The Anti-Calvin
Religious dissension is the worst kind of disagreement, for it strikes the very altar itself. It engulfs everyone; each must take sides or else make a third-party of himself.
Jacob Arminius, “On Reconciling Religious Dissensions Among Christians”
There is an old joke that says, “There are two types of people in the world: those who divide the world into two types and those who don’t.” Church history is full of examples of people choosing sides over some issue, and from these disagreements a new denomination is birthed.
One of the great divides came in the sixteenth century, and although many others were involved, the lightning struck two men more than anyone else: John Calvin and Jacob Arminius. In the battle, Arminius and his followers took the bigger beating.
The Dutchman
Today we know him by his Latinized name, Jacob Arminius, a name he adopted in college. He was born Jacob Hermansen in Ouderwater, near Utrecht, in the Netherlands. He never knew his father, who died sometime around his birth, leaving his mother to care for Arminius and his siblings. Family friends took responsibility for Arminius’ education and support.
He attended several colleges, including Marburg University in Germany. While there, Spanish invaders massacred Dutch civilians in his hometown. Jacob rushed home to find that his mother and some of his siblings had been killed. Carl Bangs, in his book Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, described it this way:
[The Spanish cannons attacked and] breaches were made in the town walls, however, and although they were repaired in the night, the artillery of the attacking army kept up its work of destruction faster than repairs could be maintained. The Spanish troops then entered the city itself and a new phase of the attack began.1
It is not a nice story. First the defending soldiers on the walls were shot or stabbed to death. Those who fled into the town were pursued and killed. Then the massacre spread to noncombatants. Mothers were killed in front of their children and children in front of their mothers. Girls and women were raped in view of fathers and husbands, and then all were killed. No place, no person, was exempt from the pillaging invaders. When nuns in the cloisters were discovered, they pleaded that they were faithful Roman Catholics. “So much the better for your souls,” said the soldiers as they raped and murdered them.2
The Spanish had previously been forced from the city when the inhabitants became Protestants. The Spanish took the city back in brutal fashion. No doubt Arminius heard horrible tales from the survivors. We can only guess the impact this had on the young man’s mind and emotions.
After a time he returned to his studies, and when the new University of Leiden was opened in 1576, Arminius enrolled. He was one of the university’s first students.
In 1588, after having traveled in Italy and eventually returning home, he was ordained and began ministering in Amsterdam. He married Lijsbet Reael, a merchant’s daughter, in 1590.
Calvinism, a system of belief that relied heavily on predestination—the idea that God ordained before time who would and would not be saved—had swept the area. Arminius had studied under Calvin’s son-in-law Theodore Beza in Geneva. He even debated those who disagreed with Calvin. One such opponent was the Dutch writer, philosopher, and theologian Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert. Arminius did his best to outflank the theologian but failed. Feeling Coornhert had made better arguments, Arminius began to challenge his own commitment to the principles of Calvin, leading to a reversal in his thinking.
Arminius came to believe that Calvinism led to an understanding of God as harsh and evil. Predestination in the High Calvinist view meant God had selected some people to salvation and some to eternal punishment. God appeared as a tyrant, and mere humans as automatons with no choice in matters of personal salvation.
He took these views with him, quietly, from Geneva to his church work in Amsterdam. His studies in the New Testament book of Romans sealed his belief that the Calvinist position was wrong and improperly reflected Scripture. He began preaching that message, frustrating other ministers in the area. He was soon accused of heresy, although no proof of such guilt was ever offered.
The die was cast. The debate was on.
Arminius was no troublemaker. He just had a deep desire that God be properly represented by his servants. Calvinism, in his opinion, was tarnishing the Creator’s image. The division bothered him. In his 1606 sermon, “On Reconciling Religious Dissensions Among Christians,” he said, “Religious dissension is the worst kind of disagreement, for it strikes the very altar itself. It engulfs everyone; each must take sides or else make a third-party of himself.”
The goal was not to overthrow Calvinism in total but to moderate it; not to make it more palatable but to make it align with Scripture. Of course, Calvinists felt their principles were already aligned with the Bible. Still, Arminius felt the doctrines of predestination and irresistible grace had gone too far and needed to be addressed. He petitioned the government of the Netherlands to step in and arrange a synod to deal with the issue.
