Unconditional election is the U in TULIP. The term refers to the belief that God, for no apparent reason, has chosen (or “elected”) some people for eternal life, whilst passing others by.

Unconditional Election (Part 1)

God’s choice (or “election”) is said to be “unconditional”. That means that nothing is required of the people whom God elects —they don't have to fit or fulfill any conditions. They don't have to be any different to the people whom God rejects.

God’s Counsel

One of the creeds has this to say... "Those of mankind who are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving him thereunto".

You will notice that being chosen for eternal life is thought to have nothing to do with you; it is only of God and "the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will". So that's what we must think about in this first part of our lesson.

1 God’s Counsel and God’s Sovereignty

Calvinists hold that God, in choosing some people and rejecting others, was not bound in any way.

• Calvinism argues that, since God is "Sovereign", he is accountable to nobody, and we must accept without question whatever he determined.
• His purpose is "immutable" so there is nothing we can do to change God's mind about how he regards us.
• His grace and love are "free", not bound by any law, so God does what he likes, bestowing his grace on whom he pleases regardless of what they think or say or do.
• He loves some, and doesn't love others, and nobody has any business asking why.

That might sound all very reasonable, if you overlook that God must be just to all if he truly is Sovereign over all. God is both "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom 3:26). God would not be just if he justified one person, and didn't justify another, when there was nothing in the one or the other that moved God to so act.

2 Divine Counsel and Human Depravity

Perhaps we can put the Calvinistic reasoning another way, by connecting it with the first point of Calvinism which we have already studied —the T in the TULIP: "total depravity".

If human beings are by nature totally depraved, in other words completely incapable of loving God, then God has no reason to love them, does he? So if God does not love somebody, who can object? On the other hand, God is free to love somebody without reason (or “unconditionally”) if he wants to, isn't he? So if God does happen to love somebody, who can object?

That might sound all very reasonable, if you overlook that God "loved the world" not just a part of it (Jhn 3:16). John is even more emphatic about that when he says, "the whole world" (1Jn 2:1-2). If everyone in the world is totally and equally depraved, then a just God would either reject all of them, or love and extend grace to all of them, because he sees no difference in any of them.

3 Knowledge of God’s Counsel

In Calvinistic thought, the reason that God chose some and rejected others is hidden in "the secret counsel" of God. Yet Calvinists must be privy to part of this secret, because they are certain that no quality or condition in a person moved God to elect or reject that person. How can they know this if election is "according to... secret counsel"?

This notion of “secret counsel” is not Paul’s doctrine; he believes God’s counsel is "manifest".

• The only time the Paul mentions "secret" counsel, he says that this secret counsel has "now been manifested and made known" (Rom 16:25).
• Paul says, "We have been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will" (Eph 1:11). And just before that, he says, "In all wisdom and insight [God] made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention which he purposed in [Christ]" (Eph 1:9). So the counsel of God, by which we are predestinated, is no secret; it has been made clear in the preaching of the gospel (Eph 1:13).
• Clearly it is known who has been predestinated to life. Paul writes to the Ephesian Christians, "God chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. This adoption was to himself, through Jesus Christ, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise and glory of his grace which he bestowed on us freely in the beloved" (Eph 1:5-6). So Paul was sure those Ephesian disciples were among the elect. How could he be so certain if he did not know why God chooses some and not others? But of course he did know why; it had been revealed.

So Paul had no concept of a "secret counsel" of God which decides who is the elect. The counsel of God is clear.

[Creed quoted: THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH - 1646]

Lesson continues Part 2