[Dr. Eckleburg]

Calvin was a supralapsarian.

Nothing precedes God's awareness of His own creation.

"The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknow what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree. Should any one here inveigh against the prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was not ignorant of what was to happen? Thus, if there is any just or plausible complaint, it must be directed against predestination. Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand" John Calvin -- (Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.xxiii.7)

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Calvin was a supralapsarian. Nothing precedes God's awareness of His own creation.... etc.

Respectfully, Doc, there's nothing in your Calvin citation which particularly endorses Supralapsarianism. Neither the Supralapsarian nor the Infralapsarian denies the reality of God's Reprobational "decretum horribile"; classically, the question is simply one of Logical Order:

• Does God first decree that He will Reprobate Men to Damnation, and then arrange that Mankind will Fall in order to accomplish that Decree?

• Or does God first decree that Mankind will Fall, and then Reprobate Men to Damnation on the basis of that Decree?

As Dabney says in his Lecture #21, the latter (Infralapsarian) schematic is the more Scriptural of the two.

But the real beauty of Dabney's lecture is found in that he turns the classical argument on it's head, re-framing the question not as one of Logical Order, but rather one of Logical Reference.

Dabney establishes that:

• The Infralapsarian conceives of Reprobation as being with reference to the Fall; whereas...

• The Supralapsarian conceives of Reprobation as being without reference to the Fall.

And, having correctly re-framed the question as one of Logical Reference, rather than Logical Order, Dabney proceeds to prove that Supralapsarianism is not only logically wrong, it is in fact logically impossible:

In my opinion this is a question which never ought to have been raised. Both schemes are illogical and contradictory to the true state of facts. But the Sublapsarian is far more Scriptural in its tendencies, and its general spirit far more honorable to God. The Supralapsarian, under a pretense of greater symmetry, is in reality the more illogical of the two, and misrepresents the divine character and the facts of Scripture in a repulsive manner. The view from which it starts, that the ultimate end must be first in design, and then the intermediate means, is of force only with reference to a finite mind. God's decree has no succession; and to Him nonsuccessive order of parts; because it is a cotemporaneous unit, comprehended altogether, by one infinite intuition. In this thing, the statements of both parties are untrue to God's thought. The true statement of the matter is, that in this co-etaneous, unit plan, one part of the plan is devised by God with reference to a state of facts which He intended to result from another part of the plan; but all parts equally present, and all equally primary to His mind. As to the decree to create man, to permit his fall, to elect some to life; neither part preceded any other part with God. But His purpose to elect had reference to a state of facts which was to result from His purpose to create, and permit the fall.

The very foundation of Supralapsarian belief, that God establishes the Reprobation without reference to the Fall, CAN'T be True; ergo, the ONLY possibility with which we are left MUST be unitary cotemporaneous Infralapsarianism.

But He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth. (Job 23:13)

Best, OP