Dutch Revolt and Arminianism

In this lecture, we're looking at the Dutch Revolt and the Armenian Revolution. And the reason why we're looking at both of these together is because too often, Arminianism as a theological perspective is considered either apart from its initial history, or when it's looked at in the context of the life of Arminius or the Senate of Dort, it's too often considered apart from the wider revolution in the Netherlands that split down the middle, the northern Protestant Netherlands from the southern area that was Catholic that would eventually become known as Belgium. And so what we're going to look at in this lecture is the combination of these two events, because you really can't understand one without the other. At the very least, it is impossible to understand the rise of what we today call classic Arminianism apart from the Dutch Revolt against the Holy Roman Empire. And to begin, we're going to look at the politics of this, what's going on in terms of the culture and in terms of the wars there in the Netherlands. The story of the Netherlands actually begins back in the 16th century. In 1549, Charles V, who was the reigning emperor of the Holy Roman Empire at the time, issued what has become known as the Pragmatic Sanction. And the Pragmatic Sanction essentially detached the Netherlands themselves from the governance of France. And so Charles split what became known as the Seventeen Provinces, which de facto make up the Netherlands, into a separate jurisdiction. A lot of the need for this is because the Netherlands at the time, and increasingly into the 17th century, is incredibly wealthy, and to be something of a vassal or to have its governance determined off-site, you might say, was beginning to chafe them a bit. And so Charles, in 1549, grants them a certain jurisdictional independence. Now the area of the Netherlands is still under the Habsburg dynasty, and so as the war within the Netherlands erupts, and as there begin to evolve some change and some need for separation within the Seventeen Provinces, this should be seen as a war to finally and fully get rid of Habsburg rule in the area of the Netherlands. And as we carry it forward, a number of things begin to happen, both in terms of culture and politics, and in terms of religion, that eventually set the stage for the Dutch Revolt. In 1556, Charles actually abdicates the Holy Roman Empire, and he leaves to his son Philip, Philip of Spain, as he is known, the governance of, amongst other areas, the Netherlands themselves. Now we came across Philip before in our story of Mary I, or Mary Tudor, up in England. Philip wed Mary, and of course, a lot of the ongoing tussling back and forth was grounded on the fact that Philip, being a devout Catholic, believed that Protestantism needed to be purged from any of his lands. But the problem is, is that so many areas have been accommodating for years to the Protestant message. In particular in the 1560s, Protestantism began to put down deep roots in the Netherlands. Various cities, particularly in the northern provinces, began to take on a very serious tone, very serious commitment. Now the Netherlands are a bit of a melting pot. By and large, most trend towards reformed positions on things, though there are Anabaptists as well as Protestants of a more generic stripe that are difficult to pin down in one camp or the other. Well, as the wars there in the Netherlands begin to emerge, as the revolt itself begins to take shape, a lot of this back and forth between Protestantism and the Catholic governorship over the Netherlands becomes the central feature of the revolt itself. The man who would come to define the early revolt, and who would eventually give it its Protestant cast, is a man by the name of William of Orange, also known as William the Silent. William was part of the nobility, he was a powerful man, and a real committed leader of not only of the culture that was calling for the separation from the Habsburg Catholic rulers, but also of the armies themselves. The way the story unfolds is when William comes into his power, whenever he comes to take the reins of authority of those in the North who are beginning to wage civil war in the effort to have separation, there were at the time really three factions in general. There were those who were Catholic, predominantly in the South, there were those who were more, we might use the word hardline Calvinist, that is to say they were seriously committed to the reformed position, and as often happens, there were those in the middle. Maybe they were Catholic, maybe they were Protestant, but for whatever reason they simply wanted a modicum of separation, a modicum of independence, but not total war or a total separation of the Netherlands from the Catholic leaders in the Habsburg dynasty. William of Orange becomes pivotal though, because as the years wear on, he does become himself a convert to Calvinism or to the reformed faith, and the more hardline guys really take something of a violent tone here. We can note, of course, that this is during the time of the Huguenots down in France. In some ways, this group parallels or is an analogy to the Huguenots in France. There are times where they will be relatively