with some questions I have as I read Young’s short treatment of Infra- and Supralapsarianism. My observations appear in boldface amongst the transcription of Young’s short essay below.
[Wm. Young writes:]Calvinist theologians present a variety of views on the order of the divine decrees. This essay concerns the relation between election and the the decree as to the Fall. Were the elect chosen to eternal life and glory from the pure mass of created or creatable mankind or from the corrupt mass of fallen men?
How important is the distinction Young makes with the phrase “created or creatable mankind” when obviously referring to the supralapsarian view? Young appears to be allowing some leeway in how the supralapsarian views the decree, that is, by accounting for creatable or actually created mankind.
[Wm. Young writes:]Both the supralapsarian affirmation of the former and the infrapsarian affirmation of the latter agree that the order is purely logical, not temporal in nature. Election is an eternal decree, and so is the decree to permit the Fall, while the Fall is itself a temporal event. So far, there is complete agreement of both views. Both views also are in full accord in holding the doctrine of election as a sovereign divine decree. They disagree only as to the logical order of two elements within the eternal decree.
Logical order itself must be regarded as in agreement with the divine simplicity. The “whole and its parts” or “genus and its species” distinctives do not apply to God. (Cf. WCF II, I). Nor does God know by syllogistic reasoning when we correctly assert that He knows the logical relationship of the premises and conclusion of a syllogism. We do not care to enter here on the difficult question of the relation of logic to the mind of God, except to point out that our formulations of logical order are not necessarily in one-to-one correspondence with the divine mind. This consideration has an obvious bearing on discussions about the order of the decrees of God.
What factors are in play with Young’s view of the “relation of logic to the mind of God”? Per Hodge, if the contents of the Bible did not correspond with the truths which God has revealed in his external works and the constitution of our nature, it could not be received as coming from Him, for God cannot contradict himself. Nothing, therefore, can be more derogatory to the Bible than the assertion that its doctrines are contrary to reason. The assumption that reason and faith are incompatible; that we must become irrational in order to become believers is, however it may be intended, the language of infidelity; for faith in the irrational is of necessity itself irrational....We can believe only what we know, i.e., what we intelligently apprehend. Is Young implying that relying upon logic here is to put logic before God, as if God is constrained by logic? Or, is the implication that God’s logic is not identical to proper human logic?
[Wm. Young writes:] The supralapsarian adopts a teleological view, that the first in intention is the last in execution. Election is the intention to save the elect, and the salvation of the elect, its execution. The infralapsarian adopts a historical or mixed temporal view. The “supra” has a powerful logical appeal and has been adopted by Theodore Beza, William Perkins, Franciscus Gomarus, Johannes Maccovious, William Twisse, Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, Thomas Goodwin, and others. The “infra” has attracted many, despite its logical difficulties, mixing eternity with time, the effect of the past. Yet, no basic difference of doctrine exists. Both alike hold the absolute sovereignty of God in election and related points. In view of this difference of the sense of order, there is no necessary contradiction between the supra- and the infralapsarian representation.
Curiously, Young on the one hand passes on dealing with the distinctions between logic in the mind of God, yet here he appeals to an apparent logical coherence in the supralapsarian view, contra “logical difficulties” in the infralapsarian position. To me Young appears to hang his hat on the appeal of “the first in intention is the last in execution”. This is a common refrain from the supralapsarian, yet where is the logical argument to support this assumption? Further, is this assertion actually claiming something different that Young’s previous “our formulations of logical order are not necessarily in one-to-one correspondence with the divine mind”?
[Wm. Young writes:] As supralapsarian William Twisse (1575-1646), prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly observed:
It is true there is no cause of breach either of Unity or Amity between the Divines upon this difference, as I shewed in my digressions De Praedestinatione Digress. 1. Seeing neither of them derogate either from the prerogative of Gods grace, or of his soveraignty over his creatures, to give grace to whom he will, and to deny it to whom he will, and consequently, to make whom he will vessels of his mercy, and whom he will vessels of wrath; but equally they stand for the divine prerogative in each. And as for the ordering of God’s decrees of creation, permission of the fall of Adam, giving grace of faith and repentance unto some, and denying it to others, and finally saving some and damning others, whereupon only arise the different opinions, as touching the object of predestination and reprobation it is merely Apex Logicus, a poynt of Logick. (Src: William Twisse, The Riches of God’s Love unto the Vessells of Mercy, Consistent With His Absolute Hatred or Reprobation Of the Vessells of Wrath, Oxford: L. Lichfield and H. Hall for T. Robinson, 1653, 35).
