Theodore Beza’s Supralapsarian Predestination -- By: Joel R. Beeke

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 12:2 (Spring 2003)
Article: Theodore Beza’s Supralapsarian Predestination
Author: Joel R. Beeke


Theodore Beza’s Supralapsarian Predestination

Joel R. Beeke

“Calvin versus the Calvinists” is the battle cry in vogue with much of modern Reformation and post-Reformation scholarship. Since the 1960s many scholars have argued that the supposed Calvin-Calvinist cleavage finds its real culprit in Theodore Beza (1519–1605)—Calvin’s hand-picked successor and apparent transformer of his theology. From Ernst Bizer through Johannes Dantine and Walter Kickel to Basil Hall, Brian Armstrong, Robert Kendall, and Philip Holtrop, the thesis is championed that Beza, as the father of Reformed scholasticism, spoiled Calvin’s theology1 by reading him through Aristotelian spectacles.2 Beza’s departure from Calvin has been described repeatedly as scholastic, non Christological rigidity—not only in ecclesiastical discipline and doctrinal loci in general, but, more specifically, in the Bezan innovation of supralapsarian predestinarianism.3

In this article I aim to show that Beza’s supralapsarian tendencies did not cause him to abandon Christ-centeredness in his theology. To reach this goal, I will first describe the most common Reformed views on the order of God’s decrees in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Protestantism, after which I will focus on Beza’s major treatises on predestination.

Lapsarian Options

Though the “lapsarian question” (lapsus=the fall) has roots prior to the Reformation,4 it first came into focus during the Reformation. Concerned with the question of the relationship between divine predestination and the fall, first- and second-generation reformers asked: Was the fall of man in Paradise actively willed or only passively foreseen by God in his eternal counsel and decree? Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the majority of the reformers argued for an active willing of God in the lapsarian question. Heinrich Bullinger and a few minor reformers refused to go this far, teaching instead that only God’s foreknowledge could be linked with the fall. Subsequent reformers and Puritans realized that Bullinger’s reasoning could not offer a solution for the relationship between the counsel of God and sin. Eventually a Reformed consensus developed that the fall must not be divorced from the divine decree.5

This consensus generated additional questions: Was divine reprobation ultimately based on the mere good pleasure of God or was it an act of div...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()