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Course 10 · Lesson 4.3

Arminius, Wesley and conditional election

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 4.3

What you will learn

  • Describe who Jacobus Arminius was and what the Remonstrants asserted in 1610.
  • State the Arminian doctrine of conditional election, prevenient grace and the universal reach of the atonement.
  • Explain Wesley’s version of the teaching and his dispute with Calvinist contemporaries.
  • Separate what Arminians affirm from the charges that critics make against them.

The big idea

Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch Reformed theologian (1560 to 1609), taught that God elects to salvation those whom he foresees will believe, that Christ died for all, that grace is necessary and can be resisted, and that believers may need to be warned against falling away. His followers, the Remonstrants, stated these points in 1610, and the Synod of Dort rejected them in 1619. John Wesley, in the eighteenth century, carried the teaching into the Methodist movement. Arminians insist that salvation is by grace alone and that their view defends God’s justice and love.

Key terms

Arminianism
The theology that grew from Arminius and the Remonstrants. It holds to conditional election, universal atonement, resistible grace and the need to persevere in faith.
Remonstrance
The statement of five articles presented in 1610 by followers of Arminius to the States of Holland. The followers became known as Remonstrants.
Conditional election
The teaching that God chooses to save those whom he foresees will respond in faith, so that election is conditioned on faith in Christ.
Prevenient grace
Grace that goes before and enables a response of faith. Arminius and Wesley taught that it is given to all people.
Middle knowledge
The idea, from the Jesuit Luis de Molina, that God knows what free creatures would do in any circumstance. Arminius made some use of it, and later Arminians differ about it.
Wesleyan
Belonging to the tradition of John Wesley, including the Methodist and Holiness churches. Wesleyan teaching shares the Arminian view of grace and adds an emphasis on entire sanctification.
Open theism
A recent view that God does not exhaustively know future free acts. Classical Arminians reject it, and the term should not be confused with Arminius’s own teaching.

Background

Arminius was trained in Geneva and became a pastor in Amsterdam and then a professor at Leiden. His colleagues suspected him of departing from the Reformed confession. In his Declaration of Sentiments in 1608, he argued that he agreed with the confession’s main doctrine and that he disliked what he took to be the harshest versions of predestination. After his death in 1609 his followers drew up the Remonstrance, and a long struggle followed, ending with the Synod of Dort. The Remonstrants were banned for some years and then tolerated.

John Wesley (1703 to 1791) was an Anglican priest who led the Methodist revival. He preached free grace widely, and he came into conflict with George Whitefield, a Calvinist Methodist, over predestination. Wesley did not read Arminius much at first and then defended Arminian positions in print. A fair account will keep in mind that Arminius and Wesley were not identical in all points and that modern Arminians vary.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Arminius’s concerns

Arminius held that the Reformed teaching on predestination, as often stated, made God the author of sin and made the offer of the gospel insincere. If God had decreed the fall and the damnation of the non-elect, then, he said, God would be the cause of sin. He also held that if Christ’s death were only for the elect, the call to believe addressed to all would be empty.

His own proposal was that God’s decrees follow an order in light of Christ: God decreed to save sinners who repent and believe in Christ, and to condemn those who do not. Then he decreed to give means of grace sufficient for repentance and faith. Finally he decreed to save particular persons, those he foreknew would believe and persevere by grace.

Step 2: The five articles of 1610

The Remonstrance declared, in summary: first, that God elects to salvation those who, by his grace, will believe and persevere, and condemns those who do not; second, that Christ died for all people, though only believers enjoy the forgiveness; third, that human beings cannot of themselves have saving faith and need to be born again by the Spirit; fourth, that grace is the beginning, continuation and completion of all good but that it can be resisted; and fifth, that God’s grace is sufficient to keep believers, though whether they can fall away needed further study from Scripture.

The fifth point was left open at first. Later Remonstrants affirmed that a believer could finally fall. The Synod of Dort condemned the five articles and replied with five heads of doctrine.

Step 3: Grace and the will

Arminius wrote that the will is in bondage to sin and cannot do good without grace. He rejected Pelagianism in clear terms. His claim was that grace, working in the mind and the will, enables the person to respond, and that this grace may be resisted. Wesley called this prevenient grace and taught that it is given to all, so that no one is wholly without light or without the ability to turn.

Arminians say that the free response of faith earns nothing. The person who receives a gift has no ground for boasting. Calvinists reply that the final difference between two persons who hear the same gospel is then in themselves. Arminians answer that to receive grace is not to cause it.

Step 4: Wesley and Whitefield

In 1739 Wesley preached and published a sermon called Free Grace against the doctrine of predestination, which he said made preaching pointless, made God worse than the devil in some respects, and contradicted the universal love of God. Whitefield, who was a friend, replied in an open letter. The two men remained friends, but their followers divided into Arminian Methodists and Calvinistic Methodists, the latter becoming the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist church and others.

Wesley believed that his teaching expressed the Church of England’s own Articles and homilies. He also held that justification is by faith alone and affirmed original sin and the need of the new birth, so that his differences with Calvinists were limited, though sharp.

Step 5: Questions Calvinists ask

Calvinists ask three things of Arminians. Does conditional election, based on foreseen faith, make God’s choice depend on the creature? How can God be sovereign if the final outcome depends on human choice? And does the possibility of falling away remove assurance? Arminians answer that God’s sovereignty includes the decision to make a world in which free creatures can respond, and that assurance rests on Christ’s promises received by present faith, not on a decree beyond view.