Note Twisse’s claim that the issue regarding the object of predestination is merely a point of logic. Is it?
[Wm. Young writes] While his Supralapsarianism is usually his claim to fame, Twisse’s amicable discussion of the differences of view is noteworthy. The Westminster Assembly in like manner refrained from supralapsarian language favored by George Gillespie, but objected to by Edmund Calamy and others (Src: Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, 15ff). From Chapter III of the Westminster Confession of Faith, treating of election before Chapter VI, treating of the Fall of man, it is not right to infer supralapsarianism. Nor is it right to infer infralapsarianism from election being first mentioned after the Fall in the Shorter Catechism, Question 20.
Young apparently sees no issue with the frequently cited to pass by from WCF III.VII, used to imply that the lump of clay was a fallen mass of humanity to bolster the infrapsarian position. If indeed the lump of clay was not a fallen mass of humanity, what is exactly being passed over versus the determinate will of God to ordain some to reprobation?
[Wm. Young writes] Not all Presbyterians have adopted this tolerant view. James Henley Thornwell (1812-1862) writes, “But the question concerning the order of the Divine decrees implies something more than a question of logical method. It is readily a question of the highest moral significance.” (Src: James Henley Thornwell, Collected Writings (1875; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974, 2:20.) While Thornwell correctly observes the significance of the character and the order of the decrees, he is strangely blind to the difference of the teleological order of the “supra” and the order of the “infra”. This would suffice to answer his objection to the former. But it is a blatant misinterpretation that “supra” is like hanging a man before he was convicted. The more formal formulation us no less faulty; Thornwell writes, “Even Supralapsarians admit that sin must precede condemnation; but the question is whether in the Divine thought the real ground of it, or only a providential means of executing the decree of reprobation formed irrespective of it.” (Src: Ibid, 21.) All supralapsarians from Beza, and most emphatically Twisse, have maintained not merely that actual condemnation follows sin in time, but that it is for sin that God has decreed to condemn them. Twisse is particularly cleared from the charge of making the decrees of reprobation and the Fall as in relation of end and means.
Here begins the treatment of the moral issue that transcends any mere point of logic. I struggle here with the “for sin” aspect Young raises as somehow exonerating Twisse. It seems that we have God now looking through time and seeing what a person will do, then reprobating that person. Thornwell’s implied question seems ignored: “Was condemnation grounded in the actual sin of a person, or was this condemnation but a providential means to the end—God’s decree to reprobate some, per supralapsarianism?” What does “for sin” mean to you?
[Wm. Young writes] Thornwell would do well to remember his own observation of the relation of means and ends, viz., “the determinations of God in regard to them are determinations about things so and so connected.” (Src: Ibid, 20.) Twisse states that “not one of our divines that I know, doth maintain that God did ever purpose to inflict damnation, but for sin.” (Src: Twisse, previously cited Riches of God’s Love…, 14.) Twisse is not to be held to hold a version of “supra” that makes the fall a means to damnation:
So that like as God doth not intend the creatures creation, before he intends his damnation, in the same respect he cannot be said to intend his damnation, before he intends his creation, or the permission of his sinne.