violent or at least relatively vocal when it comes to their faith. A great example of this is the spread of a certain amount of iconoclasm. These are mobs of reformed folks committed to the destruction of images and art and these things in the context of worship, who will at times just break into churches and do it for everyone. They don't go through law and prudence because, again, in this day and age, the Habsburgs control the Netherlands, and so therefore they take matters into their own hands. Well, there's an awful lot of back and forth and ups and downs in these early days of the civil wars. William of Orange and Philip in particular tussle back and forth. Philip, of course, has no reason to give the Netherlands any independence from the Habsburg dynasty, and William of Orange is fighting something of a losing battle, though he is always at least fighting to a stalemate or he conquers certain areas and declares that it is now freed. A real turning point, though, in these early days is that Spain eventually becomes bankrupt. They're unable to pay not only their own forces, but also the mercenary armies that they had hired to keep order and discipline there in the Netherlands. As a result of the bankruptcy in Spain, a number of the armies, particularly the mercenaries, go into utter revolt. They sack cities, they enact a short-term wave of violence, and as a result, this does seem to bring about a certain increase in anti-Catholic sentiment in the Netherlands. When the armies turn on you and attack those who are innocent, in the end, the only ones to blame are those to whom they answer, and so a number of folks, in particular in the north, begin to stress increasingly that they are more and more on the side of William of Orange and this Protestant desire for separation from the Habsburgs. A lot of this first wave, though, comes to an end, but in a strange way galvanized in 1584. In 1584, on the 10th of July, William of Orange was assassinated. A man got in close to him, a man who would later be found out to be a Jesuit, and he puts two bullets through him, assassinating William of Orange, attempting to end his leadership of the revolt. If you go there today, you can actually see they have framed the spot where the two bullets passing through William's body actually lodged themselves into the wall. Well, as you can imagine, the assassination of William did nothing to alleviate the tension and the passion here, and it certainly didn't help that the man was Jesuit, part of the Catholic establishment who had assassinated William. William of Orange's son takes over at this point, and he was William of Nassau, and so the years wear on with first Nassau and then others after him taking up the mantle of leadership, and it's to the point that by the end of the 16th century, historians like to say that there was a de facto or a real separation between the northern seven provinces and the ten southern provinces. Now, these seven in the north and ten in the south will be more or less the dividing line between the Protestant Netherlands to the north and Catholic Belgium to the south, but needless to say, there is an ongoing back and forth between the north, which de facto again essentially has its own autonomy and its own authority, to eventually the culmination of the end of the wars of religion in 1648, and we've mentioned this date several times throughout the lecture so far. It's in 1648 where you have proclaimed a more or less universal peace throughout Europe when it comes to these types of religious wars, and in 1648, the de facto separation of the seven northern provinces becomes ironclad. It now becomes on the books the official separation to what was formerly a united Netherlands. Now, one last thing to say about the political tussling back and forth here. As we move forward into the religious elements of this with the rise of Arminius, one of the things that the north is going to have to work out for itself is a new constitution, you might say, or a new order of business for itself. The earliest tussling in the northern Protestant provinces is what is the central locus of power? Is it in the regions? Is it in each of the seven provinces? Or is there now a united national voice or a united national political order that will more or less impose down on top of the other seven a central perspective on things? Now, this is going to matter politically, but it is also going to matter in terms of theology. As the rise of the Arminian debates come into existence here in the early 1600s, a lot of the back and forth between Arminianism or the Remonstrance faith and the Dutch Calvinists is going to churn on the question of to whom do they answer? Is it a matter to be decided in the local assembly, in the regional churches, or should there be a national synod or a national meeting to decide issues related to, in this case, Arminianism? But the backdrop of all of that, the fight there, is because essentially when you get into the year 1600 and beyond, and then as we get closer to the Senate of Dort, those in the leadership of the north are going to lean towards a desire for a central autonomous government that could control and put order down upon not just society as a whole, but also on the