Month: May 2022

Conversation with GOD

  • Thank You Holy Spirit – thank you that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and we are going to go on for many years, until Jesus returns;
  • Thank God; he father of the fatherless; no God like you; the God who hears when we cry; no prayer you cannot answer;
  • Thank you for the burial and resurrections of our LORD Jesus Christ.
  • Have faith in your faith because without faith, it is impossible to believe in God. God is happy when we let the WORD know we have GOD’s report not a doctor’s report or a lawyers’ report. His report says we are healed. His report says we are BLESSED. His report says we are favored. We have found favor with GOD and man. YOU must finish your assignment in the name of JESUS….

Fall of Western Roman Empire

The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into several successor polities.

The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including

  1. The effectiveness and numbers of the army,
  2. The health and numbers of the Roman population,
  3. The strength of the economy,
  4. The competence of the emperors,
  5. The internal struggles for power,
  6. The religious changes of the period, and t
  7. The efficiency of the civil administration.
  8. Increasing pressure from invading barbarians outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. 
  9. Climatic changes and both endemic and epidemic disease drove many of these immediate factors.

In 376, unmanageable numbers of Goths and other non-Roman people, fleeing from the Huns, entered the Empire.

In 395, after winning two destructive civil wars, Theodosius I died, leaving a collapsing field army, and the Empire, still plagued by Goths, divided between the warring ministers of his two incapable sons. Further barbarian groups crossed the Rhine and other frontiers and, like the Goths, were not exterminated, expelled or subjugated. The armed forces of the Western Empire became few and ineffective, and despite brief recoveries under able leaders, central rule was never effectively consolidated.

By 476, the position of Western Roman Emperor wielded negligible military, political, or financial power, and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that could still be described as Roman. Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire.

In 476, the Germanic barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, and the Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Flavius Zeno.

While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire survived, and although lessened in strength, remained for centuries an effective power of the Eastern Mediterranean.

While the loss of political unity and military control is universally acknowledged, the Fall is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as late antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political collapse.

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, who was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is also known within the latter as the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, and the Doctor Universalis.[a] 

The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy. Among other things, he was a prominent proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism. He argued that God is the source of both the light of natural reason and the light of faith.[12] His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy is derived from his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.

Unlike many currents in the Catholic Church of the time, Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle — whom he called “the Philosopher” — and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.

His best-known works are the Disputed Questions on Truth (1256–1259), the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–1265), and the unfinished but massively influential Summa Theologica, or Summa Theologiae (1265–1274). His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle also form an important part of his body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the church’s liturgy.[15] 

The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas as a saint and regards him as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood, and indeed the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. In modern times, under papal directives, the study of his works was long used as a core of the required program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines (philosophy, Catholic theology, church history, liturgy, and canon law).[16]

A Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas is considered one of the Catholic Church’s greatest theologians and philosophers. Pope Benedict XV declared: “This (Dominican) Order … acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools.

Thomism is the philosophical and theological school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Aquinas‘ disputed questions and commentaries on Aristotle are perhaps his best-known works.

In theology, his Summa Theologica is amongst the most influential documents in medieval theology and continues to be the central point of reference for the philosophy and theology of the Catholic Church. In the 1914 motu proprio Doctoris Angelici,[1] Pope Pius X cautioned that the teachings of the Church cannot be understood without the basic philosophical underpinnings of Aquinas’ major theses.

The principal work of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica is divided into three parts and is designed to instruct both beginners and experts in all matters of Christian Truth. It discusses topics central to

  1. Christian morality,
  2. Ethics,
  3. Law, and
  4. The life of Christ,

These provide philosophical and theological solutions to common arguments and questions surrounding the Christian faith.

The views presented in this body of writing are currently upheld in large part by the modern doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Interesting references to and insights on ensoulment and embryology, as well as other topics discussed in Summa Theologica, indicate a strong Aristotelian and Augustinian influence.

The Summa Theologica focuses on religious matters pertinent to the organization and doctrine of the Catholic faith, discussions of virtues and the Sacraments, and the nature of the Christian triune God and His creation. 

St. Thomas Aquinas felt called to serve the Church through scholarship in writing and preaching, and worked on Summa Theologica until shortly before his death. It is said that after a period of ecstasy during mass on 6 December 1273, Aquinas declared he would write no more, as anything he wrote would pale in comparison to what had just been revealed to him.

Upon his death on 7 March 1274, Aquinas left his chief theological handiwork incomplete. The third and final section of his writings was later completed by his close friend, Fra Rainaldo da Piperno.

