Louis Le Blanc On Predestination in the Roman Catholic and Reformed Schools (Theses 18-25)
On the various definitions of predestination among the Reformed and three Reformed views on the object of election.
18. But when one turns to look at those who among the Protestants are solely called by the name “Reformed,” many of them define the word predestination as that whole part of divine providence, by which God decreed and established with himself before the foundation of the world that which considers either the eternal salvation or the death and destruction of every human being. And hence, they distinguish the eternal predestination of God between that which is to life and salvation, and that which is to death and destruction. And the former they commonly call election; the latter is commonly called reprobation in the schools. This is how Zanchi, Beza, Ursinus, Perkins, Polanus, Bucanus, and many others, and even the Synod of Dordt, use the term predestination.
19. Nevertheless, not a few of the Reformed doctors think that the term predestination, according to its use in Scripture, should only denote the pleasant side. And hence, by predestination they mean only those acts of the divine will and mind, by which God has immutably established with himself to lead certain human beings to heavenly life and glory, and those means afforded to them which are necessary to achieve this end. For they do not restrict predestination only to the preparation of grace, as many of the scholastics do. Instead, they understand the word predestination to include both the decree about the end, as well as the decree about the means; that is, a decree about giving glory to certain people as well as a decree about the grace which is to be communicated to them.
20. And they use the word election in the same sense. Since by election they understand that decree by which God from eternity selects some people from among others in order that he might make them participants of the grace of Christ in this life, and crown them with glory in the life to come; therefore both election and predestination are understood by them to be synonyms.
21. Yet, some seem to properly designate by the term election the decree concerning some certain people to be effectually called to Christ and given true and living faith. So, election, according to them, has more to do with the communication of grace than the giving of glory. This is how the term election is commonly used by Testard in his Irenicum, Louis Cappell in his theses on election and reprobation, and by Moses Amyraut everywhere, and others who follow the doctrine and method of [John] Cameron.
22. There is also some difference of opinion among the theologians in the Reformed schools around the question of in what regard and condition is mankind the object of divine predestination. First, some in their assigning an object of predestination and election ascend beyond the fall of man and even the creation of man himself. And indeed, they want the decree of predestinating certain people to salvation in God, according to our mode of conceiving it, to be prior not only to the foresight of the fall of man into sin, but even the decree regarding the creation of man. And accordingly, the object of predestination itself is man neither created nor fallen in the foreknowledge of God, but instead man creatable. This is why they are called “supralapsarians” by other theologians. Of which number are Zanchi, Beza, Piscator, Perkins, Ursinus, Gomarus, Polanus, Voetius, Twisse, and not a few more!
23. But the greatest part of the doctors of the Reformed schools have considered, in the act of God predestinating, its object to have been a mass of humanity corrupted by sin, and they do not think that the decree about creating mankind and the permission of the first fall of man ought to enter into the whole decree of predestination, nor do they wish to make those former decrees a part of that latter decree. But in their view, the foresight of the fall of man exists prior in God, according to our mode of conceiving it, to the decree regarding the granting and manifesting of mercy in the salvation of some people, which, by these theologians, is called election or predestination. And hence, according to them, the object of election and predestination is fallen man, having been corrupted by sin. And we ought not to extend that description and definition [of predestination and election to] before the fall of man and creation. And this view most conforms to the Canons of the Synod of Dordt. And a very great number of Reformed theologians follow that position, whose names, were we to enumerate them, would be too lengthy and unnecessary.
24. But among the Reformed are found some who make the object of election to be not simply fallen man, having been corrupted by sin, but additionally those called by an external call to participation and communion in the grace of Christ. For they do not want to make the decree of Christ being sent as a redeemer, nor [that decree] about that grace offered to people through the preaching of the word, to be a part of the decree of predestination, and subordinated to that decree about the giving of eternal salvation to this or that person. Instead, they establish, according to our mode of consideration, that God first decreed to send Christ into the world before he decreed to effectually lead some people to life and salvation by true faith in Christ.
25. This was the opinion of George Sohnius once a professor of theology at Heidelberg Academy. For in the second volume of his Opera, he defines the predestination of man in this way: “It is a decree of God by which he preordained from eternity all human beings foreknown by him as fallen and called to Christ by the gospel to either life or death in order to eternally make known his glory.” But in explaining this definition he adds this: “That predestination was made in accordance with the prescience of God, that is, God preordained human beings foreknown to him, and therefore as corrupted by sin, and called through the gospel of Christ. For from eternity in his predestinating of them, he considered them not simply as people foreknown to him, but as people having fallen into sin and to be called again by Christ in the gospel.” To which he adds afterwards: “The object or matter of predestination is fallen mankind, and called again by the gospel. For this call is universal.” This is in his Exposition of the Chief Articles of the Augsburg Confession, the tract about eternal predestination, pg. 1000. Testard approved of and followed Sohnius’s position in his book On Nature and Grace, in the chapter on the will and decree of grace, section 9. And to his name, it is also necessary to add all those who follow the method and doctrine of Cameron in the doctrine of the redemption of man and the doctrine of election, since (?) they wish to stand on their own opinions.[1]
[1] This last clause is tricky.