1.) Creation created for eschatological bliss. → 2.) Fall. → [3.) [Election/Reprobation grounded in Christ.] → 4.) Incarnation/Atonement for all humanity, grounded in Christ. → 5.) Creation realizes it’s original telos (or purpose) in the escaton of God’s life in Christ (eschatological bliss).
I thought I would attempt a rough draft on what an Evangelical Calvinist historia salutis (history of salvation) might entail; that is relative to my last post which displayed the absolutum decretum (absolute decrees) of ‘Reformed orthodoxy’. The order here does not necessarily represent logical, but instead more of a chronological unfolding. I should say though that #3, logically, can be placed prior to creation (actually, since this is representative of a “history of salvation” #3 should be enfolded into #4 [if EC has a “decree” it would be #3]) . . . given the primacy of Christ’s life over all of creation (‘He was slain before the foundations of the world’).
PS. The “Five-points” are just a coincidence 😉 . . .
Ah, five points! Calvinists, whatever flavour they come in, can’t help but have five points. 🙂
More seriously, why have you placed ‘election’ before ‘incarnation’? If Christ is the elect one and all others are elect ‘in Christ’; and if one is concerned for chronology over and against ‘logic’, then why isn’t ‘incarnation’ placed before ‘election’?
I may be missing something very obvious, what is it?
PS: I hope I haven’t offended with my bit of fun at the beginning.
Looks awfully infralapsarian, I think. I was under the impression that EC is generally supra. I wouldn’t say that “I should say though that #3, logically, can be placed prior to creation,” but that it must be, both logically and chronologically.
That also complicates the purpose of creation. What in the world is “eschatological bliss?”
Darren,
That’s why I made the caveat I did on #3. I would say EC is “supra” logically, that “salvation history” is antecedently the reality in God’s free choice for us in Christ prior to “the Fall” and the ingression of ‘salvation’ history (in historic time). Which is what I was trying to roughly capture in my little “progression;” and is why I made the caveat that #3 should really be enfolded into #4 relative to trying to construe a “salvation history.” I.e. trying to think of a way to illustrate the relationship between the “economy” and the “immanent” (that they are univocal) nature of God in Christ. Does that make sense?
I suppose I was trying to provide a strict vision of the “history of salvation” relative to its economic unfolding. I think, functionally, EC has an “infra” component to it in that not “all” will be ultimately “saved.” But this wouldn’t really even fit into a strict understanding of infra, since “all humanity” is genuinely represented in Christ through the Incarnation and cross.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m still trying to figure out the best way to portray the EC understanding; I think I have a better idea about how I’ll try to do that, thanks. Btw, EC, in the main, wouldn’t be on the McCormachian side of things in re. to understanding election (i.e. the Cambridge Companion piece) and Barth.
Tony,
See my points to Darren. And then yes, your points are perceptive. Election would be a concommitment reality with “Incarnation” in the life of God in Christ. In other words, God in Christ freely chose or elected humanity for us. In all reality it could be said that this choice while completey in accord with who God is as love can be said to be something new (but not different) for God; insomuch as being the Creator can be said to be something new for God (but not different from who He is in Himself).
Let me try to think of a better way to lay out what an EC history of salvation looks like. Like I said, this was a “rough draft” off the top kind of approach; this is a “blog” after all 🙂 . I often think out-loud here, so thank you for the feedback; it will help me try and sharpen what I’m trying to portray.
Hello Bobby, I’ve been following your posts few a couple of weeks, hope you don’t mind if I chip in.
In one sense I would guess that everything is ‘supra’, since it was the Father’s will to sum up all things in Christ, in the knowledge of what that would entail; my beef with the standard formulation is the same as yours, that of placing emphasis on axiomatic eternal decrees in the Godhead, held apart from the assumption of human nature in Christ. If one sees the above as the ‘logical’ order (and there isn’t much to add to it), then the chronological order takes care of itself, since it then becomes equivelent to the witness of scripture. To try and encapsulate it so briefly is to draw near to the danger of systematisation, the very failure of post-ref Orthodoxy EC is hopefully seeking to avoid.
Thanks, Bobby. I think I had gotten it into my head at some point that EC is inherently supralapsarian (maybe just imposing Barth on it). I’m still not sure if that is what you are going for.