church. And you see this a lot in the context of civil wars or in the context of a new government being formed all throughout history, particularly in the west. Just because you've won the battle against your previous sovereigns doesn't mean that you yourselves are now being treated as the new sovereign. And there are plenty of people who might challenge your authority. After all, they just threw off one tyrant. Why do you now get to be the tyrant over the entirety of these regions? So the back and forth between regional government and a national corporate government of all of the north of the northern seven provinces is, again, the backdrop of part of the Arminian debate. And it's at least the grounding of why there has to eventually be a national synod in the city of Dort. Well, who was Arminius? And why was his theology so repugnant to Calvinists there in the Netherlands? Well, Jacob Arminius is one of these men who has a number of things to say theologically against Calvinism, but he's not the typical man that most people think that he is. In the modern world, those who are aware of the Arminian versus Calvinist debate often get the impression, I think, that these are opposing, fully opposite, one from the east and one from the west theological perspectives that don't actually come from the same wellspring. For those who are Calvinist, Arminius is the great theological rebel who challenges the orthodoxy of their positions. On the other hand, those who are Arminian today, at least, tend to see Calvinism or the Reformed faith on the issues of predestination, etc. as the great scourge and pox on the Christian faith all these centuries. Well, the fact of the matter is, is Arminius was actually a Calvinist, believe it or not. Arminius was born in the Netherlands. He eventually studied at the University of Leiden, and he began to work through his subjects of the arts, etc. Then, in 1580, he goes down to the city of Geneva to study there personally. Now, that should be an indication to you. Arminius is, at this time, as were most people in the northern part of the Netherlands, part and parcel to the wider Reformed world. He is not coming out of left field. He's coming from within the house. So, in 1580, he goes down to Geneva. Now, at this point, he is actually studying with Theodore Beza. Beza had been, of course, the successor to Calvin. He had a number of unique theological positions that were at least an intensification of Calvin's ideas, which we'll see in a minute. But he was certainly part of the Reformed faith. He was one of the next generation of leaders of what it would mean to be Reformed. In the 1580s, while Arminius is there, there is actually no serious tussling or fighting between Arminius and Beza or anyone else. Arminius comes under fire a bit while he's there, mostly due to the logical system that he had embraced at the University of Leiden. This is a system known as Ramest logic. It had a set of principles as to how to reason through certain problems and come to conclusions. This is hardly a theological debate, though. This is more about method. Arminius is not ostracized. You're not going to find some kind of Freudian daddy complex where Arminius goes to Geneva, gets shunned or treated poorly, and then he goes back to the Netherlands and complains about all those bullies down there. We actually have from Beza himself, just as Arminius is leaving, a note of praise and a recommendation to those back in the Netherlands that they receive Arminius as a man of strong theological conviction. It's a bit ironic, you might say. But still, Beza, during the time that Arminius was in Geneva, saw no problem. Arminius really raised no issues while he was there. This has always been part of the problem of determining what drives Arminius to eventually challenge a few of the points, in particular of Beza. There is no single consensus on this. Most tend to lean towards the idea that Arminius might have harbored some doubt while in Geneva. He never expressed these doubts. If he did, why would Beza have sent this note of recommendation back? And it seems more that when Arminius takes up the role of a pastor back in the Netherlands after his time in Geneva, that as he is preaching through certain texts, and as he is noticing some of the developments within the Reformed faith, in terms of the development of the articulation of the doctrine of predestination, that Arminius becomes a bit of a rebel, or at least he begins to experience some doubts about the way these things are being described. Now, we're going to carry on the story, at least in terms of the history of it, before we get into the theological debate, because you need to see how this unfolds first. Arminius comes back and he is a pastor, as I've just said. There are two little blips on the screen in terms of people being concerned with what Arminius has to say, in particular when he is preaching through Romans. When he gets to Romans 7 and 8, Arminius issues a couple of claims during his sermons that seem to go against some of the more traditional ways that Reformed people were reading these texts, at least in the context of his own day. People fight against this a little bit, but again, he has not run out of town and he is not