Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Reprobation

The other side of a 'double' predestination — God's eternal decree concerning those who are not elect, variously stated as a decree to condemn or (more commonly) a decree to 'pass by' and leave in their sin.

Latin reprobatio, 'rejection, disapproval'; the reprobus is one 'not standing the test' (adokimos — Rom 1:28; 2 Cor 13:5–7).

Romans 9:17–22 ('vessels of wrath prepared for destruction'; Pharaoh); 1 Peter 2:8 ('they stumble … as they were destined to do'); Jude 4; Revelation 13:8; 17:8 — read alongside Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9.

Augustine spoke of a fixed number of elect and of God's just condemnation of the rest; Gottschalk's explicit symmetrical double predestination was condemned. Calvin and Dort affirm reprobation but with an asymmetry (election is of grace, reprobation of justice — God is not the author of anyone's sin). Lutheranism (Formula of Concord XI) and Arminianism reject a decree of reprobation altogether; the lost perish by their own resistance.

Where affirmed, it is carefully framed as permissive or as a 'passing by' — God withholds the grace he was never obligated to give, and condemns only for real, culpable sin.

Whether Scripture teaches any decree of reprobation; single vs. double predestination; 'equal ultimacy' vs. asymmetry; the moral and pastoral objections.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.