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WCF: Supra or Infra?

Posted on 05. Sep, 2009 by Mark Jones in Thomas Goodwin, Westminster Assembly

The Westminster Confession of Faith is sometimes deliberately ambiguous, which allows theologians with disagreements to adopt the Confession as a faithful summary of the Scripture’s teaching.  For example, regarding eschatology, there were a good deal of chiliasts (millennialists) at Westminster (e.g. Goodwin), but there were also ‘Augustinians’, namely, the Scots (e.g. Robert Baillie).  Yet, both could agree with the basic teaching of the Confession on ‘last things.’

A question that has received some treatment in the secondary literature of late centers on whether the WCF is a supralapsarian or infralapsarian document.  Despite the recent work of Guy Richard, I remain persuaded that the Confession is non-committal, and therefore allows a spectrum of opinions.

There are many varieties of infra- and supralapsarianism; thus, it would be hard to pin the WCF down as either infra or supra.  This is an exceedingly complex debate.  Consider, for example, the position of Goodwin; and note that even in interpreting Goodwin two very good scholars (Carl Trueman and Michael Horton) come to different conclusions on his position.

The question over the order of decrees bears an interesting relation to Goodwin’s doctrine of the pactum salutis.  Besides Goodwin’s own natural prolixity and detail, his discussion of infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism borders on incomprehensibility.  Consequently, Horton and Trueman come to what appears to be different conclusions on Goodwin’s position on the order of God’s decrees.  Horton concludes that Goodwin ‘is an infralapsarian Calvinist’ and Trueman contrasts the infralapsarian Owen with the ‘more vigorously supralapsarian theology of … Goodwin.’[1]

Besides bringing into context the order of decrees in relation the pactum salutis, this post will show that the usual taxonomies, that is, the demarcation between an infralapsarian order and a supralapsarian order, are not without problems, especially in the case of Goodwin.  There is truth in what both Horton and Trueman say, but neither satisfies the full picture.

Ends and Means

Goodwin takes as ‘generally agreed upon’ the distinction between the ends and the means.  He argues for the position that God viewed man considered as unfallen in his election of him to the end, and fallen in his decrees to the means.[2] However, Goodwin recognizes that what is meant by the end and the means needs explication.  The end is either God’s glory, what Goodwin calls the ‘Supreme End of all’, or the ‘Ultimate End’, which refers to the glory God designed to bring the elect into.[3] The latter end – the ‘Ultimate End’ – has in view the perfection of Christ’s elect; this is what Goodwin has in mind when he affirms that the ‘Decree to this End was not after, or upon the consideration of the Fall.’[4] However, the means to the ‘Ultimate End’ consider man as fallen.  Just as the ends are distinguished so too are the means.  Goodwin identifies the position of the pure Supralapsarians: ‘The pure Superlapsarian he takes into the Means to this End, the Creation, and the Permission of the Fall, and calls them Means to bring about that Intention or Decree to that ultimate End or Glory specified.’[5] However, Goodwin argues that means refer to what Christ, as redeemer of God’s elect, performed for his people, such as calling, faith, and repentance.  These soteric benefits are ‘Preparations unto Glory’ (Rom. 9:23; Eph. 2:10).[6] These means which prepare God’s elect for glory ‘presuppose a Fall.’[7]

Adam, in his pre-Fall estate, possessed a natural, inherent holiness.  This holiness was not a means that prepared him for election glory because it lacked a Christological base.  Moreover, Adam’s sin was not a means, either, for the possession of glory, but rather ‘a meer … passage through which Election wrought itself into a new Enlargement … and Magnifying of the Grace … towards the Elect … considered as Sinners.’[8] Thus, fallen sinners receive redemptive grace in order to bring about the ultimate end, namely, their glorification.  However, there is a former grace whereby the elect are considered as unfallen.  This grace was a ‘meer Super-creation and Supernatural Grace through Christ, as a Mediator of Union.’[9] Goodwin is advancing the argument that the Creation and the Fall are acts of God’s providence, and not direct means to the ‘Ultimate End’.  Means, therefore, have reference to Christ’s redemptive work; they have an immediate influence in bringing the elect to glory.  Thus, Goodwin argues that in the decree to the end, God considered man as unfallen.  He cites the German Reformed orthodox theologian, Amandus Polanus:

