Jacobus Arminius

Overview

Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) was a Dutch Reformed theologian who served as professor of theology at the University of Leiden from 1603 until his death.¹ He is remembered for departing from the Reformed church’s teaching on predestination, a departure that split the Dutch Reformed church and was condemned at the Synod of Dort (1618-1619), nine years after his death.² The position his followers systematized afterward, Arminianism, takes his name.

Life and Ministry

Arminius was born in Holland in 1560 and pastored in Amsterdam before his appointment to the theology chair at Leiden in 1603.¹ By 1608, his views had moved far enough from the Reformed confessions that he laid them out in a Declaration of Sentiments delivered before the Calvinist Estates General of Holland, an open break with the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism he had once subscribed.³ He died at Leiden on October 19, 1609, before the dispute his teaching had opened was resolved.¹

Theological Contribution

Arminius’s own statements affirmed the total depravity of fallen humanity in terms a Reformed theologian would recognize. In his Declaration of Sentiments he wrote that “in his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable, of and by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good; but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his powers, by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.”⁴ Where he broke from the Reformed consensus was on how that grace operates and on what grounds God elects.

His difficulty was with unconditional election.¹ He held that fallen mankind cannot turn from sin to holiness without the Holy Spirit’s grace, offered to all who hear the gospel, but that whether a person actually repents, believes, and perseveres depends on that person’s own choice to cooperate with the grace given rather than on God’s unconditional decree.¹ Election, on this view, is God’s purpose to save those he foreknows will believe and persevere, not a purpose to grant faith and perseverance to a definite number chosen beforehand.¹

After Arminius’s death his followers presented these positions to the Dutch civil authorities as the Remonstrance of 1610, from which they were called Remonstrants.⁵ Its five articles held that God’s decree of election looks to those who by the Spirit’s grace believe and persevere and condemns only the unbelieving (article 1); that Christ died for every person, though only the believer actually receives forgiveness through that death (article 2); that fallen man can do nothing good, including exercise saving faith, apart from being regenerated by the Holy Spirit (article 3); that this grace, while the beginning, continuation, and completion of every good work, is not irresistible, since Scripture describes people resisting the Spirit (Acts 7:51) (article 4); and, more tentatively than the others, that believers are given grace sufficient to persevere, leaving open whether a believer could fall away entirely (article 5).⁶ Hodge notes that the doctrine of justification itself was not among the five points the Remonstrance put before the Dutch authorities, though the Arminians’ departure from Reformed teaching extended to how faith, Christ’s satisfaction, and justification were understood as well.²

On the extent of Christ’s atonement, Arminius himself taught that Christ died so as to make reconciliation and forgiveness available to all people, though only the one who believes actually receives it.¹ Herman Bavinck traced the same universal scope in Arminius’s own writing, citing his Opera theologica, and described the Remonstrant position as holding that Christ’s death was made for all people, “even those who will never believe,” which left the atonement “only exemplary” rather than actually securing anyone’s salvation.⁷

Charles Hodge judged that Arminius’s own theology stood closer to the Reformed confessions than much of what later bore his name: “Arminius himself, at least, held far higher and more Scriptural views on original sin, inability, and the necessity of supernatural grace, than those which have since become so prevalent even among the Reformed or Calvinistic churches themselves.”²

Historical Significance

The Synod of Dort convened in 1618-1619 to judge the Remonstrance and rejected it, articulating the Reformed doctrines of unconditional election, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints in response.² Arminian teaching nonetheless survived its condemnation. Bavinck noted that Arminian ideas “made inroads into the Lutheran and the Anglican [Episcopal] Church” and were carried forward by movements that separated from the state churches, among them Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists, and Quakers.⁷

Related Doctrines

References

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1873), chap. 17, “Justification,” 184-85: “Jacobus Arminius, a man of learning, talents, attractive accomplishments, and exemplary character, was born in Holland 1560, and died professor in the University of Leyden, in 1609, having filled the chair of theology since 1603.” ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:187. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Matthew Michael Barrett, “Monergism in the Calvinist Tradition,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 70-71. ↩
James Arminius, “A Declaration of the Sentiments of Arminius,” in The Writings of James Arminius, trans. James Nichols (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956), 1:252, quoted in Barrett, “Reclaiming Monergism,” 253. ↩
Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:185. ↩
Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:185-86. ↩
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 16, “The Exalted Lord Christ,” citing James Arminius, Opera theologica (Leiden: Godefridum Basson, 1629), 153. ↩ ↩²