Christological Predestination? - Lapsarianism

     In many discussions about predestination, the ominous word, "Lapsarianism" may possibly come up.  It comes from the Latin word lapsus, and means "fall" in theological usage.  Some may say from the outset, that any discussion that attempts to apprehend the order in which God decreed events (and that is the topic with which Lapsarianism is concerned) is arrogant and presumes that the creature could actually understand and speculate on such an order.  I certainly don't pretend to have figured out for myself, topics such as these, and I don't expect to resolve this matter in a simple blog article, nor do I submit that, because our minds are finite, this discussion is wholly off limits.

     There are two primary forms of lapsarianism and they are used to describe one's view of the timing of God's decrees: Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism.  The former posits that God decreed the election and reprobation of the human race before He decreed the fall, and the later submits that God must have decreed the election and reprobation of humanity after He had decreed the fall.  For a detailed description of these two terms, please see Herman Bavinck's article.

     In the context of this series of articles on "Christological Predestination", Lapsarianism is useful precisely because it focuses in on the nature and order of God's decrees regarding the salvation or damnation of His creatures.  It is readily apparent that any type of Lapsarianism assumes God's decree or ordination of the fall, an idea that many evangelicals (particularly those breathing the air of democracy) hold in contempt against their libertarian freedom from God's sovereignty.  For instance, those who promote  Christological Predestination as opposed to God's positive predestination of individuals in addition to setting Christ aside as the Elect one, are likely to use the idea of God's direct decree only of the election of Christ (Isaiah 42) to deny that His foreknowledge of one's regeneration is not conditioned upon His foresight of their future faith, that the Holy Spirit never fails in the attempt to regenerate those who will believe, thus proponents of Christological Predestination also deny the actual atonement made specially for those who God has elected in favor of an atonement that only potentially covers everyone. In other words, those who hold to the doctrine of Christological Predestination are likely to deny the doctrines of grace (Calvinism), in fact, that seems to be its very point.  But the converse statement is not true; those who do hold to the doctrines of grace do not deny that Christ is the Elect One, just as He is the True Israel.