yet a man who is considered to be the founder of an alternative to the Reformed position. There are more debates, though, and more controversies begin to arise in 1603, when Arminius is appointed a professor of theology at the University of Leiden. Now, of course, Arminius had been to the University of Leiden, but now he was being appointed a professor of theology. It's at this point that those who are committed, we might say Calvinists, or at least committed Reformed folks, in particular a man by the name of Gomerus, begin to raise serious doubts about Arminius's teaching. They begin to believe that he is a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing there in their midst. A lot of the debate here, though, does not so much hinge on Geneva or on Beza. Rather, in the early 1600s, in those first few years, Arminius seems to have been churned off by, amongst others, the writings of a man by the name of William Perkins, who was an Englishman, a man who had studied at the University of Cambridge, and who was himself one of the foremost Puritan theologians there in the English context. At some point in these early years, Arminius is either asked, or he himself elects, to write a book against William Perkins. Perkins would eventually become a fellow there at Cambridge, and it was there, in the context of being a fellow, that Perkins writes a real stout defense of the doctrine of predestination. The title of the book was called, On the Order and Mode of Predestination. Now, in its original context, William Perkins is essentially asserting and trying to defend a real robust, serious understanding of the Reformed faith for his English audience. Now, this is towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, and just prior to the rise of James I. Again, this is the tussling back and forth, and Perkins is one of these Puritan folks who wants to assert and defend the theological positions that they believed had been part and parcel to the Anglican ethos from the very beginning. Perkins' position on the doctrine of predestination might be said to be a bit extreme, not necessarily in terms of content, but one of the things that is always noted about the transition from Calvin to this early phase of Calvinism is that as certain doctrines become contested, they tend to be separated from the entirety of the theological complex of ideas, and they get separated and therefore examined on their own. Now, this is a good thing in lots of ways. If there's a contentious issue, a contentious doctrine, well, it makes sense to write a specific book just on this doctrine. Calvin himself actually, of course, wrote a book just like this. There were those in Calvin's day, mostly from the Catholic perspective, who were challenging Calvin's understanding of predestination, and it fits in that case just the same way that Luther wrote the bondage of the will in response to Erasmus. However, in the case of William Perkins, the extent to which he is discussing the doctrine of predestination, you might say, is what is new. The fact that he's talking about the order and the mode of it, the fact that he is going into questions of God's eternal decrees, and at what point there is a selection of who will be chosen to eternal life and who will be chosen to eternal death, does on some level seem to be a bit of a new stage. In this sense, there is some historical evidence to say that what William Perkins is doing by separating a doctrine in this way and discussing it to such a heavy extent tends to pull the doctrine of predestination from its moorings within the overall understanding of God's salvation and some of the other understandings of Reformed theology. Not everyone has been happy with William Perkins, both in his own context and ever since. Even those who are Reformed have found William Perkins to, again, be a bit more zealous on this doctrine than he perhaps should have been. Now, we don't have to go there. We don't have to make it a moral judgment. Rather, what William Perkins is doing is discussing the doctrine of predestination on its own, and as a result, there were some who found it to be not the best move. Well, to be frank, that is exactly where Arminius comes from. One of Arminius' main works, in fact, is on this doctrine of predestination, and it was written right here in 1602, though it is not published for some years, and it actually is an attack on the excesses to which William Perkins takes the logical conclusions that he feels are necessary when discussing the doctrine of predestination. In other words, in 1602, and all the way until the end of his life, Arminius is working from within the Reformed position, and he is beginning to become unhappy with where he thinks the discussions have come. So, he writes the book in 1602. He is an appointed professor of Leiden in 1603. The problem, though, is, of course, the book is unpublished, and so no one really fully knows where Arminius stands on these things. A lot of what goes on from 1603 for the next six years, until Arminius dies, is more of an in-house discussion and debate than it is a publishing war. When Arminius dies, his book against Perkins is eventually published, and that's important because during his lifetime, during the last six