In Aquinas’s discussion on murder, in Question 64, he mentions that human gestational life progresses from “first a living thing, then an animal, and lastly a man.” This view of life echoes that of St. Augustine and Aristotle, who both defended a delayed hominization theory for the life cycle of humans. Such a cycle claims that upon conception, something along the lines of a vegetable life is present; non-sentient, incognizant, and as yet without a human soul. Soon after, it is believed that the being gains the characteristics of animal life, still without a human soul but with human or animal form and features. Finally, at about forty days for males and eighty days for females, this theory states that the life in the womb becomes human; for past theologians, this point of ensoulment was often selected to indicate the first presence of a human life. There is no direct discussion of procured abortion or embryology in Aquinas’s section on murder, though he does write that the intentional killing of an animated fetus with a rational soul is considered homicide.

Aquinas’s theories on ensoulment in Summa Theologica do reveal more about the understanding of embryology during the period. His segment on souls indicates that while he believed souls were immediately united with the body, he believed that upon fertilization, human life begins with a vegetative soul. This vegetative entity was credited with having nutritive, augmentative, and generative powers, according to Aquinas, but would require further development before it would gain sensitive and intellectual capacities. The document does, however, argue for the immediate ensoulment upon the conception of Jesus Christ in Question 33, wherein Jesus was instantaneously given a rational, perfect soul, as opposed to the imperfect soul of the vegetative or animal stages, and a human form. Summa Theologica indicates that even scientific understanding of embryology was limited at this time, as there is very little accurate content in the document’s description of development in utero.

Currently, the Roman Catholic Church relies heavily on the Summa Theologica in its discussions on theology, philosophy, and morality, though it has since parted ways with Aquinas when it comes to the ideas of delayed hominization, vegetative souls, and the Aristotelian view of embryology, among others. Overall, the Summa Theologica provides great insight into the prevalent Christian views on human development and ensoulment during the Middle Ages, though it is less representative of today’s scientific and theological beliefs on these matters.

Middle Ages

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, (between the years 500 and 1500 AD), similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history:

  1. classical antiquity,
  2. the medieval period, and
  3. the modern period.

The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.

Population decline, counter-urbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages.

The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire.

In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad’s successors.

Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome’s direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. Secular law was advanced greatly by the Code of Justinian.

In the West, most kingdoms incorporated extant Roman institutions, while new bishoprics and monasteries were founded as Christianity expanded in Europe.

The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south.

During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. 

Manorialism, the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles, and feudalism, the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors, were two of the ways society was organised in the High Middle Ages.

This period also saw the formal division of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, with the East–West Schism of 1054.

The Crusades, which began in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims, and also contributed to the expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic region and the Iberian Peninsula.

Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states, reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant.

In the West, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. The theology of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres mark the end of this period.

The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death killed about a third of Europeans. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, and peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period.

Logics of a Testimony

Around 320 BC and before Jesus walked on earth, Aristotle created a system of TESTIFYING. In essence, he said, if you must TESTIFY, use these two methods.

  1. Deductive logic which says, if it is impossible to be true, then the testimony is false.
  2. Analytic inductive method which says let’s infer what must be true by looking at facts and rules.

Logicians in the middle ages (from the collapse of Roman civilization in the 5th century ce to the period of the Renaissance), attempting to understand Aristotle divided testimonies into two groups;

  1. Scientific and
  2. Probabilistic

In AD 38, Agricola reformed Aristotalian methods by proposing what became known as Agricolan methods. His method, however, diminished the emphasis on scientific logic. He technically said testimony should do away with science and be 100% based on probabilistic logic [ie involving chance variations].

Around 1520, Philip Melanchton saw some problems with Agricola’s method and sought to reform Angricolian method.

He basically said, let us revisit Aristotle’s thoughts. There is scientific logic in any TESTIMONY and there is probabilistic logic. He then reformed Aristotalian and Agricolian method by adding a third component- Faith. He said, testimony, should yield FAITH rather than science.

As for acceptance of the TESTIMONY, Melanchton said the degree to which people accept a testimony depends on how much they TRUST the testifier.

For Melanchton, no one in good mind will TRUST a testimony by a fortune teller. But those who TESTIFY, while standing firm in Judeo-Christian faith are trustworthy because the infallible authority of God’s word, [handed down through the Bible and the Church] BACK the certainty of their testimony.

There are some living today who will listen to a testimony and with Agricola’s attitude say – not sure about that. And then there are those who will listen and see via scientific and probabilistic logic that God moved [in response to prayer and one act of faith] to change the waters.

