An Explanation of a Few Calvinistic Labels

I’ve had to explain some of my terminology to a few people recently, so I may as well put the material on my blog. I posted the following material on a discussion board:

By “High Calvinism,” I mean those who adhere to a strictly limited view of the design of Christ’s death (the intent was to save the elect alone). It’s the most popular view today due to the recent proliferation of Puritan literature and/or Protestant Scholastic writings. Some people associate High Calvinism with supralapsarianism (rather than with infralapsarianism). So, in their view, infralapsarianism is Moderate or Low. That’s very common way of categorizing, but erroneous in my opinion. Here’s how I would classify things:

HYPER-CALVINISM = Strict particularist, supralapsarian (mostly) Calvinism that denies either (1) the universal love of God, or (2) common grace, or (3) the free/well-meant gospel offer, or (4) duty-faith, or all the above. Some (not all) of these may even believe in equivalentism, such that Christ suffered just so much for so many elect sins.

HIGH CALVINISM = Strict Particularist Calvinism that is either supralapsarianism (not all supra’s are hyper), or infralapsarian. There are higher high’s (supra’s) and lower highs (infra’s). Some in this group may even reject lapsarianism (such as H. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, ed. by John Bolt and trans. by John Vriend [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004], 2:388–92). They believe there is a universal love of God, common grace, free/good-will offers, and duty-faith. They hold to the sufficiency of Christ’s death in the sense that it’s of infinite intrinsic value (a bare sufficiency), but not in the sense that he bore the guilt for the sins of all mankind (which is historically called an ordained or extrinsic sufficiency). They believe that Christ was punished or substituted for the guilt of the elect alone, as their sins alone were imputed to Christ, but most of these reject equivalentism. The majority of them also believe that common grace flows to all because of Christ’s satisfaction. In that sense, and in that sense alone, there is a “universal aspect.”

CLASSIC OR MODERATE CALVINISM = Non-strict Calvinism, or those who believe in a universal substitution, that may or may not hold to a form of ordered decretalism/lapsarianism (if so, they would most likely be infralapsarian). R. L. Dabney, a moderate Calvinist, rejected lapsarian speculation. They say that Christ suffered sufficiently for all (in the sense of an ordained sufficiency), but especially for the elect (with a limited special intent to save them alone, resulting in the special effectual application). Basically, they are dualists. They also usually see a connection between Christ’s death and common grace as well, but their “universal aspect” is more than this (thus differing from High’s), as it also includes Christ substituting Himself for all mankind sinners.

LOW CALVINISM = Those who profess to hold the other four points, but say that Christ died for all without making careful qualifications. It seems that they teach that Christ intended to die equally for all. I tend to put self-described “three-pointers” in this group as well, but they are difficult to categorize. They may quibble over “irresistible grace.” Robert P. Lightner (1931–2018), for example, might be placed in this category.

For more on this, you may wish to check this chart that I made. It lists some of the representatives. I discussed this chart in a radio interview with Gene Cook in November of 2008.