I’m currently reading through a new book called God and Evil (InterVarsity, 2013) for review in the blog. However, a comment by Paul Copan in his essay on the origin of evil caused me to pause. He writes of what he calls “strong Calvinists” that they find themselves in tension with “the Westminster Catechism’s own assertion that the ‘chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever'” (117). Why? Copan observes:
“They [the strong Calvinists] would have to insist that the chief end of only some men–the elect–is to enjoy God forever. The nonelect, alas, have no such opportunity afforded them. Their chief end is to glorify God by being punished forever–without any genuine possibility of repentance in this life.” (117)
You see, on the “strong Calvinist” view (which, I confess, is not substantially different from Calvinism simpliciter so far as I can see) the reprobate are chosen as reprobate (either through a decree of reprobation or the withholding of a decree of election) for a particular end, that of serving as objects of God’s wrath eternally so that his justice and power might be manifested more fully to the elect (along with the mercy and love the elect already experience as objects of election).
So I guess we would get something like this rewording:
What is the chief end of man?
The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy (or be tormented by) him forever.
There is another option however: deny that the group that comprises the set of reprobate persons are human persons at all. Granted they are biological human persons but they would not metaphysically be human persons. And “man” would be referring to metaphysical identity. Thus, we might say that “man” constitutes the set of biological human persons that are elect while “anti-man” (or unman or whatever you like) constitutes the set of biological human persons that are reprobate. And so we have:
What is the chief end of man?
The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
And what is the chief end of anti-man?
The chief end of anti-man is to glorify God and be tormented by him forever.
