Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

creatures should live according to the divine law implanted in their hearts and should
praise their Maker. Then He decreed to permit the fall, whereby sin enters the world.
This seems to be a frustration of the original plan, or at least an important modification
of it, since God no more decrees to glorify Himself by the voluntary obedience of all His
rational creatures. Finally, there follow the decrees of election and reprobation, which
mean only a partial execution of the original plan.
4. From what was said it would seem to follow that we cannot regard Supra- and
Infralapsarianism as absolutely antithetical. They consider the same mystery from
different points of view, the one fixing its attention on the ideal or teleological; the other,
on the historical, order of the decrees. To a certain extent they can and must go hand in
hand. Both find support in Scripture. Supralapsarianism in those passages which stress
the sovereignty of God, and Infralapsarianism in those which emphasize the mercy and
justice of God, in connection with election and reprobation. Each has something in its
favor: the former that it does not undertake to justify God, but simply rests in the
sovereign and holy good pleasure of God; and the latter, that it is more modest and
tender, and reckons with the demands and requirements of practical life. Both are
necessarily inconsistent; the former because it cannot regard sin as a progression, but
must consider it as a disturbance of creation, and speaks of a permissive decree; and the
latter, since in the last analysis it must also resort to a permissive decree, which makes
sin certain. But each one of them also emphasizes an element of truth. The true element
in Supralapsarianism is found in its emphasis on the following: that the decree of God is
a unit; that God had one final aim in view; that He willed sin in a certain sense; and that
the work of creation was immediately adapted to the recreative activity of God. And the
true element in Infralapsarianism is, that there is a certain diversity in the decrees of
God; that creation and fall cannot be regarded merely as means to an end, but also had
great independent significance; and that sin cannot be regarded as an element of
progress, but should rather be considered as an element of disturbance in the world. In
connection with the study of this profound subject we feel that our understanding is
limited, and realize that we grasp only fragments of the truth. Our confessional
standards embody the infralapsarian position, but do not condemn Supralapsarianism.
It was felt that this view was not necessarily inconsistent with Reformed theology. And
the conclusions of Utrecht, adopted in 1908 by our Church, state that, while it is not
permissible to represent the supralapsarian view as the doctrine of the Reformed
churches in the Netherlands, it is just as little permissible to molest any one who
cherishes that view for himself.
135