Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism

Simply Put

Ligonier Ministries

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

In eternity, did God choose to elect His people to salvation based on His decision to permit humanity's fall into sin, or was it the other way around? Today, Barry Cooper takes up this heady question and the two big words that seek to answer it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Every year, a number of brand new words and phrases are added to the dictionary. Some recent ones include
0:07.9	reaction gif, hard pass, flex and performative. If the aim is to make most people over the age of 25
0:17.3	feel old and out of touch, then congratulations, mission accomplished. And yes, before I get
0:22.9	lots of performative emails taking a hard pass on my pronunciation of GIF, it is pronounced GIF and not GIF.
0:31.8	No, isn't Barry, GIF stands for graphics interchange format. You don't say graphics, do you?
0:38.7	Yeah, yeah, I know,
0:44.2	but it's an acronym like scuba, where the U stands for underwater, which is a short a sound. And if you're walking around saying scuba, you may be in need of more help than this
0:49.6	podcast can give you. I mention this because I'm about to say two different words. I know it'll sound
0:56.2	like I've just made them up to make you feel angry, but no, they actually exist. And they have
1:01.6	done, apparently, since the middle of the 18th century, at least. The two words are supralapsarianism
1:08.1	and infrapsarianism. The lapse bit in each of those words may help you to remember
1:16.3	what they mean, because lapsus is from the Latin meaning fall. So, these two words address a question
1:25.2	related to the fall. And the question is this.
1:29.3	When did God decide to elect people to salvation?
1:34.3	Was it before God made the decision to create the world and permit the fall?
1:39.3	Or was it after his decision to create the world and permit the fall? Those who think it was before
1:48.1	are suprrolapsarians and those who think it was after are infralapsarians. Just to be clear,
1:57.4	this isn't a question about the order that things happened in time.
2:03.8	It's a question of what order these things were logically decided upon in God's mind.
2:11.3	And while there might be a hint of frostiness between suprilapsarians and infrolapsarians when they bump into each other at parties.
2:20.1	Great parties they must be. People holding those two positions have a great deal in common and both
2:25.7	fall within the parameters of reformed theology. After all, they both accept the biblical truth that
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