Skip to content
Examined Doctrine

Council of Constantinople I on Election & predestination

381 · ECUMENICAL COUNCIL · DOCUMENT, NOT A PERSON
READ IN A PRIMARY SOURCEQUESTION NOT FRAMED
NO STANCE — AND WHY

The question is not framed in these terms

This locus asks in categories that came later. Assigning a stance would answer on the figure's behalf, so the summary records what was addressed instead.

And [we believe] in one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The Constantinopolitan Creed (381) — the creed's ecclesiology is corporate throughout and never turns to who is chosen

THE POSITION

Neither the creed nor the canons treat God's choosing of the saved. The council's doctrinal work is pneumatological — establishing the Spirit's deity against the Pneumatomachi — and its canons are jurisdictional. The conditional-versus-unconditional frame this locus uses is a fifth-century Western construction and is nowhere in view. The third kind of blank.

WHAT OTHERS HOLD HERE

Unconditional — grounded in God's free choiceAQUINAS · AUGUSTINE · VODDIE BAUCHAM · CALVIN · JONATHAN EDWARDS · TIM KELLER · SECOND LONDON BAPTIST CONFESSION · LUTHER · JOHN MACARTHUR · GAVIN ORTLUND · JOHN OWEN · JUSTIN PETERS · JOHN PIPER · JOHN DUNS SCOTUS · R.C. SPROUL · CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON · WESTMINSTER CONFESSION · GEORGE WHITEFIELD · ZWINGLI
Conditional — grounded in foreseen faithJACOBUS ARMINIUS · CHRYSOSTOM · CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY · PHILIP MELANCHTHON · WESLEY
Affirmed, held alongside real human responsibility, treated as non-dividingBILLY GRAHAM · JOSH HOWERTON
See all 36 figures on election & predestination →

ABOUT THIS FIGURE

Completed the creed with a full article on the Holy Spirit as Lord and Giver of Life, proceeding from the Father. Condemned the Pneumatomachi and Apollinarians.

5 OF 5 POSITIONS QUOTED
Everything Constantinople I holds →
Cite this page

"Council of Constantinople I on Election & predestination", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/constantinople-1/election (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/constantinople-1/election).

How citation works here