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Bavinck writes: "It is wrong to conceive the decree as if it determined only a person's end and coerced him or her in that direction regardless of what they did. The decree is as inconceivably rich as reality itself. It is, in fact, the fountainhead of all reality. It encompasses in a single conception the end as well as the ways leading to it, the goal along with the means of reaching it. It is not a transcendent power randomly intervening now and then from above and impelling things toward their appointed end. on the contrary, it is the divinely immanent eternal idea that displays in its fullness in the forms of space and time and successively - in its several dimensions - unfolds before our limited field of vision that which is one in the mind of God. The decree of reprobation, accordingly, does not exist separately alongside other decrees, not even alongside that of election. In real life sin and grace, punishment and blessing, and justice and mercy do not occur dualistically side by side as though the reprobate were visited only with sin and punishment and the elect only with grace and blessing. . . . So whereas election and reprobation may culminate in a final and total separation, on earth they continually crisscross each other."
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, September 04, 2006 at 08:02 PM
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