Reprobation is the antithesis to
election and necessarily follows from it. If God does not elect a person, he
rejects him. If God decides to convert a sinner into a saint, he decides to let
him remain a sinner. If God decides not to work in a man to will and to do
according to God’s will, he decides to leave the man to will and to do according
to his own will. If God purposes not to influence a particular human will to
good, he purposes to allow that will to have its own way. When God effectually
operates upon the human will, it is election. When God does not effectually
operate upon the human will, it is reprobation. And he must do either the one
or the other. The logical and necessary connection between election and
reprobation it seen also by considering the two divine attributes concerned in
each. Election is the expression of divine mercy, reprobation of divine
justice. God must manifest one or the other of these two attributes toward a
transgressor. St. Paul teaches this in Rom. 11:22: “Behold the goodness and
severity of God (divine compassion and divine justice) on them which fell
severity; but toward you goodness.”
Consequently, whoever holds the
doctrine of election must hold the antithetic doctrine of reprobation. A creed
that contains the former logically contains the latter, even when it is not
verbally expressed (e.g., Augsburg Confession 1.5; First Helvetic Confession 9;
Heidelberg Catechism 54). . . . The reprobate resist and nullify common grace,
and so do the elect. The obstinate selfishness and enmity of the human heart
defeats divine mercy as shown in the ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit, in
both the elect and nonelect: “You stiff-necked, you do always resists the Holy
Spirit” (Acts 7:51). The difference between the two cases is that in the
instance of the elect God follows up the common grace which has been resisted
with the regenerating grace which overcomes the resistance, while in the
instance of the reprobate he does not. It is in respect to the bestowment of
this higher degree of grace that St. Paul affirms that God “has mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens.” Says Bates (Eternal Judgment,
2):
It is from the perverseness of the
will and the love of sin that men do not bey the gospel. For the Holy Spirit
never withdraws his gracious assistance, till resisted, grieved, and quenched
by them. It will be no excuse that divine grace is not conferred in the same
eminent degree upon some as upon others that are converted; for the impenitent
shall not be condemned for want of that singular powerful grace that was the
privilege of the elect, but for receiving in vain that measure of common grace
that they had. If he that received one talent had faithfully improved it, he
had been rewarded with more; but upon the slothful and ungrateful neglect of
his duty, he was justly deprived of it and cast into a dungeon of horror, the emblem
of hell.
Reprobation comprises preterition
and condemnation or damnation. . . . The decree of preterition or omission is a
branch of the permissive decree. As God decided to permit man to use his
self-determining power and originate sin, so he decided to permit some men to
continue to use their self-determining power and persevere in sin. Preterition
is no more exposed to objection than is the decree to permit sin at first. . .
. Preterition is not inconsistent with the doctrine of divine mercy. A man who
has had common grace has been the subject of mercy to this degree. If he
resists it, he cannot complain because God does not bestow upon him still greater
mercy in the form of regenerating grace. A sinner who has quenched the
convicting influence of the Holy Spirit cannot call God unmerciful because he
does not afterward grace him the converting influence. A beggar who
contemptuously rejects the divine dollars offered by a benevolent man cannot
charge stinginess upon him because after this rejection of the five dollars he
does not give him ten. A sinner who has repulsed the merc of God in common
grace and demands that God grant a yet larger degree virtually says to the
infinite one: “You have tried once to convert me from sin; now try again and
try harder.” . . . . The decree of preterition does not necessitate perdition,
though it makes it certain. (a) It has no effect at all, in the order of decrees,
until after the free will of man has originated sin. The decree of preterition
supposes the voluntary fall of man. It succeeds, in the order of nature, the
decree to permit Adam’s sin. Preterition, consequently, has to do only with a
creature who is already guilty by his own act and justly “condemned already”
(John 3:18). (b) It is a permissive not an efficient act on the part of God
that is exerted in preterition. In respect to regeneration, God decides to do
nothing in the case of a nonelect sinner. He leaves him severely alone. He permits
him to have his already existing self-determination, his own voluntary
inclination. This is not compulsion, but the farthest possible from it.
Compulsion might with more color of reason be charged upon election, than upon
preterition. For in this case, God works in the human will “to will.” . . . The
decree of preterition makes perdition certain, because the bondage of the
sinner’s will to evil prevents self-recovery. There are but two agents who can
be conceived of as capable of converting the human will from sin to holiness,
namely, the will itself and God. If owning to its own action the human will is
unable to incline itself to holiness and God purposes not to incline it,
everlasting sin follows, and this is everlasting perdition. The certainty of
the perdition of the nonelect arises from his inability to recover himself from
the consequences of his own free agency and the decision of God to leave him “to
eat of the fruit of his own way and to be filled with his own devices” (Prov.
1:31).
The reason for preterition or not
bestowing regeneration grace is secret and unknown to man. It supposes sin, but
not a greater degree of sin than in the elect. . . . Again, preterition, while
supposing existing sin and unbelief, does not rest upon foreseen perseverance
in sin and unbelief. God did not omit Esau in the bestowment of regenerating
grace, because he foreknew that he would continue to do wrong in the future. He
was passed by, “not having done any evil,” that is, without reference either to
past or future transgression. (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology:
Complete and Unabridged, Volumes 1-3 [Reformed Retrieval, 2021], 267, 268,
269-70, 273, 274)
The supralapsarian quotes Rom.
9:11 in proof of his assertion that election and preterition are prior to the
creation of man: “The children being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil,” Jacob was chosen and Esau was left. This is an erroneous interpretation.
Birth is not synonymous with creation. Parents are not the creators of their
children. Man exists before he is born into the world. He exists in the womb;
and he existed in Adam. Accordingly, in Rom. 9:10-12 it is said that “when
Rebecca had conceived, it was said to her, The elder shall serve the younger.”
The election and preterition related to the embryonic existence. Jacob and Esau
had real being in their mother, according to Ps. 139:15-16: “By substance was
not hid from you, when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest
parts of the earth. Your eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in
your book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when
as yet there was none of them.” St. Paul (Gal. 1;15) says that he was “separated
and called form his mother’s womb.” God says to Jeremiah (1:5), “Before you
came out of the womb, I sanctified you.” In saying that they had not “done any
good or evil” at the moment of their election and preterition, actual
transgression after birth is meant. Original sin, or corruption of nature,
characterized them both; otherwise, it would be absurd to speak of electing one
of them to mercy and leaving the other to justice. Absolute innocence can neither
be elected or rejected, saved or lost. Ephesians 3:9-10 is explained by the
supralapsarian to teach that creation is subsequent in the order to redemption.
But the clause who created all things by Jesus Christ is parenthetical, not the
principal clause. The clause who created all things by Jesus Christ is parenthetical,
not the principal clause. The clause hina gnōristhē depends on euangelisasthai
and phōtisai in verses 8-9 . . .(Ibid., 272-73)