Louis Le Blanc On Reprobation in the Reformed School (Theses 37-43)
The supralapsarians on the cause and effects of reprobation.
1-6. 7-11. 12-16. 17-23. 24-29. 30-36.
37. Now with regard to the cause of reprobation, that is, the question of whether a cause is given on the part of man or some condition from whose prevision God was moved or induced to reprobate this or that person or by what [cause or condition] this or that person who has been eternally reprobated is deserving of it, Reformed theologians likewise go off into different positions. Indeed, every theologian who describes reprobation so broadly that it covers the eternal counsel of God about the creation of the reprobates and his permitting of each of their falls establishes that the object of reprobation is man, not created and fallen in the divine prevision, but simply man creatable; and they number creation and the permission of the fall of the first man among the common means of reprobation; they, I say, constantly and unanimously affirm of every reprobate and all of his actions and effects taken collectively and as a whole, that there is given no reason or cause on the part of man from whose prevision God was impelled to reprobate this or that person, and by which [cause] this or that person is deserving of it by his own merit on which the whole effect of reprobation falls. And thus, not only do they insist that the reason why this person rather than that person was reprobated depends upon the sole good-pleasure of God, but also that God in reprobating foresaw nothing more in the reprobates why those who were to be reprobated by God were deserving of it than what he foresaw in the elect by which they deserved to be chosen by God and predestined to life. Whence it follows that the entire and complete decree of reprobation in whatever mode it is finally considered, whether comparatively or absolutely, ought to be referred to the sole and mere will of God; nor can there be sought or given any reason for it from the future sins of men.
38. Nevertheless, if anyone considers the effects of reprobation distinctly or separately, they acknowledge that some of those effects have a reason [meritum] in man and are rightly derived from them by the sins of the reprobates. As, for example, the eternal penalty of damnation, which is the chief effect of reprobation according to the view of all theologians, is inflicted upon no reprobate except for his sins and his evil demerits. And they believe the same about the hardening and blinding, and that desertion by which the impious are handed over to their reprobate understanding, all of which are the most righteous penalty by which God is accustomed to vindicate the contempt of his grace.
39. But if anyone is pleased to divide the decree of reprobation into various acts and partial decrees, and to consider that act of the divine will on its own, by which the reprobate are destined and ordered to death, the theologians already named who, from the fact that when they assign the object of reprobation they ascend above the fall [supra lapsum] of man, are called supralapsarians, do not seem to altogether agree, but wander towards different positions. For many of them insist that God eternally destined certain people with the sufferings of eternal hell before the foresight of any future faults in them. And hence the decree of damning these or those people has no reason or cause on the part of man. Indeed, that decree ought to be conceived as something prior to the decree of permitting the sins of the reprobates, which latter decree follows the prevision of sins in which the reprobate fall by God’s permission.
40. This is the express position of Polanus in his Syntagma Theologiae book 4 ch. 10, “Concerning the efficient cause of eternal reprobation” where this is his second thesis: “The efficient impelling cause on account of which the decree of reprobation was made, whether affirmative or negative reprobation, is not sin to which also pertains the evil use of free choice.” But the third thesis denies the eternal prevision of sin to be a cause of the decree of reprobation. And this is because, according to his view (in the same chapter where he explains the nature of reprobation), God in the decree of reprobation first ordained creatures to their end, namely, either to eternal life or eternal death, then, finally, did he subordinate the means to execute his counsel; among which means are the sins of the reprobates.
41. Jerome Zanchi also teaches the same thing in the fifth book on the nature of God, the second chapter. There, he refutes those who admit that indeed the mere will of God, and not the foreseen sins of men, is the cause of negative reprobation, which is that decree by which God established to not be merciful to certain folk, and to deny them his grace. But of affirmative reprobation, that is, of that decree by which God established to punish certain people eternally, they [i.e., those Z. refutes] contend that the sins of the impious are a cause, and not just the will of God. Zanchi says that they are deceived regarding the primary cause—why God destined certain people to eternal death—which they make to be their foreseen evil works and deny it to be the sole will of God. Because sins, according to Zanchi, are indeed the cause of damnation among the impious, but not the cause of the divine decree for them to be damned and punished, which in God, according to him, precedes the prevision of all sins, and thus the decree to permit the fall of humankind. According to him, just as the decree about the means is subordinate to the first decree, so it is subordinate to the decree about the end. He says, “The first thing God eternally decreed about the reprobate was the destination of certain men to everlasting destruction. For this purpose, their sins were ordained, as well as the act of leaving them to their sins and the refusal of grace.”
42. Beza also agrees with these things in his brief exposition of the whole of Christianity, second chapter, the 5thaphorism where he says, when treating about reprobation to destruction, that although all guilt remains with them [i.e., the reprobate], nevertheless the Spirit of God bears us up to that high mystery that it [i.e., reprobation] precedes in rank all causes of their damnation, about which mystery there is no other cause known to men except the just will of God himself. And Piscator also follows Beza, which from either theologian it is clear that the decree to permit the fall of man is made long after the decree to damn reprobates, and many other decrees come in between, as Twisse notes in his vindication of Perkins, first digression, about the object of predestination.
43. Additionally, Twisse, although he reprehends Piscator and others on this point—that they establish the decree to damn some people to be rationally prior to the prevision of sin—still, at the same time, also denies that such prevision in God is prior to the decree of damnation. For he teaches that the decree to damn some and the decree to permit their sins and the prevision itself of their sins are naturally and rationally in God simultaneously, and they are coordinate things, not subordinates. And so, still, he agrees with them in that foreseen sins are not a cause or reason in any way why God added a certain decree of everlasting damnation.