Monday, August 1, 2022

Definitions of infralapsarianism, supralapsarianism, and imputation from Richard A. Muller

As most critics of Latter-day Saint theology come from Reformed theology, I think it would be wise to provide the definitions of infralapsarianism, supralapsarianism, and imputation from an informed Reformed theologian:


infra lapsum: below or subsequent to the fall; as opposed to supra lapsum (q.v.); the usual identification of the human objects of divine willing in the infralapsarian understanding of predestination, according to which God eternally wills the salvation of some persons out of the fallen mass of humanity. Some of the Reformed orthodox (e.g., Turretin, Institutio theologiae elencticae 4.9.3, 30) prefer to use the term in lapsu, in the fall, rather than infra lapsum, holding that the object of God’s eternal willing is not humanity after the fall so much as humanity considered corporately in the fall. In this usage, the term infra lapsum is reserved for those who, like the Arminians, understand the object of divine willing as after the fall and after the promise of redemption, and foreknown either as believers or unbelievers. (Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2017], 172–173)

 

supra lapsum: above or prior to the fall; as opposed to infra lapsum (q.v.). Two basic views of predestination emerged from the development of Reformed doctrine in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: (1) the supralapsarian view, sometimes referred to as full double predestination (election and reprobation being coordinate, albeit not causally parallel, aspects of the decree); and (2) the infralapsarian view, which can indicate either a double or a single predestination (in which election alone is identified as a positive divine willing). Both views arise out of consideration of an eternal, logical order of the things of the decree, or ordo rerum decretarum (q.v.), in the mind of God: neither view, in other words, argues for a temporal relationship of divine willing to the fall, as either before or after it in time. The distinction between the supra- and infralapsarian definitions lies in their understanding of the human objects of the eternal divine willing.

 

According to the supralapsarian view, the election or reprobation of individuals is logically prior to the divine ordination to permit the fall and, in many formulations, prior also to the divine decree to create. The human objects of divine willing are, accordingly, understood as possibilities that are either creatable or as to be created and as capable of falling. Various of the Reformed indicate that the supralapsarian view rests on an apex logicus (q.v.), or point of logic, viz., that the goal or final cause of any process, although temporally subsequent to the means used to reach it (including formal and material causality), must be logically prior. If the final cause or goal of God’s predestination is the manifestation of his mercy in the elect and his justice in the reprobate, then creation and fall are understood as means to that end, and the eternal decree of electing and reprobating must be prior. In one typical form of the supralapsarian definition, in the divine mind, the human subject of election and reprobation is thus conceived as creabilis et labilis, creatable and fallible, i.e., as a possibility for creation and as capable of falling. As early as the late sixteenth century, in the work of Francis Junius, the supralapsarian model indicated that, given the modes of divine knowledge (see scientia Dei), God eternally knows his human creatures as creatable (creabilis), to be created or made (condendus), created or made (conditus), and fallen (lapsus, q.v.). Some supralapsarian definitions identify the human objects of divine willing in all of these modes; others focus on election and reprobation as referring foundationally to human beings as creabilis or condendus or conditus, logically prior to referencing them in their fallen state. In all of the supralapsarian definitions, the prior purpose of God is the manifestation of his glory in the mercy of election and the justice of reprobation, while the creation itself and the decree to permit the fall are secondary purposes, or means to the end, of election and reprobation. The breadth of the supralapsarian definitions serves to explain how theologians holding this view were consistently viewed as in conformity to the various Reformed confessions, notably the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dort, which include infralapsarian definitions: as defined by Junius and others, the supralapsarian model includes the infralapsarian and accepts it as God’s knowledge of the objects of his willing according to the scientia voluntaria sive libera (q.v.).

 

The infralapsarian view, which is the confessional position of the Reformed churches, places the divine will to create human beings with free will and the decree to permit the fall prior to the election of some to salvation. Thus, in the divine mind, the human object of election is viewed in eternity as creatus et lapsus, created and fallen. In this view, the prior purpose of God is the creation of human beings for fellowship with himself, and the decree to elect some to salvation appears as a means to the end of that fellowship, while reprobation stands as a just divine willing not to elect some of the fallen descendants of Adam. The infralapsarian perspective is frequently called single predestination because some of its formulations represent God as electing some for salvation out of the fallen mass of humanity and then not positively decreeing reprobation but passing over the rest, leaving them in their sin to their own damnation. It more typically, however, takes the form of a double predestination, with election and reprobation as coordinate decrees. The infralapsarian doctrine of predestination arises out of the problem of the fall and salvation by grace, whereas the supralapsarian teaching arises out of a more abstract consideration of the eternity and omnipotence of God, of the fullness of divine knowledge, and of the priority of God’s ends over the means employed to achieve them. (Ibid., 348-50)

 

imputatio: imputation, an act of attribution; specifically, either (1) imputatio peccati, the imputation of sin, or (2) imputatio satisfactionis Christi, the imputation of the satisfaction of Christ, which are parallel imputations following a pattern reminiscent of the patristic conception of recapitulatio (q.v.).

 

Imputatio peccati is distinguished into imputatio mediata and imputatio immediata, mediate and immediate imputation. Mediate imputation refers to the divine attribution of sinfulness to all human beings because of their corruptio haereditaria, or hereditary corruption. The imputation is mediate, since it is contingent upon the natural corruption of individual human beings. Immediate imputation, by contrast, refers to the divine attribution of sinfulness to human beings because of the fall; i.e., it is the immediate attribution of the fall itself to all the progeny of Adam and Eve, apart from their hereditary corruption. The imputation is immediate because it is not contingent upon the corruption of individual human beings. Scholastic Lutheranism tended to recognize both an imputatio mediata and an imputatio immediata; the Reformed, however, in accordance with the principles of covenant theology and their view of Adam as federal head, tended toward imputatio immediata to the exclusion of a theory of mediate imputation. Only the renegade school of Saumur tended in the opposite direction, teaching an imputatio mediata only. This view was rejected by the orthodox Reformed as standing in conflict with and prejudicial to the imputatio satisfactionis Christi. In the era of orthodoxy both the Socinians and the Arminians denied any imputatio peccati.

 

Imputatio satisfactionis Christi is the objective basis of justification by grace through faith. Christ’s payment for sin is imputed to the faithful, who could not of themselves make payment; the unrighteous are accounted righteous on the grounds of their faith. The orthodox Reformed argued that, since Christ’s righteous satisfaction was imputed immediately to believers without any righteousness being present in or satisfaction made by them before the imputation, the imputation of sin must also be immediate; if not, injustice would be done to Christ’s work. (Ibid., 164-65)

 

 

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