And this rightly considered, sets an end unto all quarrel about the different consideration of Man in election and reprobation, which yet is about a Schoole point, touching the right stateing of the end and the means, and the right ordering of Gods decrees concerning them. And doth it not set an end also, to all aspersions of cruelty cast upon the holy providence of God, from the guilt of which kind of blasphemies, nothing can free them, but confidence in their own way, as if it were the way of truth, and that by convincing evidence of holy Scripture? Whereas it appears how little direction they take from the Word of God throughout, for the shaping of their Tenet in this. Yet neither is any such confidence, able to free them from the guilt of such blasphemies which they utter: well it may free them from the conscience of it, yet if it doe, that is more than I know. And only to these two ends doth this aliene discourse of our different opinions thereabouts tend, as I conceive, namely to shew the difference of our Divines, and to give vent to those aspersions of blasphemy on the first way, as also to make way for the third part, which comes to be considered in the next Section, in the manner how they fall upon the relation of the second way. (Src: ibid, 11.)
Not having the full context Young is quoting Twisse from above, I assume the “they” in the quote are those persons that would assign moral guilt to God for reprobating persons from an unfallen lump of humanity, a frequent mis-characterization of the supralapsarian’s position. Twisse’s reference to “in the next Section” has certainly peaked my interest, as it appears he goes on to discuss a third aspect and its connection to aspersions of cruelty cast upon the providence of God. Anyone having some insights here would be appreciated.
Moreover, if I have unpacked Twisse’s quote from Young correctly, Twisse states that God did not intend creating before intending damnation, nor did God intend damnation before intending creation or permission of sin. Left unsaid, I suppose here, is the intention of God was something different, as in, for His good pleasure and glory. Hence, Twisse argues that given other intentions of God, all discussion of the proper ordering are arguments strictly about logical orderings. Young appears to agree with my assumption in the conclusion to this essay below:
[Wm. Young writes] Since the “infra” agrees that the distinction of the elect and the reprobate was not due to their works but to the good pleasure of the sovereign will of God, and the “supra” agrees that in the case of the reprobate the object of the decree was condemnation for their sins, Twisse is justified in his conclusion that there is no substantial difference between them, but simply a point of logic or apex logicus.
When the cold weather starts (tonight the temps will drop to the mid-fifties), I find it a wonderful time to immerse myself into serious reading and study.As I await the arrival of Beeke's Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life next week, I have seasoned my forthcoming studies with my reading of Young's Reformed Thought. Here is a man who has been overlooked by many and one that I recommend to everyone interested in an unabashed treatment of so-called High Calvinistic thinking. Young's decretal theology presented in Reformed Thought is challenging many of my presuppositions. Perhaps some here can lend me a hand with some questions I have as I read Young’s short treatment of Infra- and Supralapsarianism. My observations appear in boldface amongst the transcription of Young’s short essay below.
[Wm. Young writes:]Calvinist theologians present a variety of views on the order of the divine decrees. This essay concerns the relation between election and the the decree as to the Fall. Were the elect chosen to eternal life and glory from the pure mass of created or creatable mankind or from the corrupt mass of fallen men?
How important is the distinction Young makes with the phrase “created or creatable mankind” when obviously referring to the supralapsarian view? Young appears to be allowing some leeway in how the supralapsarian views the decree, that is, by accounting for creatable or actually created mankind.
[Wm. Young writes:]Both the supralapsarian affirmation of the former and the infrapsarian affirmation of the latter agree that the order is purely logical, not temporal in nature. Election is an eternal decree, and so is the decree to permit the Fall, while the Fall is itself a temporal event. So far, there is complete agreement of both views. Both views also are in full accord in holding the doctrine of election as a sovereign divine decree. They disagree only as to the logical order of two elements within the eternal decree.
Logical order itself must be regarded as in agreement with the divine simplicity. The “whole and its parts” or “genus and its species” distinctives do not apply to God. (Cf. WCF II, I). Nor does God know by syllogistic reasoning when we correctly assert that He knows the logical relationship of the premises and conclusion of a syllogism. We do not care to enter here on the difficult question of the relation of logic to the mind of God, except to point out that our formulations of logical order are not necessarily in one-to-one correspondence with the divine mind. This consideration has an obvious bearing on discussions about the order of the decrees of God.