years of his life, Arminius is not known overtly for his theological position, at least not in terms of publication and for the wider theological world. Within the Netherlands, he is known, and his views are becoming more and more apparent, and so what begins as an in-house debate eventually will take on a wider cast as other Reformed folks from different countries begin to take note of someone from within their theological position challenging some of the opinions of where the Reformed faith has come. So, in 1603, Galmarus and a few others begin to allege that Arminius is not only unreformed, but that he is a Pelagian and a Catholic. Now, there eventually is a meeting, a senate of some kind, where Arminius is asked to give his opinions on things, and unfortunately, the charge that he was Pelagian or a Catholic was very hard to make stick, and so Arminius is able to stand before them and say, no, I am not a Pelagian, I am not a Catholic, I believe in the full and errant scriptures just as Calvin does, and he, being a man who had studied in Geneva, was very well equipped to defend himself here. And so, in the end, the decision of the council is to not affirm that he is in defiance of the traditional opinions of Protestantism. They then ask him to have a conference with Galmarus to see if their differences on these opinions can come to a makeable conclusion. Arminius does agree, Galmarus himself also agrees, but in the end, in 1609, with his health failing, Arminius is unable to do this, and so he dies. Now, this is important because Arminius is, in some ways, the instigator of what we would call the Arminian rejection of Calvinism, but there's a couple of things we have to understand here. First of all, Arminius, as we'll see in a minute, does not fully reject Calvinism or the Reformed faith. Rather, he thinks he is tweaking it to be that much the better. He thinks, in other words, that he's working from within their own theological house, but he thinks that Calvinism has gone off the rails, and therefore he is suggesting some changes that will make it better. The other thing is, Arminius dies before really anything like an Arminian movement can get going. In many ways, throughout the centuries, there are so many different varieties of the ways people use the teachings of Arminius that to say someone is Arminian might or might not mean that they are very close to the actual teachings of Arminius himself. In other words, he dies just as the fight really gets going. He dies even before the Senate of Dort, which means that what is claimed to be Arminian, while certainly very faithful to him, is more the ongoing unfolding of what is being claimed by the name Arminianism than it is actually his own teachings. I'll just put it this way. We've only really had biographies of who Arminius was really in the last, say, five to ten years. There's been a recommitment by historians to really delve into the man. We also have not had much in terms of an actual historical, critical understanding of his theology. What we have had, though, are people who in the modern world in particular claim the name Arminianism, but who themselves might change or adapt or overthrow some of the even core principles of Arminius himself. And just to look down into a later lecture, when we get to the person of John Wesley, for example, John Wesley will in many ways reorient and re-establish the word Arminianism to be his theology, not the actual teachings of Arminius in full. And so historians talk about there's classical Arminianism, there's Wesleyan Arminianism, and there's other versions of Arminianism that are out there in the modern world all the way down until today. What we are concerned about here, though, is what did Arminius himself actually teach? Well, the last couple stages of just the history before we get into that is that what happens in the run-up to the Senate of Dort is with the death of Arminius in 1609, there are a couple of folks who begin to take on this cause that Arminius laid out. In particular, there's a man the name of, depending on how you want to pronounce it, Wittenbogart or Odenboigart. Sorry, Dutch is not my favorite language. I'm sure my Dutch friends will tell me that I brutalized the pronunciation here. Well, Wittenboigart is a man who is part of the state church. He is very much a pastor. He takes on the teachings of Arminius, and like Arminius, he believes there has to be some change. The big issue here, though, politically is Wittenboigart and what would become known as the Remonstrance Group. The Remonstrance Group is just another name for the Arminian perspective, appeal not to the local or the regional provinces of the northern areas of the Netherlands. Rather, they begin to appeal to the latter government leaders who are in charge of these seven provinces overall. Again, this is where the political edge comes in. Wittenboigart is not content to leave this as a local issue. He wants this to be a defining issue for the entirety of the northern provinces, for the entirety of the Netherlands. Well, there were two men at this point by the early 1600s who were in leadership over these provinces. There was the Prince Maurice, and there was another man by the name of Oldenbarneveld. Maurice