Melanchthon concluded his arguments by saying it is the Holy Spirit who enables those who are justified by faith to be rational.

Ramus Vs Aristotelian Curriculum

Petrus Ramus was a French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was a victim of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre.

In Summary, Ramus was;

  1. A cleric and professor of philosophy who gained notoriety first by his criticism of Aristotle and then by conversion to Protestantism.
  2. Killed in the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572. His status as Huguenot martyr certainly had something to do with the early dissemination of his ideas.[
  3. His ideas had influence in some (but not all) parts of Protestant Europe, strong in Germany and the Netherlands, and on Puritan and Calvinist theologians of England, Scotland, and New England.
  4. He had little effect however on mainstream Swiss Calvinists, and was largely ignored in Catholic countries. The progress of Ramism in the half-century roughly 1575 to 1625 was closely related to, and mediated by, university education: the religious factor came in through the different reception in Protestant and Catholic universities, all over Europe.
  5. The works of Ramus reached New England on the Mayflower.
  6. He was against Aristotelianism.

Aristotelianism is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by 

  1. deductive logic and
  2. an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics.

It covers the treatment of the social sciences under a system of natural law. It answers why-questions by a scheme of four causes, including purpose or teleology, and emphasizes virtue ethics.  

(i) Speaker,

(ii) Speech,

(iii) Occasion,

(iv) Audience and

(v) Effect.

Aristotle advises speakers to build speech for different audience on different time (occasion) and for different effects. Speaker plays an important role in Public speaking.

Aristotle and his school wrote tractates on physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, and government. Any school of thought that takes one of Aristotle’s distinctive positions as its starting point can be considered “Aristotelian” in the widest sense. This means that different Aristotelian theories (e.g. in ethics or in ontology) may not have much in common as far as their actual content is concerned besides their shared reference to Aristotle.

Aristotle and subsequent Western logicians through the Middle Ages generally divided logic into two types: scientific and probabilistic. Scientific logic was primarily concerned with securing knowledge in absolute structures such as a syllogism. Probabilistic logic was concerned with judging how strongly one should assent to information and with strategies of communication and persuasion. In the Renaissance many humanists emphasized probabilistic logic over and above scientific logic, especially the complex system of syllogisms emphasized in the High Middle Ages.

Renaissance humanists were generally scholars reacting against the arcane and seemingly monolithic certainties that had been promoted and ascribed to through the Middle Ages. They favored more limited claims in their desire to attain moral reform and they emphasized a strong split between the human and divine, the natural

The main aim of Petrus Ramus was to provide a method of teaching the liberal arts enabling the completion of the undergraduate program of studies in 7 years. This method was based on a new logic, in which the complex structure of Aristotle’s Organon and of the Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain is reduced to two main doctrines:

  1. The invention of arguments, by which it is possible to find the notions for reasoning and disputing in any discipline, and
  2. The disposition of arguments in judgment, i.e., in propositions and syllogisms. Since this logic applies both to demonstrative and to probable reasoning, Ramus and Rudolph Agricola, who first introduced it, labeled it as dialectic.
    • Ramus completed this twofold dialectic with a method, according to which disciplines have to be taught by providing general definitions, to be explained by subsequent dichotomous divisions.
    • According to Ramus, this method ensures a well-ordered hierarchy and division of disciplines, and an efficient means to teach them in a shorter time than in the pedagogical programs of Juan Luis Vivès, Johann Sturm, and Philipp Melanchthon.
    • This method had its main diffusion in the preuniversity institutions such as the German gymnasia and gymnasia illustria (e.g., of Herborn), while in Reformed and Catholic universities the acceptance of Ramism was hindered by the predominance of the Aristotelian curriculum.

Rudolphus Agricola’s De Inventione Dialectica was the most influential of the first humanistic logic textbooks. Circulating in manuscript after the 1470s and first published in Louvain in 1515, it gained enormous influence in the 1520s and 30s. By 1569 Petrus Ramus, a populizer of many Agricolan reforms, wrote that “thanks to Agricola the true study of genuine logic had first been established in Germany, and thence, by way of its disciples and emulators, had spread throughout the whole world.” The most influential of Agricola’s emulators was Philipp Melanchthon (1496–1560), Professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg and Martin Luther’s principal lieutenant.

