Supra/Infra

I have long considered the debate of infra and supralapsarianism a classic example of the excesses of Reformed orthodoxy and scholasticism. I still like Bavinck’s even-handed treatment of the issues in his Doctrine of God . But I have to confess I’ve been thinking lately more as a supralapsarian than an infra, and, strangely perhaps, this supra inclination has taken a strongly narrative-historical form. Supra implies that all grace is the grace of creation; that is, God plans for the elect and makes the elect without ever considering them as anything but elect. Being created as elect means living a life, a whole life story, as an elect person. That story may involve wandering and lostness for a time, but the whole story is a story of grace and election. There may well be a moment of grace in that story, a moment of conversion, but from beginning to end the story is the story of an elect person. Dittos for the reprobate: Their whole story is supra-ly determined by the way God determined to make them — as vessels of wrath. That story may also involve moments of grace, but the whole story is a story of reprobation, of grace refused and heart hardened.

A friend who is working on a PhD at Princeton recently told me that Richard Mouw argues that only infra makes room for appreciation of the cultural achievements of the reprobate. For supra, the reprobates have no other purpose but to be reprobate, and they exist only to contribute to the ultimate end of the salvation of the elect. In infra, creation has a more fundamental place in the decree than election/reprobation, and therefore the cultural achievements of the reprobate, their dominion over creation, can find a place.

This looks to me like a way of bringing in a nature/grace dualism under cover of decretal theology. I would argue, on the contrary, that the supra position really makes more of the cultural achievements of the reprobate than infra. In supra, everything is subsumed under the “final cause,” the ultimate end of the salvation of the elect. Thus, the reprobate’s musical composition have an ultimate reality and purpose — to contribute to the salvation of the elect. Infra leaves the reprobate with only a proximate, “natural” purpose and achievement, one that has no ultimate, eschatological standing. Of course, to make this work well, I have to flex the supra position a good bit. The decree to “save the elect” has to expand to a “decree to glorify the creation” or somesuch, so that salvation becomes a global and all-encompassing reality, not merely the achievement of human salvation. Given this, though, supra seems to be better equipped to support a strong theology of culture, without falling into nature-grace dualism or (which is the same) a two-kingdom theology.