was a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist, a very reformed person. Oldenbarneveld and several others trended and were influenced by the Arminian perspective. The political rationale for some of these folks with Oldenbarneveld is that they believe that given the fact that the Calvinists there in the Netherlands were pretty ironclad committed to local regional autonomy, they tended to be less in favor of a national synod or a national council that could decide these issues. They saw it as a local issue. Wittenboigart, though, appeals to the national state level. He says, I'm on your side. Let's make this a corporate issue for everyone, for the entirety of the church. As a result of that, though, Maurice, the Calvinist, decides that Oldenbarneveld and others are adapting and changing their theological positions for the sake of a certain amount of political rule. And so Maurice has Oldenbarneveld and some others taken out. And it is during this context of the fight back and forth between Maurice and Oldenbarneveld that the Remonstrance Church, as they will become known as, the church that sides with Arminius and Wittenboigart, issue what they determine are their five challenges to the way Calvinism was being described in their day. So please note right here and now, we've said this before, we're going to say it again, the so-called five points of Calvinism from the Dort Synod are not made up out of thin air. It's not the case that the Synod of Dort was called in order to create new five points that will define and shape Calvinism itself. Rather, it is the Remonstrance Church, the Arminian side, that first comes up with five points that they believe are not in keeping with the biblical teachings in which they propose as a reformation of the reform perspective. And so, in the context of, again, this fight between local and national rule, eventually, in 1618, there is called by the reform side, after Oldenbarneveld and the Arminian leadership has been done away with, a synod to meet in the city of Dortrecht, which, of course, will be eventually anglicized to be Dort. The issue here, though, is the Synod of Dort is a fait accompli before it even begins. Maurice has already done away with Oldenbarneveld. Those in the political level who might be in favor of the Arminian perspective are, therefore, no longer in power. Not surprisingly, by the end of the Synod of Dort, which had national representation from all kinds of different countries—England, Scotland, those from Geneva had come up, etc.—the Synod of Dort essentially answers, point by point, the five points of Arminianism. These five points of the Arminian Church are declared to be not in keeping with the reform position, and therefore, at this national synod of the seven northern provinces, the prince, Maurice, and others impose, you might say, the cessation of the Arminian or the Remonstrance perspective, and they eventually attempt to remove any of the Remonstrance pastors. Okay, so if that's all the political and the historical backdrop, just what did Arminius teach that was so repugnant? Well, it might be worth noting the reform position on a couple of issues, and then noticing the places where Arminius pulls back. The reform perspective in general, and honestly, this is true of other theological positions from the Reformation as well. I'm going to attempt to avoid to say that this is only Calvinism that says these things, but in the context of this fight, of course, it's Calvinism versus Arminianism, but please note that this is not simply Calvinism itself as the only theological position that Arminius might have trouble with. The typical way that the Calvinist position argued its case was they said that God was sovereign, he moved first, that we are dead in our sins, therefore, only those who have been acted upon by God, regenerated or resurrected, we might say, by his grace, spiritually speaking, are then given hearts of flesh, eyes to see, and ears to hear the gospel. Therefore, God knows who is elect or, through the mystery of providence, we don't know who God knows is saved, but God knows, therefore, because only God can come in and do the act of regeneration, the natural implication of this over time, at least with Beza and others, and in particular with Perkins, is that God knows who the elect are because he's chosen them. Everyone else is left dead in their sins, therefore, the elect are a specific group whom God knows from before the foundations of the earth, therefore, the atonement, the coming of Christ on the cross, is for them. The atonement isn't given to everyone, but rather it's given to the elect. Therefore, God saves whom he saves, and he passes over and leaves in sin those whom he decides to do so. Also, therefore, when that grace of regeneration comes, at the moment, you might say, of conversion, it's not, to use a later word, resistible. Why? Well, the answer is because the person's dead. Someone dead in their sins can't actually resist anything, and the action of God to come and resurrect the person spiritually, to give them a heart of flesh, is not something that is resisted. Now, later on throughout the Christian life, someone can walk in obedience or disobedience, they can be