God in his Decree of Election, did behold (or look upon) his Elect, as the End he predestinated them unto, so as men absolutely in common, without all consideration of Qualities in them.  But if we consider the Means leading to the End, so he looked upon men, not as in their upright Condition (afore the Fall) but as they would be corrupt, of and in themselves, by the Fall, and faln headlong by their own default into Eternal Death.[10]

The issue, notes Goodwin, is not whether election has reference to the means unto the end and vice versa.  Rather, the controversy is whether God’s decree unto both the means and end was pitched ‘either wholly upon Man considered in the Mass of Creability afore the Fall, or wholly upon the Mass of Mankind considered and viewed first as fallen into sin.’[11] Upon Goodwin’s reading of various authors, he recognizes that many ‘do judge it incompatible that both should stand.’[12] Regarding the compatibility of both views, Goodwin argues that both ‘Conditions were at once viewed by God, so that One was neither first nor second to the Other in time.’[13] In what appears to be a position that cannot be simply designated as supralapsarianism or infralapsarianism, Goodwin writes:

God having all afore him in his immense Understanding, had in his purpose of Election to the End, a respect unto Man considered as unfaln, but in that to these Means unto Man considered as faln, and decreed both, and all in one and the same determination of his Divine Will.

That there have been some eminent Divines that have gone about to reconcile those different Opinions, Whether Men faln or unfaln were the Object of Predestination, may be well known among them that are versed in this Controversie.[14]

Both the end and the means were in God’s mind at once; ‘neither had a Priority of a Posteriority.’[15] In the divine mind and will, however, Goodwin argues that the decree to the end, where man is considered as unfallen, is the initial starting point (terminus a quo).

Goodwin refers to the German Reformed scholastic, Bartholomäus Keckermann, who argues similarly that the decree to elect falls under a twofold consideration.  First, regarding the end (i.e. eternal life), ‘the Fall was not necessary, because the Fall was not a Means thereof, but rather an Impediment.’[16] Second, the decree to elect may also be understood with respect to man fallen, which God foresaw, as the means.  Election, with a view to redemption, ‘necessarily includes a respect and consideration of the Fall.’[17] A crucial distinction between election and predestination is made by Goodwin.  Election has reference to the end.  Thus, in election God decrees to give men eternal life without consideration of the Fall.  However, predestination falls under God’s decree of man considered in sin.  Predestination, then, involves the means to the end.  Therefore, the supra- infra- debates cannot only have predestination in view, and whether man is considered as fallen or unfallen.  To do that misses Goodwin’s nuance because election and predestination are not strictly synonymous in his schema.

There’s a lot more to say, but the above shows that the teaching of the Confession cannot tip the scales decisively in favor of either position.  Sometimes Goodwin sounds infralapsarian (hence, Horton); and sometimes he sounds supralapsarian (hence, Trueman); and sometimes he sounds both (hence, Jones ;) )

[2] Works, II, Of Election, 79.

[3] Works, II, Of Election, 79.

[4] Works, II, Of Election, 79.

[5] Works, II, Of Election, 80.  The choice of ’super’ rather than ’supra’ most likely reflects an editorial mistake.

[6] Works, II, Of Election, 80.

[7] Works, II, Of Election, 80.

[8] Works, II, Of Election, 80.

[9] Works, II, Of Election, 80.

[10] Works, II, Of Election, 80-81.  Goodwin quotes Polanus’ most significant work, Syntagma theologiae Christianae (Hanover, 1609), 249.  See also A treatise of Amandus Polanus, concerning Gods eternall predestination Wherein both this excellent doctrine is briefly and syncerely deliuered, and many hard places of Scripture are opened and maintained against the corrupt expositions of Bellarmine and other adversaries. Translated by Roger Gostwyke (Cambridge, 1599).

[11] Works, II, Of Election, 81.

[12] Works, II, Of Election, 81.

[13] Works, II, Of Election, 81.

[14] Works, II, Of Election, 81.

[15] Works, II, Of Election, 82.

[16] Works, II, Of Election, 81.

[17] Works, II, Of Election, 81.

Tags: election, Goodwin, lapsarianism, Westminster Assembly, Westminster Confession