Melanchthon made his own needed reforms on Agricola’s reforms. As Wilhelm Maurer has pointed out, Agricola did not shape Melanchthon: rather, he “spurred him on constantly to intellectual reform.” Melanchthon’s own logic textbooks, Compendiaria Dialectices Ratio (1520), Dialectices (1528) and culminating with Erotemata Dialectices (1547), though rooted in Agricola’s new humanist ideals, were fundamentally different in their concern for religious dogmatism and Aristotelian certainty.

Melanchthon was more concerned about protecting the certainty of essential Christian teachings than Agricola. Agricola was “offended” by “the dogmatic strain in high medieval logic” and wanted to avoid the religious controversies of his era; therefore, he greatly diminished the space devoted to Aristotelian syllogisms and categories. By doing so, he diminished emphasis on scientific logic, choosing instead to devote the textbook to probabilistic logic. Melanchthon, being deeply committed to many humanist ideals, supported the new emphasis on probabilistic logic; however, being also committed to Christian reform, he chose to reemphasize those aspects of scientific logic that could best serve Christian reform: Aristotelian syllogistic demonstration and the ten categories. Agricola, a conscientious Roman Catholic, did not attack Christianity; he simply avoided it. Melanchthon, a Protestant reformer, went out of his way to make sure his readers understood the Christian implications of his logic.

The best example of this split between Agricola and Melanchthon is in their discussions of divine testimony—one of the issues that the new humanistic logics revived from Classical probabilistic logic. Generally, the two logics agree: testimony yields faith rather than science and the degree of certainty of any received testimony depends on the degree of trustworthiness accorded to the testifier. Divine testimony is discussed in both, but in completely different ways.

Agricola’s De lnventione discusses forms of divine testimony in the context of Cicero, so priests and fortune-tellers who interpret signs and read the heavens are discussed. There is no discussion of any particularly Christian form of divine testimony nor of any Christian application. Melanchthon’s Erotemata Dialectices, on the other hand, emphasizes the Christian certainty in divine testimony as received from the Judeo-Christian God. The infallible authority of God backed the certainty of faith derived from divine testimony handed down through the Bible and church.

The differences between the texts are obvious. Agricola’s attitude is not anti-Church, but overall lacks concern for ecclesiastical issues. Melanchthon’s attitude is stridently in support of the rational and dogmatic claims of Lutheran reforms, particularly the emphasis on faith and the Bible. Melanchthon’s text teaches the certainty of the Bible and ecclesiastical traditions, the faculties of the soul, proper understanding of baptism and justification by faith, the importance of grace, and the Holy Spirit’s help in being rational. The book closes with an attack on skeptics for not assenting to the knowledge offered them, thus denying a gift of God. Although later logic textbooks did not follow Melanchthon slavishly, many subsequent textbooks incorporated these religious subjects into logic. Melanchthon can be considered the founder of a tradition of religiously-oriented and dogmatically-inclined humanistic logic textbooks.

Like many of the intellectual developments of the Reformation,Melanchthon’s new logic relied heavily on Augustinianism. As the new tradition in logic developed, Augustinianism, not Aristotelianism, would be the dominant characteristic.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Augustine was erroneously believed to have written two logic textbooks: Categoriae Decem ex Aristotele Decerpta and Principia Dialectica. Bartolomaeus Keckermann (c. 1571–1609), an important textbook author who will be more fully discussed later, wrote a history and justification of Christian logic, emphasizing the example Augustine set as a Christian logician and he cited the above mentioned logics attributed to Augustine.

However, Keckermann, like most of the Augustinian logicians discussed here, placed greater weight on Augustine’s polemical and theological writings as examples of good logic put to use for true religion. Keckermann quoted On Christian Doctrine on the importance of dialectics (probabilistic logic) for Christians, and it was through that work that Augustine had his greatest influence on the future development of Christian education in the liberal arts. When Augustine dealt with the “use of dialectics” in On Christian Doctrine, he explained that the “science of reasoning” was crucial for understanding and that young men should devote themselves to it even though it was developed by pagan philosophers. Augustine advised readers to “take and turn to a Christian use” all that was good in pagan philosophy and institutions.

One of Augustine’s most important legacies in logic was his study of the human will, especially the will of those affected by God’s grace. His polemical and theological works consistently asserted the role of human will in knowing and reasoning. A long tradition developed in the Middle Ages along Augustinian lines, and, in the Renaissance, Melanchthon developed a specific place in Aristotelian logic for this relationship between will and knowledge.The core of the tradition insisted that only the person blessed by a divine grace is able to reason most rightly and fully on the hardest questions. This aspect of Augustinianism appears clearly in Morton’s and Brattle’s logics.