resistant, they can be hard-headed, etc. The issue of resistance or the irresistible side of grace is specifically about the issue of salvation itself. Well, if you're dead in your sins, you're not exactly in a state of being able to resist a whole lot. Therefore, again, the final conclusion, you might say, of this understanding of the biblical teaching, is that in the end, because God has chosen to save, because he has sent his grace, those who are called by God cannot fall away, those who are part of his elect choice. Now, it's a myth here to believe that if you're in, you're in, if you're out, you're out. If you've joined a church, well, congratulations, you're a frozen chosen, and therefore, you are one of the elect. That's actually not what Calvinism is saying here. Rather, what they're saying is, God doesn't lose those whom he has chosen. There could be a temporary faith, there could be the appearance of faith, and then someone falls away. That's not the issue of having salvation and then losing it. Rather, that's the issue of us perceiving that someone exhibited faith, when if they walk away and never come back, never again name the name of Christ, well, they weren't really predestined or saved, they just appeared for a period of time to really be interested in the things of the faith, but it was only at a human level. Why did Arminius react against this? Well, the way it was being described, Arminius says, particularly with Perkins and with some of the things that Beza says, sounded as if, and this is the key issue for Arminius, it sounds as if it makes God the author of sin. In fact, I would say as an historian, generally speaking, wherever Arminianism has taken pretty serious root, no matter what changes are made in it, the central root issue is always the fear that if God is an electing God, if he has chosen and if he is the one saving, and we have no choice in the matter, then God is a tyrant, God is the author of sin, and therefore God is, at least in part, morally implicated in the destruction of sinners. So Arminius, you might say, moves the needle just a bit within this reformed perspective, and by doing so comes up with pretty radical distinctions and radical differences between his theology and the theology of at least the wide umbrella of the reformed position. Arminius' ideas essentially boil down to, again, a rejection of some of these things. First and foremost, Arminius begins by saying that God does elect, but his election is not to specific individuals. Rather, he gives a temporary or a halfway grace, where he gives us just enough grace, you might say, so that everyone now has ears to hear and eyes to see. God gives enough to all of humanity so that when they hear the gospel, they are then free to choose or to not choose the gospel. Now, what's interesting about this is these are the same reformed categories, he's just moved the needle again. As opposed to the idea that everyone has fallen in sin and only those whom he chooses now have eyes to see, Arminius essentially applies that to the entirety of the world. Everyone now has eyes to see, and therefore, he says, we're not dead in our sin. In fact, this is a very famous quote of his. He says, against Calvin and Luther and lots of other people, that our will is not in bondage or dead or any of these things, but it's rather weakened and enfeebled. That's an important change. Flowing out of that, though, is how Arminius builds up his theological system. Because God has given grace to everybody, therefore, we are able to choose. We can accept the faith and even at time resist it. We can also be part of the faith, truly, and eventually decide that we're going to leave it. Therefore, with all these conclusions, just simply by making that one little needle move, frankly, theologically, by applying grace to all of humanity halfway, not for saving, but for the ability to have the will freed in order to accept the gospel, Arminius then goes point by point through a number of issues within the reform perspective, and he denies them. It's not that God has elected certain individuals. Rather, he has, you might say, halfway elected everybody. Therefore, we have to embrace it. We have to grab hold of the promises of faith, and should we decide to leave, then that is okay as well. We will be leaving. There is no perseverance, as they say later, of the saints. So in the end, Arminius' theology, while a bit idiosyncratic, worked from within the reform perspective, changed a couple of the key foundational stones, you might say, of the reform position on things, and as a result, the outworking of his position led to an entirely different position known as Arminianism. Now, over the centuries, Arminianism will become something of a wax nose. Different folks will call themselves Arminian, and they might be different and have entirely different foundational principles, etc. Eventually, Arminianism becomes more Wesleyan than it does part of this original Dutch Arminianism. However, the backdrop of all this is the Dutch Revolt itself, the civil war there, and then eventually with the Senate of Dort, the tussling back and forth between state and local authorities that eventually gave rise to the Senate of Dort. Thank you for watching!