The synod was called, but by the time it met Arminius had been in the grave for nine years.
Differing Views
The issues that divided the followers of Calvin from the followers of Arminius are deep and complicated, requiring robust theological study to understand fully, but the basics are clear enough, and summarized as follows:
Calvin: In the eternal past, God predestined (determined ahead of time) who will be saved and who will not.
Arminius: No, God elected (chose) those whom he knew would believe of their own free will.
Calvin: Free will and God’s foreknowledge have nothing to do with it. God has chosen some; others he has condemned.
Arminius: Wrong. We have all been given enough grace to decide to believe or not. That’s free will. Election is conditional on the one being saved.
Calvin: That’s where you’re wrong. Depravity extends to every part of a person, including the will. No one can make the decision by themselves. It takes God’s call on their lives, a call he decided on before the foundations of the world.
Arminius: Of course we all have inherited a corrupted nature from Adam and the fall, but God has removed that guilt and condemnation so we can accept God’s love and grace.
Calvin: Corrupt nature? It’s more than that. Adam’s sin is passed to us all. We are all born in sin. This is why Christ died for the elect.
Arminius: Not just the elect. Jesus died for all humankind, and that means anyone and everyone is redeemable should they choose to commit to Christ.
Calvin: That would mean the death of our Lord was unsuccessful, because surely not everyone will believe.
Arminius: Never! Jesus’ sacrifice is effective for all who choose to believe.
Calvin: So we’re back to free will again.
The arguments are much deeper than this fabricated dialogue indicates, but it does reveal the crux of the debate: predestination and free will. Calvin taught that those whom God chose will surely believe; Arminius taught that it’s up to the individual to choose God.
There was also the issue of what has become known as the “security of the believer.” Calvin believed that the elect would not only believe because God chose them but that God would cause them to persevere to the end of their lives. In other words, the elect could not lose their salvation. Arminius said that Scripture taught the opposite: a person could surrender their salvation by choosing to reject the salvation they once had.
Irresistible force meets immovable object; oil meets water. The two sides would not budge. Once they locked horns, the battle would continue until one side won out.
Except it didn’t quite go that way.
Synod of Dort
Arminius left his church to become professor of theology at Leiden University, where he served from 1603 until his death in 1609. During this time the debate over predestination heated up, prompting Arminius to make his appeal to the government to intervene with a synod composed of representatives from both sides. As already mentioned, the synod met years after Arminius died. The gathering lasted from November 13, 1618 until May 9, 1619, and it didn’t go well for the followers of Arminius. Some historians have described the conclave as a “kangaroo court” because the body was slanted to the Calvinist side. Of the eighty-four members, nearly sixty were Dutch Calvinist. The “Remonstrants” (named after Remonstrance, a document drawn up in 1610 listing the views of the anti-Calvinists) were outnumbered. To make matters worse, the president of the synod and the first secretary were strict Calvinists. The Five Articles of the Remonstrance were rejected and the Five Canons of Calvinism were adopted, as were the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, two Calvinistic documents.
Simon Episcopius, the successor to Arminius at Leiden, and a dozen other Arminian leaders were summoned to the synod as defendants. Over two hundred Arminian pastors lost their churches. Arminians who would not agree to keep silent were forced to leave their homes and country. Hugo Grotius, part of the Arminian contingent, was sentenced to life in prison but managed to escape after two years. This persecution continued until 1625, when Arminians were allowed to return and rebuild their churches and lives.
Arminianism Today
The views of Jacob Arminius did not die with him. His followers continued to teach and preach the free will of persons, conditional grace, and the ability for a person to walk away from his or her salvation. Arminian theology spread throughout the world, with Arminius’ thinking exerting great influence on John Wesley, a branch of the Anglican church, and other groups in England and, later, in the New World.
Today there are denominations that align closely with Arminius, including the Nazarene church. Some Baptist denominations lean toward Calvin; others lean the direction of Arminius. Certain Baptist groups believe in eternal security of the believer, so are in agreement with Calvin on that point, but reject the limitations he put on human free will in the salvation process.
The quiet orphan of the Netherlands did not set out to be one side of what may be one of the greatest, most divisive doctrinal debates in history. He endeavored to preach and teach the truth as he saw it in the Bible. It sounds simple today, but in Jacob Arminius’ day it was a dangerous thing to do.