Do Calvinists Believe In Double Reprobation?

Do you mean double predestination?

http://www.the-highway.com/DoublePredestination_Sproul.html

 

Westminster Confession of Faith III. 3
By the decree of God for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith III.3
By the decree of God for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined, or foreordained to Eternal Life, through Jesus Christ to the praise of His glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice.
[1Tim 5:21; Mat 25:41; Eph 1:5-6; Rom 9:22-3; Jude 4]

Steve

 

I have no idea what Double Reprobation is.

 

Sorry, I'm probably being more stupid than usual :laugh: , but (unless you are suggesting that there is some sort of middle ground between "saved" and "damned"), I don't understand how God could choose whom He would save without at the same time choosing whom He would not save. Please forgive me if I've missed something obvious.

By the way, I had never come across the term "double reprobation" before, so I googled it. There were a mere 25 hits, one being this thread, and two were not in English, but in French. ("Par cette double reprobation, cette impprtante Congregation de la Curie romaine" and "d'une double reprobation, ceux qui ont ose ecrire de tels."). Several others of the 25 were identical documents on different sites. Perhaps, JesusFan, you could tell us what you mean by "double reprobation".

 

Perhaps he is talking about taking a debased sinner and telling him God loves him and has a wonderful plan for his life, wringing a decision out of him. And then putting him to work in the church in order for him to never question whether he actually ever believed the Gospel. Or maybe he is talking about taking a Sunday school class of 6 year olds and getting them to recite a prayer and then they live all their lives thinking God has saved them.

(Mat 23:15) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and the dry land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

 

Truthfully, I think the question requires further clarification....Please define what you mean in detail.

 

Great question and one I have been dwelling on myself as I seek to make my beliefs more and more concrete.

My thoughts on this are as follows:

I see this as being active and passive at the same time. For the elect God actively does something to bring them to salvation. So your use of the word "forced" might fit there. However for the reprobate or non-elect God is passive in that He doesn't have to actively do anything; they were born with a sin nature just like you and me but God leaves them in that. His approach with them or choosing is passive; they are simply left as they are.

Just my thoughts. Im sure some will disagree or pick them apart but that is where I am on Double Predestination.

Blessings to you!!

 

Scripture deals with this:

Romans 9:22-23 ESV
22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—

1 Peter 2:8 ESV
and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

What do you think of those passages?

 

My initial, off-the-cuff response is that we are all born dead in our sin and trespasses, and God is saving some, so there can be no double predestination.

Some have arrived at that point from a "logical" interpretation of Calvinist doctrines, but we can't really go full logic with any particular biblical theology, for we are reigned in by the limits set by God's revelation and human logical may exceed those limits.

Case in point (and this is only an example folks!) is the way that current physicists argue for the existence of multiple universes as a way to get around the issues that crop up when our existing universe is seen to have a starting point or beginning. What begins had a First Cause, and the implications are difficult for pure materialists who cannot accept the idea of First Cause. So, this cause is removed (or rather "extended") into a realm that we cannot possibly know, save for the device of human logic.

Another case in point, just to further the discussion about the limits of human logic are numbers that can be negative, or point to infinity. Neither can occur in nature (the real world) but both exist within the bounds of human logic. (In nature there is always 1 or more or zero -- never less than zero, and there can be no actual infinity or else there would be nothing, for how can 1 be added or subtracted to infinity, is infinity less than "all"?).

 

There lies your misunderstanding. Those who reject Christ do so because that is their desire.

 

GL, have you ever written a check with insufficient funds? (Negative numbers are very real).

I do understand you position here, in fact, I do tend to be of the persuasion that logic (and all of its rules), mathematics etc. are creations of the mind of man.

This makes the essence of our belief to rely on faith, because in a sense, we cannot really KNOW in the objective, tactile, scientific way. We can shout, throw scriptural bumper stickers at one another, point to the universe, but we cannot "PROVE" anything within the metaphysical realm.

 

Yes






random text because we have to have 10 words for some reason

 

JesusFan,

To our reformed brothers and sisters, the "whosoever" and the "elect" are one and the same.

 

Well of course they believe in double, if God sends some to heaven, He at the same time sends others to hell. To hell without a chance to be saved at all, so I guess their sin in caused by God also and then they get judged to hell for sin they could not help but do or choose not to do, because God made them sin and not accept His salvation. Because God predestins everything, hence... yes, yes, yes, I know, I just opened a can of worms... but, I love you all anyway, even if you are a calvinist... *smile*
May the love of Christ abound in you today!
:godisgood:

 

Double reprobation

"Double reprobation," also known as double predestination, is the belief that God not only actively decides who to send to heaven through salvation, but God actively decides who is going to hell. John Calvin called it a "horrible decree" but held it (Calvin, Institutes, book 3, chapter 9, section 7). This is in opposition to the view that God actively saves the elect but does nothing for the sinful. The results are the same, but God is not an active agent in damning them to hell.

You can also divide into supralapsarianism, infralapsarianism, and sublapsarianism for positions on the antonement, but that would make this post unnecessarily long.

So yes, if you believe precisely what John Calvin believed, you believe in "double reprobation."