What factors are in play with Young’s view of the “relation of logic to the mind of God”? Per Hodge, if the contents of the Bible did not correspond with the truths which God has revealed in his external works and the constitution of our nature, it could not be received as coming from Him, for God cannot contradict himself. Nothing, therefore, can be more derogatory to the Bible than the assertion that its doctrines are contrary to reason. The assumption that reason and faith are incompatible; that we must become irrational in order to become believers is, however it may be intended, the language of infidelity; for faith in the irrational is of necessity itself irrational....We can believe only what we know, i.e., what we intelligently apprehend. Is Young implying that relying upon logic here is to put logic before God, as if God is constrained by logic? Or, is the implication that God’s logic is not identical to proper human logic?
[Wm. Young writes:] The supralapsarian adopts a teleological view, that the first in intention is the last in execution. Election is the intention to save the elect, and the salvation of the elect, its execution. The infralapsarian adopts a historical or mixed temporal view. The “supra” has a powerful logical appeal and has been adopted by Theodore Beza, William Perkins, Franciscus Gomarus, Johannes Maccovious, William Twisse, Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, Thomas Goodwin, and others. The “infra” has attracted many, despite its logical difficulties, mixing eternity with time, the effect of the past. Yet, no basic difference of doctrine exists. Both alike hold the absolute sovereignty of God in election and related points. In view of this difference of the sense of order, there is no necessary contradiction between the supra- and the infralapsarian representation.
Curiously, Young on the one hand passes on dealing with the distinctions between logic in the mind of God, yet here he appeals to an apparent logical coherence in the supralapsarian view, contra “logical difficulties” in the infralapsarian position. To me Young appears to hang his hat on the appeal of “the first in intention is the last in execution”. This is a common refrain from the supralapsarian, yet where is the logical argument to support this assumption? Further, is this assertion actually claiming something different that Young’s previous “our formulations of logical order are not necessarily in one-to-one correspondence with the divine mind”?
[Wm. Young writes:] As supralapsarian William Twisse (1575-1646), prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly observed:
It is true there is no cause of breach either of Unity or Amity between the Divines upon this difference, as I shewed in my digressions De Praedestinatione Digress. 1. Seeing neither of them derogate either from the prerogative of Gods grace, or of his soveraignty over his creatures, to give grace to whom he will, and to deny it to whom he will, and consequently, to make whom he will vessels of his mercy, and whom he will vessels of wrath; but equally they stand for the divine prerogative in each. And as for the ordering of God’s decrees of creation, permission of the fall of Adam, giving grace of faith and repentance unto some, and denying it to others, and finally saving some and damning others, whereupon only arise the different opinions, as touching the object of predestination and reprobation it is merely Apex Logicus, a poynt of Logick. (Src: William Twisse, The Riches of God’s Love unto the Vessells of Mercy, Consistent With His Absolute Hatred or Reprobation Of the Vessells of Wrath, Oxford: L. Lichfield and H. Hall for T. Robinson, 1653, 35).
Note Twisse’s claim that the issue regarding the object of predestination is merely a point of logic. Is it?
[Wm. Young writes] While his Supralapsarianism is usually his claim to fame, Twisse’s amicable discussion of the differences of view is noteworthy. The Westminster Assembly in like manner refrained from supralapsarian language favored by George Gillespie, but objected to by Edmund Calamy and others (Src: Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, 15ff). From Chapter III of the Westminster Confession of Faith, treating of election before Chapter VI, treating of the Fall of man, it is not right to infer supralapsarianism. Nor is it right to infer infralapsarianism from election being first mentioned after the Fall in the Shorter Catechism, Question 20.
Young apparently sees no issue with the frequently cited to pass by from WCF III.VII, used to imply that the lump of clay was a fallen mass of humanity to bolster the infrapsarian position. If indeed the lump of clay was not a fallen mass of humanity, what is exactly being passed over versus the determinate will of God to ordain some to reprobation?