Augustine’s influence on dogmatically-inclined and religiously-oriented humanistic logics cannot be overestimated. Augustine wrote several books on Christian rationalism such as Against Academics and On the Profit of Believing that deal with those named specific subjects. However, as Keckermann exemplifies, his work on polemics and theology were more influential. For Melanchthon’s logic and other Christian logics that developed after him, Augustine’s On the Trinity was probably the most influential model of logic at work. On the Trinity begins by describing types of misused reason and throughout continually returns to discussions of sources of knowledge, reasoning methods, and his essential theory that the only good reasoner is the good Christian. Being created in the image of God means that men and women have the capability to reason rightly in the finite context of their mortality, but fallen humans can turn aside from the image of God and their reasoning becomes faulty. A selfish soul loving its own power slips “from the whole which is common, to a part.” It is by divine grace that humans maintain their likeness in the image of God and thus their reasoning ability. In this manner Augustine weaves his discussion of good and bad logic throughout On the Trinity, creating a logic textbook within a theological apology.

Both Agricola’s and Melanchthon’s logics were published in many editions and greatly influenced English education. Henry VIII in1535 considered Agricola and Melanchthon among the “purest authors” who were to be studied at Oxford and Cambridge and both had long histories of influence there, especially at Oxford. One of Melanchthon’s logics (but not Agricola’s) was part of Cambridge graduate John Harvard’s private library which formed the basis of the first Harvard College library. For three centuries textbook authors were influenced by these two pedagogical reformers, many authors following particularly the religious innovations of Melanchthon. Morton and Brattle followed Malanchthon. Even before these two, the logicians promoted at Harvard were followers of Melanchthon, especially Alexander Richardson.

The beginnings of Puritanism were rooted in a type of Ramist logic which insisted on Melanchthon-style religious dogmatism while revolting against Melanchthon’s Aristotelianism.

The Dutch Reformed Church

The Dutch Reformed Church was

  1. The largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in October 31 1517 until 1930.
  2. The foremost Protestant denomination, and—since 1892—one of the two major Reformed denominations along with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.
  3. The original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family until being merged into the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, a United church of both Reformed and Evangelical Lutheran theological orientations.
  4. A common feature among Dutch immigrant communities around the world, and became a crucial part of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa.

It developed during the Protestant Reformation, being shaped theologically by John Calvin, but also other major Reformed theologians. It was founded in 1571.

The Dutch Reformed Church was shaped by various theological developments and controversies during its history, including Arminianism, the Nadere Reformatie and a number of splits in the 19th century that greatly diversified Dutch Calvinism. The church functioned until 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. At the time of the merger, the Church had 2 million members organised in 1,350 congregations. A minority of members of the church chose not to participate in the merger and instead formed the Restored Reformed Church.

The Reformation was a time of religious violence and persecution by the established Catholic Church and governments, in some cases. Efforts to form a Reformed church in the southern provinces stemmed from a secret meeting of Protestant leaders at Antwerp in 1566, and despite Spanish repression, many nobles joined the Protestant movement. Two years later, in 1568, following an attack on the Netherlands by the forces of the Duke of Alba, many Netherlanders fled to the German city of Wesel, where a Synod was convened at which the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism were adopted, and provisions were made for the offices of pastor, elder, teacher and deacon. The first Synod of 23 Dutch Reformed leaders was held in October 1571 in the German city of Emden. The Synod of Emden is generally considered to be the founding of the Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest of the Reformed churches in the Netherlands. The Synod both affirmed the actions of the earlier Synod of Wesel, as well as established presbyterian church government for the Dutch Reformed Church.

The first Synod to be located in the Dutch Republic was held in Dordrecht in 1578. This synodical meeting is not to be confused with the better known Second Synod of Dort of 1618. Large groups of Marranos settled in Emden and converted to Christianity. Mostly all Marranos, many Jewish groups converted to Christianity around 1649 to the Nederduitsche, Niederdeutsche church later on Dutch Reformed Church. In the latter meeting, the Church fathers expelled Arminians and added the Canons of Dort to the Confessions. The Canons of Dort, together with the previously adopted Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism, were called the Drie formulieren van Enigheid (Three Forms of Unity). Most conflicts and splits in the Church arose because of disagreement over the substance and interpretation of these doctrinal documents. The government of the Dutch Republic, which had instigated the Arminians’ expulsion, subsequently prohibited the Reformed Church from assembling synodically. No Synod was held in the Netherlands until after the end of the Republic in 1795.

