Arminius, Jacobus
ARMINIUS, JACOBUS (1559/60–1609), latinized name of Jacob Harmenszoon, Dutch Reformed theologian remembered chiefly for his criticisms of Calvinist views of predestination. Arminius taught that human salvation is due entirely to the grace of God in Christ, whereby fallen humankind is enabled to respond in freedom to the divine call. He proposed a universal "sufficient" grace in place of Calvin's limited "effective" grace. Further, he denied a predestination of particular persons to salvation on the basis of God's secret will, but he affirmed a particular predestination on the basis of God's foreknowledge of human free choices. For much that has come to be known as Arminianism, the central issue is "free will" versus "election."
Arminius was born to well-to-do parents in Oudewater, Holland. He lost his parents while young and was educated under the influence of Dutch biblical humanism. University studies at Marburg (1575) and Leiden (1576–1581) did not seem to have moved him to a strict Calvinism.
With support from Amsterdam merchants, he began theological studies in Geneva, where one of his teachers was Theodore Beza (1519–1605). Arminius and Beza clashed. Arminius studied for a time at Basel, but he returned to Geneva to finish his studies, after which he went to Amsterdam to become that city's first native Dutch clergyman (he was inducted into the Dutch Reformed ministry in 1588). At the time the question of predestination was raging, and Arminius came under fire for refusing to defend any of the Calvinist options and for interpreting Romans 7 and Romans 9 in a manner different from Calvin. He was sustained in his office and position by the Amsterdam merchant-oligarchy, to which he was allied by blood and marriage.
The same humanistic laity supported him in his call to be a professor of theology in Leiden (1603), where he soon incurred the enmity of his colleague Franciscus Gomarus (1563–1641) and other ardent Calvinists. Theological issues were intertwined with political issues, the Arminians siding with the civil official Johan van Oldenbarneveldt (1547–1619), who favored a truce with Spain, and the Calvinists with the military leader Maurice of Nassau (1567–1625), who wanted to press for war. Arminius died in the midst of the conflict, in 1609.
Arminius's cause was taken up by the Remonstrants, so called from their Remonstrance of 1610 that presented the Arminian doctrines of salvation, but power shifted to the Calvinists and Maurice. The Synod of Dort (1618–1619) deposed the Arminians, and Oldenbarneveldt was executed. By the 1630s, however, the Remonstrants had regrouped to form a new denomination, the Remonstrant Brotherhood, which maintained a scholarly, liberal, and progressive emphasis into the twentieth century. Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), Simon Episcopius (1583–1643), Philippus van Limborch (1633–1712), and C. P. Tiele (1830–1902) were among its noted adherents and scholars.
In England, under James I and Charles I, Anglican opponents of Calvinist Puritanism came to be known as Arminians, and Arminianism became allied with the religious and political doctrines of Archbishop William Laud (1573–1645) and was the main line of theology in the Church of England. Non-Anglican Arminianism appeared in the teachings of the General Baptists, often tending toward Unitarianism.
In the eighteenth century, however, John Wesley (1703–1791) and his brother Charles (1707–1788), by their preaching and hymnody, spread a new evangelical Arminianism throughout Britain. John Wesley, even when visiting Holland, made no common cause with the Remonstrants, who by this time were heavily influenced by the Enlight-enment.
Dissent from Calvinism in New England was called "Arminianism," but it did not get its impetus from Arminius. American Methodism did, however, and John Wesley's The Arminian Magazine (1778) was printed on both sides of the Atlantic, as were English editions of Arminius. Wesleyan evangelical Arminianism spread with Methodism across North America in the nineteenth century to the extent that American culture has been designated as "Arminian." There are links from this pervasive Arminian spirit to movements as diverse as frontier revivalism, communitarian perfectionism, the Holiness movement, political and theological individualism, and theological liberalism.
Bibliography
The most recent edition of Arminius's writings is The Works of James Arminius, 3 vols., translated by James Nichols and William R. Bagnall (1853; reprint, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1956). For a modern treatment of Arminius, giving attention to political, economic, and social contexts of his life and thought, see my Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1985). For important interpretive essays on early Dutch Arminianism, see G. J. Hoenderdaal's "Arminius en Episcopius," Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, n.s. 60 (1980): 203–235; and John Platt's Reformed Thought and Scholasticism: The Arguments for the Existence of God in Dutch Theology, 1575–1650 (Leiden, 1982). A. W. Harrison's Arminianism (London, 1937) remains a useful survey of Arminianism in England.
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