[Wm. Young writes] Not all Presbyterians have adopted this tolerant view. James Henley Thornwell (1812-1862) writes, “But the question concerning the order of the Divine decrees implies something more than a question of logical method. It is readily a question of the highest moral significance.” (Src: James Henley Thornwell, Collected Writings (1875; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974, 2:20.) While Thornwell correctly observes the significance of the character and the order of the decrees, he is strangely blind to the difference of the teleological order of the “supra” and the order of the “infra”. This would suffice to answer his objection to the former. But it is a blatant misinterpretation that “supra” is like hanging a man before he was convicted. The more formal formulation us no less faulty; Thornwell writes, “Even Supralapsarians admit that sin must precede condemnation; but the question is whether in the Divine thought the real ground of it, or only a providential means of executing the decree of reprobation formed irrespective of it.” (Src: Ibid, 21.) All supralapsarians from Beza, and most emphatically Twisse, have maintained not merely that actual condemnation follows sin in time, but that it is for sin that God has decreed to condemn them. Twisse is particularly cleared from the charge of making the decrees of reprobation and the Fall as in relation of end and means.
Here begins the treatment of the moral issue that transcends any mere point of logic. I struggle here with the “for sin” aspect Young raises as somehow exonerating Twisse. It seems that we have God now looking through time and seeing what a person will do, then reprobating that person. Thornwell’s implied question seems ignored: “Was condemnation grounded in the actual sin of a person, or was this condemnation but a providential means to the end—God’s decree to reprobate some, per supralapsarianism?” What does “for sin” mean to you?
[Wm. Young writes] Thornwell would do well to remember his own observation of the relation of means and ends, viz., “the determinations of God in regard to them are determinations about things so and so connected.” (Src: Ibid, 20.) Twisse states that “not one of our divines that I know, doth maintain that God did ever purpose to inflict damnation, but for sin.” (Src: Twisse, previously cited Riches of God’s Love…, 14.) Twisse is not to be held to hold a version of “supra” that makes the fall a means to damnation:
So that like as God doth not intend the creatures creation, before he intends his damnation, in the same respect he cannot be said to intend his damnation, before he intends his creation, or the permission of his sinne.
And this rightly considered, sets an end unto all quarrel about the different consideration of Man in election and reprobation, which yet is about a Schoole point, touching the right stateing of the end and the means, and the right ordering of Gods decrees concerning them. And doth it not set an end also, to all aspersions of cruelty cast upon the holy providence of God, from the guilt of which kind of blasphemies, nothing can free them, but confidence in their own way, as if it were the way of truth, and that by convincing evidence of holy Scripture? Whereas it appears how little direction they take from the Word of God throughout, for the shaping of their Tenet in this. Yet neither is any such confidence, able to free them from the guilt of such blasphemies which they utter: well it may free them from the conscience of it, yet if it doe, that is more than I know. And only to these two ends doth this aliene discourse of our different opinions thereabouts tend, as I conceive, namely to shew the difference of our Divines, and to give vent to those aspersions of blasphemy on the first way, as also to make way for the third part, which comes to be considered in the next Section, in the manner how they fall upon the relation of the second way. (Src: ibid, 11.)
Not having the full context Young is quoting Twisse from above, I assume the “they” in the quote are those persons that would assign moral guilt to God for reprobating persons from an unfallen lump of humanity, a frequent mis-characterization of the supralapsarian’s position. Twisse’s reference to “in the next Section” has certainly peaked my interest, as it appears he goes on to discuss a third aspect and its connection to aspersions of cruelty cast upon the providence of God. Anyone having some insights here would be appreciated.
Moreover, if I have unpacked Twisse’s quote from Young correctly, Twisse states that God did not intend creating before intending damnation, nor did God intend damnation before intending creation or permission of sin. Left unsaid, I suppose here, is the intention of God was something different, as in, for His good pleasure and glory. Hence, Twisse argues that given other intentions of God, all discussion of the proper ordering are arguments strictly about logical orderings. Young appears to agree with my assumption in the conclusion to this essay below:
[Wm. Young writes] Since the “infra” agrees that the distinction of the elect and the reprobate was not due to their works but to the good pleasure of the sovereign will of God, and the “supra” agrees that in the case of the reprobate the object of the decree was condemnation for their sins, Twisse is justified in his conclusion that there is no substantial difference between them, but simply a point of logic or apex logicus.