Response to TULIP

In the early seventeenth century, Jacob Arminius, professor of theology at the University of Leiden, came under suspicion by the more orthodox Dutch Calvinists. Arminius was viewed to have seriously deviated from the orthodox doctrines of justification and election. Charges of Pelagianism were made, and the matter quickly escalated.

Pelagius was a British monk who taught for a short time in Rome toward the close of the 4th century. He fled to North Africa in 410 (preceding the invasion of the Goths) and there engaged in his dispute with Augustine, the famous Bishop of Hippo. He later went to Palestine and then disappeared from history. In his treatise on Free Will Pelagius said;

  1. Men are born morally neutral with an equal capacity for either good or evil.
  2. Whereas previously he spoke of divine grace as merely providing help, here he seems to assert it is necessary for salvation.
  3. He finally admits that Adam’s sin did adversely affect his posterity, but only by way of setting a bad example.
  4. He discusses certain texts in Paul that appear to say we are driven to sin by the corruption of our flesh, a doctrine he rejects.

Arminius’ views were not, strictly speaking, Pelagian. He did, however, differ from Calvinist orthodoxy on a number of issues.

  1. He denied the doctrine of perserverance and questioned whether grace was necessary for one to come to faith.
  2. He also challenged the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. The desire of Arminius was to uphold the goodness and mercy of God. He was concerned that Calvinist doctrines made God the author of sin and wanted to stress the importance of faith and holiness in the Christian life.

His untimely death provided only a temporary reprieve. The fires were soon rekindled by his followers. Under the leadership of John Uytenbogaert, the Arminians met in 1610 to draw up what was called a remonstrance. It was simply a petition for toleration and a summation of their views in five points.

  1. They modified the doctrine of unconditional election, asserting that God did not elect individuals.
  2. They argued that God’s election was more general and had reference to that group of men who exercised faith.
  3. Like Arminius, they also denied perseverance of the saints, saying God’s gift of faith could be resisted by man.
  4. Finally, the Arminians affirmed that Christ died for the sins of every man.

The orthodox Calvinists responded with a seven—point statement called the counter—remonstrance. The government tried to settle the controversy with a series of ecclesiastical conferences. But matters only grew worse. Riots actually broke out in some areas of the Netherlands. Finally, amid a battle between political rivals, Prince Maurice and Oldenbarnveldt, a national synod was called to settle the controversy.

The synod convened in 1618 in the Dutch city of Dordrecht [Dort]. To insure fairness, the Dutch Calvinists invited delegations from Reformed churches throughout Europe. Simon Episcopius represented the Arminian position at Dort. The rejection of Arminian theology was unanimous. Five theological points were formulated to answer the Remonstrants.

1. The Canons of Dort declared that fallen man was totally unable to save himself [Total Depravity];

2. God’s electing purpose was not conditioned by anything in man [Unconditional Election];

3. Christ’s atoning death was sufficient to save all men, but efficient only for the elect [Limited Atonement];

4. The gift of faith, sovereignly given by God’s Holy Spirit, cannot be resisted by the elect [Irresistible Grace]; and

5. Those who are regenerated and justified will persevere in the faith [Perseverance of the Saints].

These doctrines have been called the five points of Calvinism and are often symbolized by the well-known “TULIP.” However, they are not a full exposition of Calvin’s theology. To be sure, these doctrines do reflect Calvin’s viewpoint in the area of soteriology. For example, the synod of Dort does not address. Calvin’s devout commitment to Scripture, nor does it say anything about the Trinity or Christ. The doctrines of Dort are more properly viewed in their historical context as a theological response to the challenges of seventeenth-century Arminianism.

Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius (10 October 1560 – 19 October 1609), the Latinized name of Jakob Hermanszoon,[a] was a Dutch theologian during the Protestant Reformation period whose views became the basis of Arminianism and the Dutch Remonstrant movement. He served from 1603 as professor in theology at the University of Leiden and wrote many books and treatises on theology.

Following his death, his challenge to the Reformed standard, the Belgic Confession, provoked ample discussion at the Synod of Dort, which crafted the five points of Calvinism in response to Arminius‘s teaching.

