This analytically and theologically rigorous work offers the best (and certainly clearest) systematic overview of modern theological arguments for supralapsarian christology I have come across. It raises a number of questions, and I have selected what seem to me to be the three most fundamental.

First, van Driel draws attention to the relation between a supralapsarian account of the divine decrees and the importance this has for christology. Suppose God ordains the fall and human sin logically subsequent to his ordination of a creation that includes some number of humanity that are the subjects of his eternal love. Then, says van Driel, the motivation for the incarnation is not dependent on the introduction of the fall, and human sin, to the created order. That is, on supralapsarianism, the incarnation will happen ‘anyway’; Christ would have become incarnate whether or not human beings sinned.

Now, admittedly, the connection between christology and the doctrine of the divine decrees is an intimate one (in Reformed theology at least). But consider the following counterfactual sequence of divine decrees. The Triune God ordains the creation. He ordains the election of some fraction of humanity; to this end, he ordains that no elect human being falls into sin. He ordains the creation and reprobation of some small number of humanity, consequent upon a fall. Only the reprobate fall into sin; the reprobate are cast into outer darkness, or annihilated; but the elect enjoy the benefits of the Holy Trinity's immediate presence with them from the first moment of their creation onwards, without interruption or hiatus. This is surely supralapsarian. But it includes no ‘incarnation anyway’ argument, because, on this scheme, there is no need for an incarnation: the elect are predestined to enjoy God's presence from the first moment of their existence. They are born in a state of grace which they never lose. If this is right, then van Driel's reasoning needs a little finessing. We need to be clear that supralapsarianism does not entail an ‘incarnation anyway’ argument.

The second issue van Driel's study raises concerns the way in which supralapsarianism appears inconsistent with a long-standing tradition in theodicy, namely, the felix culpa tradition. This states that Adam's sin was a ‘happy sin’ because, as a direct consequence of its occurrence, the Word of God became a human being in order to redeem us. According to van Driel, felix culpa obtains only if infralapsarianism obtains: the incarnation is God's rescue plan that occurs logically later in the divine decrees than his decree to permit (or, perhaps, determine) the fall.

But could one not argue that (a) supralapsarianism obtains such that (b) the Word of God would have become incarnate in the absence of human sin (the ‘incarnation anyway’ notion) and yet (c) the fact that human sin does obtain means Adam's sin was a ‘happy’ one? Granted, if the incarnation would have occurred without Adam's sin, we cannot say ‘The incarnation occurs if, and only if, Adam sins’. But what we can say is, ‘Atonement occurs if, and only if, Adam sins’. That is not trivial, if God is free to refrain from atonement, which he surely is if atonement is an act of grace. So supralapsarians may have to give up one important aspect of the felix culpa tradition. But (pace van Driel) they can retain what I take to be its core commitment concerning the intimate connection between Adam's sin and the particular work Christ comes to perform in the incarnation.

A third consideration van Driel's study raises has to do with how the terms ‘supra-’ and ‘infralapsarian’ refer to two families of theological views, not to two views simpliciter. Van Driel does this with respect to supralapsarianism in particular, since this is the focus of his study, though I think the case can also be made for infralapsarianism. He discusses the work of Schleiermacher, Dorner and Barth in the main sections of the book as exemplars of three strands of supralapsarian christology. He uses these theologians to set out his own taxonomy of supralapsarianism, in which he situates his own constructive proposal in the final chapters of the book. A bibliographical essay at the back of the volume rounds out the picture.

However, here too I was left with questions. At several places van Driel asserts that supralapsarianism is a minority report in the tradition that has only become popular in the modern period. Yet it seems to me that a number of early Reformed theologians were supralapsarian, including Zwingli, Beza, Perkins, Zanchi and Twisse. Even Calvin is not a straightforward exemplar of infralapsarian, as is well known. At one point in the Institutes he claims that ‘incarnation anyway’ is useless speculation (Inst. II. xii. 4–5). Yet a few pages previously he states that, even if humans had refrained from sinning, they would still have needed a mediator to reach God (Inst. II. xii. 1). Van Driel does acknowledge that Calvin's legacy is a mixed one, but I was left wondering whether that was sufficient. As with the doctrine of election, it seems that there was more doctrinal plurality in scholastic Reformed thinking on this matter than van Driel allows.

This is the sort of book that readers will have strong reactions to, not all of them positive. But, to my mind, some of the best theology is the kind of intellectual irritant that gets under the skin, and forces one to revisit (even rethink) issues that previously seemed closed, even if one is not finally convinced by some of the reasoning offered. This is such a book; and such books are certainly worth reading.