Theological Term of the Week

infralapsarianism
The view that in the plan made by God in eternity, his decree to permit the fall logically preceded his decree of election, so that when God chose some people to receive eternal life, he was choosing them from the whole mass of humanity, all regarded as fallen creatures.

• Scripture used to support infralapsarianism:

  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19 ESV)
  

  …he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:4-6 ESV)

• From The Westminster Shorter Catechism:

  Q. 19. What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
  A. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.

  Q. 20. Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
  A. God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer. 

• From The Plan of Salvation by B. B. Warfield:

  …[W]e cannot speak of salvation any more than of reprobation without positing sin. Sin is necessarily precedent in thought, not indeed to the abstract idea of discrimination, but to the concrete instance of discrimination which is in question, a discrimination with regard to a destiny which involves either salvation or punishment. There must be sin in contemplation to ground a decree of salvation, as truly as a decree of punishment. We cannot speak of a decree discriminating between men with reference to salvation and punishment, therefore, without positing the contemplation of men as sinners as its logical prius.

Learn more:

1. Monergism.com: What do the terms “supralapsarianism,” and “infralapsarianism” mean…?
2. Phil Johnson: Notes on Supralapsarianism & Infralapsarianism
3. Kevin DeYoung: Theological Primer: Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism
4. Loraine Boettner: Infralapsarianism and Supralapsarianism
5. John Frame: Infralapsarianism
6. Curt Daniel: The Order of the Decrees (mp3) from The History and Theology of Calvinism
7. Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas: Differing Views on Election 01 and 02 (RTS on iTunes U)

Related terms:

• order of God’s decrees
• supralapsarianism

Filed under Reformed Theology.

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