Having set forth the orthodox teaching concerning election and reprobation, the Synod rejects the errors of those . . .

II. Who teach that God’s election to eternal life is of many kinds: one general and indefinite, the other particular and definite; and the latter in turn either incomplete, revocable, nonperemptory (or conditional), or else complete, irrevocable, and peremptory (or absolute). Likewise, who teach that there is one election to faith and another to salvation, so that there can be an election to justifying faith apart from a peremptory election to salvation.

For this is an invention of the human brain, devised apart from the Scriptures, which distorts the teaching concerning election and breaks up this golden chain of salvation: “Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).

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At this point, the Canons deal with the problem created by basing election upon something other than a single decree of God. The authors of the Canons are likely addressing the Lutheran conception of God’s decree as two-fold, in which it is argued that God has an antecedent (or prior) will to save all (which is general and indefinite) and a consequent will to save only those who believe in Christ and who do not resist grace (particular and definite).

The Reformed contend that while this is a sincere attempt to do justice to the problems associated with God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, instead of effectively summarizing what the Scriptures so clearly teach (God’s decree is to save a fixed number of elect sinners), this error actually presents a complicated and rationalistic model which avoids the plain teaching of Scripture about the nature of God’s eternal purpose.

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