10
October 1559 A.D. Jacobus Arminius Born—“Conditional Election”
& Justification by Works
A very poor article from Christianity Un-Anchored.
No
author. “Jacobus Arminius: Irenic Anti-Calvinist.” Christianity
Today. 8 Aug 2008. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/theologians/arminius.html. Accessed 30 May 2014.
Jacob Arminius
"That teacher obtains my highest
approbation who ascribes as much as possible to divine grace. …"
The year Jacob Arminius was born (in Oudewater,
Holland), John Calvin was busy establishing the Genevan Academy to propagate
his ideas of predestination. About that same time, Guido de Brès wrote the
first edition of the Belgic Confession, which became one of the basic doctrinal
standards of Dutch Calvinism. As Arminius grew up, arguments over Calvin's
teachings interrupted those over Spanish rule. By the time Arminius was 14,
William the Silent, Holland's king, was a Calvinist.
But by the time Arminius died, the theological
landscape was shifting again, and Arminius's anti-Calvinist theology was
spreading rapidly across Europe.
Timeline |
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1545
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Council of Trent begins
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1549
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Xavier begins mission to Japan
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1555
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Latimer and Ridley burned at stake
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1559
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Jacob Arminius born
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1609
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Jacob Arminius dies
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1620
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Mayflower Compact drafted
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Irenic reformer
Arminius began to question Calvinism
(especially its view of grace and predestination) in his early 20s, but rather
than fight for his views at the Geneva Academy, where he had studied under
Calvin's successor, Theodore Beza, he left quietly. When Genevan authorities
became angry at Arminius's defense of French humanist Peter Ramus, Arminius
left for Basel. He was offered a doctorate there but turned it down on the
grounds that his youth (he was only 24 or 25) would bring dishonor to the
title.
It was his study of the Epistle to the Romans
as an Amsterdam minister that set Jacob Arminius firmly against Calvinism.
Faith, he believed, was the cause of election: "It is an eternal and
gracious decree of God in Christ, by which he determines to justify and adopt believers,
and to endow them with eternal life but to condemn unbelievers, and impenitent
persons."
Though he was accused of Pelagianism (an
overemphasis on free will) and other heresies, his critics brought no proof of
the charges.
"That teacher obtains my highest
approbation who ascribes as much as possible to divine grace," he assured
them, "provided he so pleads the cause of grace, as not to inflict an
injury on the justice of God, and not to take away the free will of that which
is evil."
In 1606, while professor of theology at Leiden,
Arminius delivered an address titled "On Reconciling Religious Dissensions
among Christians":
"Religious dissension is the worst kind of
disagreement," he wrote, "for it strikes the very altar itself. It
engulfs everyone; each must take sides or else make a third party of
himself."
Still, he continued to be disturbed by the
determinism of Calvinism, and he called for a national synod to resolve the
conflicts and to look critically at two crucial Calvinist documents, the Belgic
Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism. The synod finally met but not until
nine years after Arminius died (in good standing with the Dutch Reformed
Church), and eight years after the Remonstrance was issued, which developed and
articulated the key themes of what is today called Arminian theology: Christ
died for all (not just the elect) and individuals can resist grace and even
lose salvation. Arminianism since has influenced key figures in church history,
such as John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.
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