Arminius, was born in 1559 or 1560 in Oudewater, Utrecht. He became an orphan while still young. His father Herman, a manufacturer of weapons, died, leaving his wife a widow with small children.[1] He never knew his father, and his mother was killed during the Spanish massacre at Oudewater in 1575.[citation needed]

The child was adopted by Theodorus Aemilius, a priest inclined towards Protestantism. Around 1572 (the year Oudewater was conquered by the rebels), Arminius and Aemilius settled in Utrecht. The young Jacobus studied there, probably at the Hieronymusschool. After the death of Aemilius (1574 or 1575), Arminius became acquainted with the mathematician Rudolph Snellius, also from Oudewater. The latter brought Arminius to Marburg and enabled him to study at the Leiden University, where he taught.[2] In 1576, Arminius was registered as a liberal arts student at the newly opened Leiden University.[citation needed]

Arminius remained a student at Leiden from 1576 to 1582. Although he enrolled as a student in Liberal Arts, this allowed him to pursue an education in theology, as well. His teachers in theology included Calvinist Lambertus Danaeus, Hebrew scholar Johannes Drusius, Guillaume Feuguereius (or Feugueires, d. 1613), and Johann Kolmann. Kolmann is now known for teaching that the overemphasis of God’s sovereignty in high Calvinism made God “a tyrant and an executioner”.[3] Although the university in Leiden was solidly Reformed, it had influences from Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Anabaptist views in addition to Calvinism. One Leiden pastor (Caspar Coolhaes) held, contra Calvin, that civil authorities did have jurisdiction in some church affairs, that it was wrong to punish and execute heretics, and that Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anabaptists could unite around core tenets.[3] The astronomer and mathematician Willebrord Snellius used Ramist philosophy in an effort to encourage his students to pursue truth without over reliance on Aristotle.[3] Under the influence of these men, Arminius studied with success and may have had seeds planted that would begin to develop into a theology that would later question the dominant Reformed theology of John Calvin. The success he showed in his studies motivated the merchants guild of Amsterdam to fund the next three years of his studies.

In 1582, Arminius began studying under Theodore Beza at Geneva. He found himself under pressure for using Ramist philosophical methods, familiar to him from his time at Leiden. Arminius was publicly forbidden to teach Ramean philosophy. After this difficult state of affairs, he moved to Basel to continue his studies.[2]

He continued to distinguish himself there as an excellent student. In 1583 Arminius was contemplating a return to Geneva when the theological faculty at Basel spontaneously offered him a doctorate.[4] He declined the honor on account of his youth (he was about 24)[5] and returned to the school in Geneva to finish his schooling in Geneva under Beza.

Arminius answered the call to pastor at Amsterdam in 1587, delivering Sunday and midweek sermons. After being tested by the church leaders, he was ordained in 1588. He gained a reputation as a good preacher and faithful pastor.[citation needed]

One of Arminius’ first tasks was given to him by Ecclesiastical Court of Amsterdam; namely, to refute the teachings of Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert, who rejected the Beza’s supralapsarian doctrine of God’s absolute and unconditional decree to create men so as to save some and damn others, based on nothing in themselves. The discussion had already begun with two ministers at Delft who had written “An Answer to certain Arguments of Beza and Calvin, from a Treatise on Predestination as taught in the Ninth Chapter of Romans” a document which contradicted both Beza and Coornhert. They proposed that although God’s decree to save only some was indeed absolute and unconditional, it had occurred after the fall (proposing infralapsarianism rather than Beza’s supralapsarianism). Arminius was tasked with refuting both Coornhert and infralapsarianism theology. He readily agreed to the task, but after greater study found himself in conflict over the matter. He determined to spend greater time in study before continuing his refutation.[citation needed]

In 1590 he married Lijsbet Reael, the daughter of Laurens Jacobsz Reael, a prominent merchant and poet in Amsterdam who also helped lead the Protestant Reformation and later helped establish the first Reformed Church in the area.[7] Arminius’s marriage to Reael allowed him access to her prestigious connections, and he made many friends in the merchant industry and high society.[7] He was commissioned to organize the educational system of Amsterdam, and is said to have done it well.[3] He greatly distinguished himself by faithfulness to his duties in 1602 during a plague that swept through Amsterdam,[3] going into infected houses that others did not dare to enter in order to give them water, and supplying their neighbors with funds to care for them.[8]

At Amsterdam, Arminius taught through “a number of sermons on the Epistle of the Romans.” In discussing Romans 7 in 1591, he taught that man, through grace and rebirth, did not have to live in bondage to sin, and that Romans 7:14 was speaking of a man living under the law and convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit, yet not presently regenerated. This was met with some resistance, and some detractors labeled him Pelagian for teaching that an unregenerate man could feel such conviction and desire for salvation, even with the influence of the Law and the Holy Spirit.[9] In the same year, responding to Arminius’ theological positions, his colleague Petrus Plancius began to dispute him openly. During a gathering of ministers, Arminius insisted he was not teaching anything in contradiction to the Heidelberg Confession and other standards of orthodoxy, that early church theologians held similar views, and that he utterly repudiated the heresy of Pelagianism. Further, Arminius expressed some astonishment that he was not to be allowed to interpret this passage according to the dictates of his own conscience and within the pattern of historic orthodoxy. The Amsterdam burgomasters intervened, in an effort to keep the peace and tamp down divisions in the populace, urging them to peacefully coexist and for Arminius to teach nothing out of accord with the Reformed thought agreed upon at the time unless he had consulted with the church council or other bodies.[10]

