Remonstrants

Background

In the late sixteenth century the Netherlands was fighting a war of independence against Spain, and the Reformed Church, which held a quasi-established status, was the principal church. Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609), a professor of theology at the University of Leiden, raised questions about the doctrine of predestination as taught by the successors of John Calvin. Predestination is the teaching that God determined in advance whom He would save. Arminius debated this question with Franciscus Gomarus, a fellow professor at Leiden. Although Arminius died in 1609, ministers who shared his views carried on.

Development

• 1610: Johannes Uytenbogaert and some forty other ministers submitted a five-article "Remonstrance" to the States of Holland. From this document came the name "Remonstrants" (those who protest). Their Calvinist opponents came to be called the "Counter-Remonstrants."
• The Remonstrance made five main points:
• God has decreed to save those who believe in Christ and persevere in faith to the end.
• Christ died for all people, but only those who believe actually receive forgiveness.
• Human beings cannot do good of themselves and must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
• Grace can be resisted.
• The question of whether believers can fall away from faith was left open, on the grounds that Scripture needed further examination.
• 1611: A conference between the two sides was held at The Hague, but no agreement was reached.
• The controversy became entangled with political conflict. Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the political leader of Holland, supported the Remonstrants, while Stadtholder Maurice sided with the Counter-Remonstrants. In 1618 Maurice had Oldenbarnevelt and the jurist Hugo Grotius arrested, and Oldenbarnevelt was executed in 1619.
• 1618–1619: A national synod was held at Dordrecht. Delegates from foreign Reformed churches, including England, also attended. The Remonstrants, led by Simon Episcopius, were summoned as defendants and later dismissed from the assembly. The synod rejected the Remonstrance and adopted the Canons of Dort.

Consequences and Influence

Many Remonstrant ministers were deposed or exiled. In 1619 they founded the Remonstrant Brotherhood in Antwerp. After Maurice's death in 1625, persecution gradually eased, and they opened a church and a seminary in Amsterdam. This church survives today as a small denomination in the Netherlands and has become increasingly liberal over time.

Remonstrant thought spread under the name Arminianism. In the eighteenth century John Wesley embraced it and developed it into Wesleyan theology. The five responses of the Canons of Dort were later summarized as the "five points of Calvinism": total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. The Remonstrants, too, agreed that human beings cannot do good without grace. The point at issue, therefore, was not so much depravity itself as whether grace can be resisted.

In the Korean Church

In Korea the transliteration 알미니안 ("Alminian," from "Arminian") is also widely used. Presbyterian seminaries frequently cover the Canons of Dort alongside the Westminster Confession of Faith in their Reformed curriculum. Methodist, Holiness, and other Wesleyan denominations hold a position close to Arminianism through the doctrine of prevenient grace. Among Baptist and Pentecostal bodies, positions vary from church to church and from theologian to theologian.

Assessment

The Reformed tradition holds that the Synod of Dort safeguarded the truth that salvation is entirely by God's grace, and it criticizes the Remonstrant position for making salvation depend on human decision. The Wesleyan and Arminian traditions regard the Remonstrants as having sought to uphold both God's love for all people and human responsibility. Historians point out that the controversy was deeply entangled with national politics and ended in execution and exile. At the same time, they note the contributions of Remonstrant figures to discussions of religious toleration. Today the controversy is regarded as one of the starting points for debates over predestination and free will.