I’m confused because you seem to be suggesting that the economy of “salvation history” is to be described with a different ordering than the divine plan (God’s “immanent” orientation toward humankind in Christ, though I’m not entirely comfortable with the immanent/economic distinction here). Did God elect us in Christ before the foundation of the earth, or after the fall? By logic or by economic outworking, a supralapsarian has to put election before the fall in any case. Election doesn’t occur before the fall in God’s inner intention, then leapfrog after the fall in its historical outworking. What the ordering above indicates (to me) is that election doesn’t take place until after the fall (regardless of whether or not it’s wrapped up in the incarnation and atonement, #4).
What you have, in other words, is the classic statement of infralapsarianism. There is no distinction between logic and chronologic in the doctrine of election — unless you do want to inject McCormack’s thesis and talk about God’s election of humankind as wrapped up in God’s own self-constitution of His being. If that’s what’s going on here, I don’t see how an “historical” infralapsarianism is possible; rooting election in the doctrine of God means that it can’t take place after and in response to the fall of humankind.
I also don’t see the connection between the supra/infralapsarian debate and the question of universal salvation.
Best to you!
Solly,
Glad to hear from you, and thank you for your thoughts; a Reconfigured Calvinist is welcome here any time 🙂 . Your points are well taken; we want to be “logical” in one sense, but not slavishly scholastic in another, if that makes sense.
Please interject here at the blog anytime you like!
Darren,
You ask: Did God elect us in Christ before the foundation of the earth, or after the fall?
Before. But I don’t think, then, that “election” is constitutive of who God is; yet, I believe that election/Incarnation is completely in accord with who God is (in se) relative to His freedom to be who He is in love.
Here is something somebody said to me in re. to Torrance’s parsing on such things (I am going to let this person remain unnamed [and it’s not Myk]):
I would agree with what this person communicates per an asymmetry between the immanent/economic; i.e. that the linkage between the two is one of soterio-logic and not onto-logic. Nevertheless the onto-relations between the persons as observed in the economy are an expression of who God is towards us in Christ by grace.
If you don’t mind, Darren, would you lay out your “order” so I could have a better idea of where you’re coming from? Do you follow McCormack’s thesis?
Your last question on supra/infra and universalism; just strike that from this discussion (my point there). I was thinking about how the reprobate are unaccounted for in that scheme (i.e. not objectively represented by anyone except for by themselves — they are left to themselves).
Thanks, Bobby — that’s good stuff. I don’t see how it immediately connects to the ordering of salvation history, as you are laying it out, however, since you seem to agree that while God’s immanent being is reflected in salvation history it is not constituted by it.
My concerns with the logical or chronological placement of the event of God’s election, then, wouldn’t necessarily be implicated in his immanent being. Of course Professor McCormack suggests a connection, but the real question at issue in what you’ve suggest is (for me) not the relation between Trinity and election, but between election and creation/fall. That’s the classic supra/infralapsarian debate.
As a supralapsarian, my order would be:
1) Election, grounded in Christ; 2) Creation; 3) The Fall; 4) The historical Incarnation, leading to the consummation of redemption
This is the straight-up classic supralapsarian position. Of course, it gets ontologically complicated by my Barthianism. 😉
Thanks, Darren.
Your order is what I was attempting, just not as straightforward. I think I was overthinking 🙂 .
Yes, EC follows the “Scotist thesis.” Simple 😉 . . .
Darren,
You say your position is straight up supra, but is it? And this is the thrust of what I was getting on the post prior to this one. Classic supra follows the “decrees” they ground election/reprobation in the “decree” (which is shaped by creation) and not in Christ. This is where the “Barthian/Torrancean” critique — in their respective nuance — enters the picture. So your not really offering a classic representation, really . . . just to be clear for others. 🙂
At the risk of oversimplifying, my point is that the prime issue of the infra/supra debate is whether the event of election (construed as an absolute decree in classical Calvinism, as you say) takes place prior to humankind’s fall, or after it (and therefore in response to it).
I think you are getting at a different matter when you bring up the nature of God’s election as decree (classic Calvinism) or as christological (Barth/Torrance). Either of these understandings of just what election is can fit under a supralapsarian understanding of the order of election and creation/fall.
I don’t see how one can place the event of election after creation and the fall (your #3) and call it in any sense supralapsarian. Am I right that that is your intent?
Darren said:
I don’t see how one can place the event of election after creation and the fall (your #3) and call it in any sense supralapsarian. Am I right that that is your intent?
