Arminianism

Arminianism. Jacobus Arminius ( Jakob Hermansz or Harmensz, 1560–1609) was a Dutch Reformed theologian, ordained in 1588. Study of the Epistle to the Romans led him to doubt the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. In 1603 he was appointed professor at Leiden and he was immediately drawn into controversy with F. Gomar. He obtained possession of his chair only after a disputation in which he cleared himself of charges of Pelagianism and Socinianism. He tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain the revision of the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism.

Arminian doctrines, formally set out in the Remonstrance of 1610, were a theological reaction against the deterministic logic of Calvinism. The Arminians insisted that the Divine sovereignty was compatible with a real human free will; that Christ had died for all and not only for the elect; and that both the Supralapsarian and the Sublapsarian views of predestination were unbiblical. The Arminians were condemned at the Synod of Dort (1618–19); many of them were banished and others persecuted. As representatives of a more liberal school of theology than the strict Calvinists, however, they influenced the formation of modern Protestant theology. The anti-Calvinist trend in 17th-cent. English theology was termed ‘Arminian’ by its opponents, though it is doubtful if Arminius' teaching had much direct influence in this case.