The discussion regarding predestination did not cease during the post- Reformation period. Instead, debates have continued even up until the present. These debates remain relevant to the present study because one can detect in them various arguments for or against eternal, non-retributive DRA. P. H. Mell provides a study of predestination from the mid-1800s, arguing that positive and negative predestination
“necessarily grows out of the character of God, and his connection with the universe as its creator, upholder, and governor.”
218He also reasons that reprobation does not sully God’s character because “those not elected have no active principle of disobedience imparted to them, and feel no restraint upon their wills—they are simply passed by, and permitted to follow the inclinations of their own hearts.”
219Mell therefore seems to
215 Arminius, “Disputation IX,” 1:508; brackets original.
216 Arminius, “Analysis of the Ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans,” in Nichols and Bagnall, Writings of James Arminius, 3:550–51, 558–59.
217 Arminius, “Analysis of Ninth Chapter,” 3:564.
218 Patrick Hues Mell, Predestination and the Saints’ Perseverance, Stated and Defended from the Objections of Arminians, in a Review of Two Sermons, Published by Rev. Russell Reneau
(Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle, 2003), 29–30.
219 Mell, Predestination and the Saints’ Perseverance, 31–32.
affirm passive, eternal, non-retributive DRA. Vos and Warfield see matters similarly, as both argue on the basis of theological inference and on the basis of biblical data that God does predestine some for destruction.
220Bernhard Mayer on the other hand argues that Paul at least never clearly articulates negative predestination. He notes that Paul’s
discussion of predestination is never theoretical; it is always meant to strengthen churches and to meet specific needs. Thus, he never speculates regarding the fate of those outside the church.
221Eugene Merrill explores the issue of predestination in the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH). He says that “for the unrighteous ‘Sons of Darkness,’ there appears something very close to ‘double predestination’; i.e., that the wicked are predestined to destruction just as the righteous are to salvation.”
222While it may come close, Merrill believes that Hodayot ultimately stops short of teaching eternal, non-retributive DRA. He states instead that “in His prescience [God] knows who among men will react favorably to beneficent influences and who will spurn them and continue in wickedness. . . . [The wicked] are rejected from the womb even unto death because their tendency is to do evil always.”
223Philip Alexander disagrees with that assessment, but instead argues that the Qumran community shows an “incredibly consistent” double predestinarianism.
224Timo Eskola goes a different route and redefines predestination entirely. He claims that
220 Geerhardus Vos, “The Biblical Importance of the Doctrine of Preterition,” Presbyterian 70, no. 36 (1900): 9–10; B. B. Warfield, “Predestination,” in Biblical and Theological Studies, ed. Samuel G.
Craig (Philadelphia: P & R, 1952), 317–18, 326–27.
221 Bernhard Mayer, Unter Gottes Heilsratschluß. Prädestinationsaussagen Bei Paulus, FB (Würzburg, Germany: Echter Verlag, 1974), 318–19.
222 Eugene H. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination: A Theological Study of the Thanksgiving Hymns, vol. 8, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1975), 41.
223 Merrill, Qumran and Predestination, 51.
224 Philip S. Alexander, “Predestination and Free Will in the Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment, LNTS 335 (London: T & T Clark, 2006), 48–49.
predestination could not have been deterministic in Paul, since the apostle believed that any human being could be saved through faith and repentance.
225Instead, predestination refers to two truths. First, it speaks of “God’s coercive act where the whole of humankind is imprisoned in disobedience.”
226Secondly, it refers to God’s decision to save all those who trust in Jesus.
227On the basis this reconstruction, Eskola denies negative
predestination (and thus eternal, non-retributive DRA) in Paul.
228Thomas Talbott takes the nuclear option, claiming that the doctrine of predestination “is a form of blasphemy in this sense: those who accept the doctrine inevitably attribute Satanic qualities to God, they inevitably confuse the Father in heaven, whose essence is perfect love, with the Devil himself.”
229Matthew Levering disagrees, arguing that Paul and Scripture as a whole teach two truths related to predestination: “God’s eternal love for each and every
225 Timo Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination in Pauline Soteriology, WUNT 2, vol. 100 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 303.
226 Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 303. His view is more clearly stated here: “According to Paul’s radicalized concept of predestination, the judgment of God relates to all ungodliness, and every sinner is consigned to judgment and punishment. Due to the fall of Adam no human being can avoid this judgment. Instead, all men resemble Adam in that they live under the power of death even while they are still alive. Paul’s soteriology builds on pessimistic anthropology. All men die in Adam, and this is why no man can have hope without the righteousness that comes from God.” Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 297.
227 Thus, Eskola says in reference to 1 Thess 5:9, “The idea of Christocentric predestination is evident in this passage. Faith in Jesus (cf. 1 Thess. 1:3, 10) is the criterion for eschatological election.”
Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 178; cf. 303–4.
228 In order to make his argument work, Eskola understands that he must offer his own interpretation of Rom 9. He claims that the metaphor of hardening does not refer to divine determinism.
Instead, as the text unfolds, Paul explains that the reason for Israel’s state is their own unbelief.
Furthermore, given Paul’s pessimistic anthropology, all humanity should be understood as “vessels of wrath.” Likewise, all who hear the gospel have the opportunity to become “vessels of mercy” through faith and repentance. See Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 149–59.
229 He goes on to say that “the Reformed doctrine of predestination is an expression of human rebelliousness, for it is simply not possible, not psychologically possible, not even logically possible, to love God with all one’s heart, to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and simultaneously to believe the Reformed doctrine of predestination.” Thomas Talbott, “On Predestination, Reprobation, and the Love of God,” Reformed Journal 33, no. 2 (1983): 11. For a response to Talbott, see John Piper, “How Does a Sovereign God Love: A Reply to Thomas Talbott,” Reformed Journal 33, no. 4 (1983): 9–13.