No. My intent was to somehow picture how it is that God is the same in His immanent triune nature that He is in His economic.That the ‘inner-relations’ of God, imaged in His ad extra are necessarily connected realities.
When you say:
. . . Either of these understandings of just what election is can fit under a supralapsarian understanding of the order of election and creation/fall.
I agree.
My point is though, relative to order, is that who God is in se, He is ad extra pro nobis. So that who we see (out of the center of God’s life in Christ by the Spirit) in the Incarnation/Atonement is who He is in Himself (immanent is the economic). So the “electing God” is the “elected man” for us in Christ. We only know this by grace and as it is ex-emplified in the economy and act of God in Christ.
I do see what you’re saying relative to the order and supra — relative to classic or Barth/Torrance — I suppose my whole concern has been to, again, make sure that the implications of the Barth/Torrance reification don’t go unnoticed and further that we see how “EC” wants to recast how we think of predestination, election vis-a’-vis the doctrine of God and salvation; and that these are interconnected realities.
For example the classic supra might logically place creation after election/reprobation but it grounds this “decree” in the same subset — relative to God’s life — that creation, the fall, and atonement find themselves; and that is in a situation wherein all of these realities are collapsed into creation the same way that the distinctions of Father/Son and Creator/creature are collapsed into eachother. So while the broader “semantic framework” of supra is similar I don’t really see how we can maintain that there is any real material connection between how classic and Barthian/Torranceans construe such things. To me there is a fundamental difference that flows all the way down throughout the whole schema.
I want to reject what Torrance calls metaphysical scholasticism, and I thought that’s exactly what the difference was between the ‘decree-conditioned supra’ and the ‘Christ-conditioned supra’.
Do we all mean the same thing by election? Are we necessarily talking about election/reprobation as the idea of God going, We’ll save that one, that one, nah not that one, yup that one, nah , nope, nyet, yup, etc. How does EC see election, in comparison with Barth, and Barth’s general lack of a decree of reprobation agin classic reformed theology?
And also, can we really picture God as He is immanently? Isn’t that one of the failings of Reformed dogmatics, that it tries to deal with his immanence before dealiong with anything else? At least that is what I picked up from CD 1. We can only read back from the ‘economic’ to the ‘immanent’ because of, and through the revelation of Jesus Christ. This is where Barth is misunderstood, because he would dot every t and cross every i in a Westminster Confessional manner, but left the apparently paradoxical aspects hanging in the air: we are all elected in Christ, yet some are reprobated, just as he was elected, and also reprobated.
pardon me if I am rambling…
typo: ‘he would NOT cross…’
Solly,
No, were essentially talking about how Barth and TF Torrance thought of election (with the respective interpretations of Barth’s understanding kept in mind — see the McCormack piece the the Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth). EC nuances things differently by usage of language like carnal union/spiritual union — but this is grounded in essentially the ‘Christ-conditioned supra’ of Barth/Torrance. It’s not at all like the classic frame in this re.
Know, EC believes that we know God through the economy; and that who we know God to be through the economy in Christ is who He is in Himself or in the ontological/immanent nature of God.
I hope that helps!
I’m cool wit dat. I tried TFT, but obviously picked the wrong books, cos he sounds more interesting the more I hear of him. I did read Gunton before, but didn’t like the turn to the East.
I’ve recently purchased the companion, so I’ll give it a look-see. Thanks.
It is interesting reading the Institutes at the same time as the CD. Sometimes the voices sound very similar!
Read TFT’s Scottish Theology, I will be doing a review on that book shortly; I think you would really like it, and in fact is what helped to inspire this blog. I don’t know what you read of Torrance in the past. But check out his: “Christian Doctrine of God,” “The Mediation of Christ,” and his new ones “Incarnation” and “Atonement” oh, and I really like his “Ground and Grammar of Theology” (most excellent!).
Yeah, check out the “Companion” it represents a point of contention between how McCormack reads Barth say contra someone like George Hunsinger or Paul Molnar (I actually go with the latter here).
I’ve read chuncks of the CD and I am continuing through the Institutes. Yes, Barth definitely works within the heritage set by Calvin! A theologian of the Word. I am currently reading Brian Armstrong’s controversial work: Calvinism And The Amyraut Heresy (it is controversial because he argues, really like Torrance, that there is discontinuity between Calvin and the Calvinists); nevertheless, it is really good in highilighting what I just stated in re. to Calvin as a theologian of the ‘Word’.
Anyway thanks for the interaction!