Theopedia

Amyraldism

Definition

Amyraldism, or hypothetical (conditional) universalism, is the view that Christ died to provide redemption for all people indiscriminately, on condition of faith, while God reserves the effectual grace that produces faith for the elect alone.1 It holds two decrees in sequence: a conditional decree by which Christ satisfies for all, and a particular decree by which God grants faith, and so the actual benefit of that satisfaction, only to the elect.2 Because it keeps unconditional election, it is often called “four-point Calvinism.” It takes its name from Moïse Amyraut, a professor of theology at the French Reformed academy of Saumur.

Confessional Contrast

The 1689 Second London Baptist Confession does not name Amyraldism or the Saumur controversy, but its own statement of Christ’s satisfaction is written in particular, not universal, terms: Christ, “by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself… hath fully satisfied the justice of God, procured reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him.”3 “All those whom the Father hath given unto Him,” not “all men,” is the confessional commitment Amyraldism’s conditional, universal-scope decree departs from.

Historical Development

Amyraldism developed at the Huguenot academy of Saumur in the early seventeenth century. John Cameron taught there, and his students Moïse Amyraut and Louis Testard developed the position that came to bear Amyraut’s name.2 The French Reformed church’s own national synod examined the new teaching in 1637; according to A.A. Hodge, these “novelties were explained away before the French Synod, 1637, and virtually condemned.”1

The sharpest formal response came from outside France. In 1675, John Henry Heidegger of Zurich, assisted by Francis Turretin of Geneva and Luke Gernler of Basel, composed the Formula Consensus Helvetica specifically “to unite the Swiss Churches in condemning and excluding that modified form of Calvinism, which in that century emanated from the Theological School of Saumur, represented by Amyraldus, Placaeus, etc.”4 Nearly all the Swiss Reformed churches subscribed it, but it “ceased to have public authority as a Confession” by 1722.4

The position crossed to England chiefly through Richard Baxter (1615-91), whose Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ “contributed substantially to the introduction of Amyraldism in England.”5 John Owen answered Baxter directly in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Baxter’s contemporary Isaac Barrow, who defended the same hypothetical universalism, moved further still and committed to outright Arminianism.5 In England the new view also became an ally of Arminianism in shaping neonomianism, the soteriology that grounds a believer’s justification in his own sincere, if imperfect, obedience rather than in Christ’s imputed righteousness.6 Bavinck notes a parallel development on the adjacent question of imputation: Jonathan Edwards’s denial of immediate imputation had the separate effect of drawing New England theology “along the lines of Placaeus,”6 the Saumur theologian whose mediate-imputation controversy is covered at Imputation of Adam’s sin.

Objections and Responses

Amyraldism’s own case appeals to the biblical texts that speak of God’s salvific will toward all people, for example that God “wants all humans to repent and be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4, 6) or “has no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 18:23), arguing that a truly universal atoning provision best accounts for language that is not restricted to the elect. In response, Bavinck reads these texts as describing the breadth of gospel proclamation under the New Testament, now extended to every nation rather than confined to Israel, not a universal saving intent in the atonement itself. Scripture instead consistently ties Christ’s sacrifice to a defined group: “many” (Isa. 53:11-12; Matt. 20:28; 26:28; Heb. 2:10; 9:28), “his people” (Matt. 1:21; Titus 2:14; Heb. 2:17), “his sheep” (John 10:11, 15, 26), “his church” (Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:25), and “those whom the Father has given him” (John 6:37, 39, 44; 17:2, 9, 24). “Scripture is not afraid that too many people will be saved,” Bavinck writes; the danger is reading a statement about the scale of the gospel’s reach as a claim about the atonement’s design.7

A related objection holds that limiting the atonement’s design makes the universal gospel offer dishonest. Bavinck answers that the sacrifice and Christ’s ongoing intercession cannot be separated, since the sacrifice is the ground of the intercession, and Scripture is explicit that the intercession is particular (John 17:9, 24; Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25; 1 John 2:1-2). If the intercession is for the elect alone, the sacrifice on which it rests must be as well; the acquisition and application of salvation are inseparably linked (Rom. 8:28-34), so whatever Christ purchases, he purchases to be actually applied, not merely offered.7

A.A. Hodge presses the point from the nature of substitution itself. “Christ expiated our sins as our substitute in the strict sense. But a substitute represents definite persons, and his service, when accepted, actually discharges the obligation of those for whom it was rendered.” Under the covenant of works, Christ “actually and perfectly satisfied all the demands of the covenant,” and the covenant’s own terms provide that those for whom it is satisfied must enjoy the reward: “it is not the possibility of life, but life itself that is promised.”8 Hodge adds that Scripture describes Christ as having purchased not merely the possibility of salvation but faith, repentance, and the Holy Spirit’s own influences (Eph. 1:3-4; Titus 3:5-6; Gal. 3:13-14; Phil. 1:29), benefits that cannot, therefore, be the very condition on which the enjoyment of Christ’s death is suspended.9

Against hypothetical universalism as applied in England specifically, one further objection was that it cannot account for infants who die before any capacity for faith: if Christ died for all only on condition of faith, he cannot be said to have died for those who never have the opportunity to believe.5

Bavinck also raises a Trinitarian objection: dividing the persons’ roles this way (the Father willing salvation for all, the Son making satisfaction for all, but the Spirit restricting the gift of faith to a few) “introduces separation between the three persons of the Divine Being” and disrupts the unity of the Trinity’s own saving work.7

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 418-419. ↩ ↩2

  2. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 16, “The Exalted Lord Christ.” ↩ ↩2

  3. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 8, “Of Christ the Mediator,” para. 5. ↩

  4. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 127-128. ↩ ↩2

  5. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, chap. 16, note 18. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, chap. 17, “The Order of Salvation.” ↩ ↩2

  7. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, chap. 16, “The Exalted Lord Christ.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 419. ↩

  9. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 419-420. ↩