CONCEPT
Reprobation Without Righteousness
The condition of algorithmic sorting that reproduces every formal feature of Calvin’s doctrine of reprobation—prior,
inscrutable, consequential partition of persons into favored and disfavored—while subtracting the only thing that made Calvin’s version theologically bearable: the conviction that the hidden reasons belong to a perfectly just
God.
Calvin's doctrine of double predestination assigned some persons to salvation and others to destruction by an eternal decree independent of their actions, hidden in the secret counsel of God, with no possibility of appeal. It was the most uncomfortable teaching in the Christian tradition, and Calvin defended it not because it was comforting but because he believed the hidden reasons, however inaccessible to creatures, were the reasons of a God whose justice was beyond question. The discomfort of the doctrine was its theodicy: the one doing the sorting could be trusted with the sort, even if the reasons could not be read.
Algorithmic sorting at scale reproduces every formal feature of this doctrine without its theodicy. Credit scores, risk models, hiring filters, and content-suppression systems partition populations into the favored and the disfavored by determinations that are prior to individual action, inscrutable in their reasons, and consequential