During the following years, controversy emerged as he preached through Romans 9. Although he did not directly contradict Calvinist interpretations, he focused on Paul’s theme of “justification by faith” in contradiction to works, rather than focusing on God’s eternal decrees. During this time he “gradually developed opinions on grace, predestination and free will that were inconsistent with the doctrine of the Reformed teachers Calvin and Beza”.[11]

In 1603 he was called back to Leiden University to teach theology. This came about after almost simultaneous deaths in 1602 of two faculty members, Franciscus Junius and Lucas Trelcatius the elder, in an outbreak of plague. Lucas Trelcatius the younger and Arminius (despite Plancius’ protest) were appointed, the decision resting largely with Franciscus Gomarus, the surviving faculty member.[12] While Gomarus cautiously approved Arminius, whose views were already suspected of unorthodoxy, his arrival opened a period of debate rather than closed it.[13] The appointment had also a political dimension, being backed by both Johannes Uytenbogaert at The Hague and Johan van Oldenbarnevelt.

In attempting to defend Calvinistic predestination against the teachings of Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert, Arminius began to doubt aspects of Calvinism and modified some parts of his own view.[25] He attempted to reform Calvinism, and lent his name to a movement—Arminianism—which resisted some of the Calvinist tenets (unconditional election, the nature of the limitation of the atonement, and irresistible grace). The early Dutch followers of his teaching became known as Remonstrants after they issued a document containing five points of disagreement with mainstream Calvinism, entitled Remonstrantiæ (1610).[citation needed]

Arminius wrote that he sought to teach only those things which could be proved from the Scriptures and that tended toward edification among Christians (with the exception of Roman Catholics, with whom he said there could be no spiritual accord).[26] His motto was reputed to be “Bona conscientia paradisus“, meaning, “A good conscience is a paradise.”[27]

Arminius taught of a “preventing” (or prevenient) grace that has been conferred upon all by the Holy Spirit and this grace is “sufficient for belief, in spite of our sinful corruption, and thus for salvation.”[28] Arminius stated that “the grace sufficient for salvation is conferred on the Elect, and on the Non-elect; that, if they will, they may believe or not believe, may be saved or not be saved.”[29] William Witt states that “Arminius has a very high theology of grace. He insists emphatically that grace is gratuitous because it is obtained through God’s redemption in Christ, not through human effort.”[30]

The theology of Arminianism did not become fully developed during Arminius’ lifetime, but after his death (1609) the Five articles of the Remonstrants (1610) systematized and formalized the ideas. But the Calvinist Synod of Dort (1618–19), convening for the purpose of condemning Arminius’ theology, declared it and its adherents anathemas, defined the five points of Calvinism, and persecuted Arminian pastors who remained in the Netherlands. But in spite of persecution, “the Remonstrants continued in Holland as a distinct church and again and again where Calvinism was taught Arminianism raised its head.”[31]

Publishers in Leiden (1629) and at Frankfurt (1631 and 1635) issued the works of Arminius in Latin.[citation needed]

John Wesley (1703–91), the founder of the Methodist Movement, came to his own religious beliefs while in college and through his Aldersgate Experience or epiphany and expressed himself strongly against the doctrines of Calvinistic election and reprobation. His system of thought has become known as Wesleyan Arminianism, the foundations of which were laid by Wesley and his fellow preacher John William Fletcher.[32] Although Wesley knew very little about the beliefs of Jacobus Arminius and arrived at his religious views independently of Arminius, Wesley acknowledged late in life, with the 1778 publication of The Arminian Magazine, that he and Arminius were in general agreement. Theology Professor W. Stephen Gunther concludes he was “a faithful representative” of Arminius’ beliefs.[33] Wesley was perhaps the clearest English proponent of Arminianism.[34] He embraced Arminian theology and became its most prominent champion.[35] Today, the majority of Methodists remain committed (unknowingly) to Arminian theology, and Arminianism itself has become one of the dominant theological systems in the United States, thanks in large part to the influence of John and Charles Wesley.[36]