  1. What worries Arminius about the Reformed doctrine of predestination?
  2. Is election based on foreseen faith a more or less comforting doctrine than unconditional election?
  3. Does prevenient grace answer the charge that Arminianism is Pelagian? Why or why not?
  4. What does Wesley mean by ‘free grace’?
  5. How might Wesley and Whitefield have remained friends despite their differences?
  6. How should the possibility of falling away affect a believer’s confidence?

Examples

Wesley’s open letter

After preaching on free grace, Wesley was reproached by Whitefield, who wished to avoid public division. Their exchange shows two evangelists who agreed on the new birth, on justification by faith and on the need to preach to sinners, and disagreed about the cause of election. When Whitefield died in 1770, Wesley preached his funeral sermon. (A historical summary.)

Two teachers in a neighborhood

A Methodist and a Presbyterian lead adjoining Bible classes. Each warns the class against the danger of the other’s view. At a community prayer meeting they find that they pray in much the same words about the need of grace. They conclude that the debate matters but that it does not make them strangers. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Arminian and Wesleyan

God loves all and desires all to be saved. Christ died for all. Grace comes first, enables a response and can be resisted. God elects in Christ those who believe and persevere. The saved are saved by grace alone, and the lost are lost by their own refusal.

Reformed

Reformed theologians respond that conditional election makes human faith the final cause of the difference between saved and lost, contrary to Ephesians 2:8 and John 6:44. They hold that Arminianism diminishes grace and misreads the texts on God’s desire for all to be saved.

Lutheran

Lutherans hold that election is to salvation in Christ and that it is not based on foreseen faith, since faith is itself the result of God’s work. They agree with Arminians that God wills the salvation of all and that grace can be resisted, so they stand in a position between Dort and the Remonstrants.

Catholic

Catholic teaching rejects both the claim that anyone is predestined to evil and the claim that the beginning of faith is from the human will alone. Catholics hold that Christ died for all and that grace can be resisted. Many see similarities with Arminian teaching, and differ on merit, the sacraments and assurance.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers find Arminian emphasis on human response and God’s love for all congenial, while observing that the Western debate between Calvin and Arminius arose from legal categories the East does not use. They stress synergy and theosis.

Why it matters

Arminian teaching has shaped Methodist, Holiness, Pentecostal and many other churches, and it lies behind much popular preaching that invites hearers to decide for Christ. Knowing it accurately helps a student avoid two errors: treating it as a form of works-righteousness and treating it as a mere soft version of Calvinism. It is an effort to hold together God’s grace and God’s justice and love, with its own difficulties.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Arminians believe people save themselves.

Correction: Arminius and Wesley both taught that human beings cannot turn to God without grace. They hold that faith is a response enabled by grace and gives no ground for boasting.

Misunderstanding: Arminians deny God’s foreknowledge or sovereignty.

Correction: Classical Arminians affirm that God knows all things, including future free acts. Denying exhaustive foreknowledge belongs to open theism, a recent and separate view.

Misunderstanding: Arminius was a heretic outside the Reformed church.

Correction: He was a Reformed minister who claimed to hold the confession. The Synod of Dort judged his followers’ teaching to be contrary to it. Historians still debate how far he departed.

Misunderstanding: Wesley and Arminius taught exactly the same thing.

Correction: They shared the central points, but Wesley added his own emphases on assurance, the witness of the Spirit and entire sanctification. He also held that Christ’s atonement removed the guilt of Adam’s sin from all.

Knowledge check

Who was Arminius, and what did he teach about election?

Arminius was a Dutch Reformed pastor and professor at Leiden who died in 1609. He taught that God elects to salvation those whom he foresees will believe and persevere, by grace. He held that Christ died for all, that grace is needed and can be resisted, and that God is not the author of sin.

What were the five articles of the Remonstrance?

They stated conditional election in Christ, the death of Christ for all, the need of grace for saving faith, resistible grace that is the beginning, continuation and completion of every good, and the sufficiency of grace to preserve believers, with the question of their possible falling left for study. Dort condemned them in 1619.

What is prevenient grace?

It is the grace that goes before human choice and enables a person to respond to God. Arminius and Wesley taught that it is given to all, so that no one is without the capacity to turn, though it may be resisted. It answers the charge that Arminianism gives the unaided will power to start salvation.

What was the main dispute between Wesley and Whitefield?

Wesley preached against predestination in his sermon Free Grace in 1739, holding that election is conditional and that Christ died for all. Whitefield held Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election. They agreed on justification by faith and the new birth and remained friends, but their followers formed separate groups.

Think it through

  1. Which concern strikes you as stronger: protecting God’s sovereignty or protecting God’s justice and love? Does your answer have to be either?
  2. Why might a loving God allow resistible grace? What would be lost without it?
  3. How would you explain Arminianism to someone who says it is the same as Pelagianism?

Independent assignment

Arminian and Calvinist answers to the same questions

In your notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Pose three questions: Who is elected and why? For whom did Christ die? Can grace be resisted? For each, write a short answer first in the Arminian and then in the Calvinist form, using the confessions as your guide. Then name one point where you think the disagreement is deepest and say why.

Further study