theseed said:
That is where we distinguish between infralapsarian and supralapsarian. All hypercalvinist are supralapsarian ,but not all supralapsarian calvinist are hyper-calvinists.
A supralapsarian believes that God chose both individuals to be saved and to be damned, they beleive in a double-predestination, whereas infralapsarians like myself believe that all were damned at their own fault, and God looking in eternity past decided to pardon some.
This is the argument of the Lutherans who purport an illogical view of single predestination. Let us, for a moment, look at this from a God centered, God providential perspective to determine if the issue is as cut and dry as two opposing sides, i.e., those who support the view of double predestination vs. those who support the view of single predestination.
You say that as an infralapsarian, like yourself, believes that God does not choose both those who will be saved and those who will be damned but, instead, supports the view that we are all damned by our own fault and God decides to pardon some.
Tell me, when God appointed Adam as federal head of the human race and decreed that whatsoever Adam did would either benefit or condemn those he represented, didn't God choose that all whom Adam represented would be held accountable for his choice? If so, and I'm not debating the righteousness of God's appointment of Adam as our representative, didn't God choose to hold all accountable based on the choice of Adam?
If that supposition is biblically accurate, isn't it just as accurate to say that God, in pardoning some, also chose to pass over pardoning others, which is, in effect, His choice to hold them accountable for their own sins?
The issue at hand here is whether there is another way other than by God's sovereign choice to impute the righteousness of Christ to a person that they may be justified. The Bible is quite clear that there is not. The Bible is also clear that God's withholding of that imputation is His sovereign choice to leave them to account for their own unrighteousness. You see, we cannot, as responsible Christians, claim that the grace of God is required for justification while also acknowledging that He does not dispense this grace to all people and then deny the obvious that His withholding of that salvitic grace is determinitive in their reprobation. To do so makes God the Savior of all He sovereignly chooses to save while removing His presence from the righteous judgment against those who are accountable for their own sins by His sovereign choice to pass over them. There is no such thing as a portion of creation in which God is not intimately involved. God is omniscient and omnipotent. If both of those traits are part of God's nature it is theologically impossible to claim that His choice to
not extend salvitic grace to some is irrelevent to their reprobation.
The bottom line is that all are held accountable for the choice of Adam and some are saved from the repercussions of that choice by God's sovereign act of imputing the merits of Christ's sacrifice to their account before Him. Those who are not saved by the merits of Christ's sacrifice are held accountable for their own sinfulness but these, too, were within the providential government of God. Could God, had He so willed it, not also have imputed to them the righteousness of Christ? Isn't His sovereign and righteous choice to not impute Christ's righteousness to them just as much of a choice as is His choice to impute it to His elect?
God bless
