Saturday, February 28, 2015

Zanchius sadly is not a Supralapsarian but is still a good infralapsarian

"Jerome Zanchi is a reformer well known for his scholasticism and his Aristotelianism. As previously mentioned, he along with Peter Martyr Vermigli, were trained in the Thomist school of thought prior to joining the Reformation. In fact, regarding his scholasticism Richard Muller writes:

Zanchi presents the picture of a Reformer of the era just following that of Calvin, Vermigli, and Musculus, whose views had much of the same foundation as theirs, but who, because of his immersion in the system, rechniques, and philosophy of late medieval scholasticism, was able to add another dimension to Reformed theology in the sixteenth century - the dimension of detail and of clear continuity with the medieval theological tradition. 



Hence, given the fact that Zanchi's thought was entrenched in scholasticism and Aristotelianism, one might therefore conclude that he should be a supralapsarian. Yet, it might be of some surprise that Zanchi was not a supralapsarian despite his use of the scholastic metho. Zanchi writes:

Consider predestination relating to the elect only, and it is 'that eternal, unconditional, particular and irreversible act of the Divine will whereby, in matchless love and adorable sovereignty, God determined with Himself to deliver a certain number of Adam's degenerate offspring out of that sinful and miserable estate into which, by his primitive transgression, they were to fall,' and in which sad condition they were equally involved, with those who were not chosen, but, being pitched upon and singled out by God the Father to be vessels of grace and salvation.



One should take note that Zanchi identifies the object of predestination as the infralapsarian homo creatus et lapsus by the phrase: 'God determined with Himself to deliver a certain number of Adam's degenerate offspring out of that sinful and miserable estate.' What is even more interesting is that Zanchi's definition of reprobation is moderate in comparison with Calvin's. For example, Zanchi writes: 'Predestination, as it regards the reprobate, is 'that eternal, most holy, sovereign and immutable act of God's will, whereby He hath determined to leave some men to perish in their sins, and to be justly punished for them.'' Zanchi does not define reprobation as an absolute act of God as does Calvin. On the contrary, Zanchi defines reprobation in Augustinian terms of preterition. For these reasons Muller concludes that 'Zanchi defines the decree in relation to man creatus et lapsus and views election as remedy to the end that his doctrine will be soteriologically and christologically oriented.'
Hence, Zanchi, an Aristotelian, Thomist, and scholastic, is an infralapsarian, and William Perkins, a Ramist, is a supralapsarian. Along these lines, Lynne Boughton comments: 'Perkins, although he admired Beza and cited him as an authority, had arrived at a supralapsarian position based on his own philosophical and theological inquiry. The English Puritan's philosophical Scotism and Ramism led to the same conclusions in theology as had Beza's post-Renaissance Aristotelianism.' This evidence points to the fact that philosophical and methodological commitments do not serve as indicators to the lapsarian position of a theologian. What, then, do the two competing methodologies show in the work of the various theologians?" - J.V. Fesko, Diversity Within The Reformed Tradition: Supra- and Infralapsarianism in Calvin, Dort, and Westminster

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