The Canons Of Dort Re.P.R

Hey Rippon,

You don't have to post more on this. You think it's insignificant that the canons mention "effectually" and what not, while I think it is plain that such language limits what the canons are talking about. Sure, some delegates were not hypothetical universalists, but some were and the canons were worded in such a way that they do not pronounce on this issue in order to appease both sides who were united in rejecting the Arminians. Notwithstanding this, your quotes, though, do not demonstrate an opposition to hypothetical universalism. For example, "eternal life actually obtained or merited" (hypothetical uinversalists would agree with this), or rejecting that Christ's death did not merit salvation for anyone (hypothetical universalists would agree with rejecting this too because they were not Arminians). You describe Amyraut as basically an Arminian, which in that case the canons would reject his position. I don't think his position is Arminian though.

Perhaps you have something else in mind than I do regarding what is meant by the phrase "hypothetical universalism." Amyraut had a speculative form of it, but non-speculative forms of it predate Amyraut and extend back to the first generation Reformers like Musculus, Vermigli, etc. Nonetheless, Turretin agreed that even Amyraut's version did not go against Dort. You can disagree with him, but surely you would agree that he knew what the canons did and did not pronounce on.

You're repeating yourself, and my response would be more of the same. Having a pactum salutis, election, etc., does not in and of itself pronounce on the extent of the atonement.

BJ

 

Hi Rippon,

I think you're wrong about Amyraut, and I certainly can't fathom why you have such disdain for non-speculative forms of hypothetical universalism in the Reformed tradition. I never said Amyraut's views were widely received or that there was no opposition to him. I made the lesser claim that the canons of Dort do not pronounce on his views. I agree that Turretin despised Amyraut and the Salmurian school, which should make his own admission that the school did not go against Dort all the more convincing to you. This admission by Turretin is consistent with forging a formula that counters Amyraut's teachings since Dort did not. You mention Davenant, was he condemned at the synod? Did he agree to the canons given his views on the atonement?

My personal views have little to do with this discussion as should yours. One may defend limited atonement biblically and employ many from the Reformed tradition to her service in defending it, but one should not claim that it is the official view according to the canons and confessions because it was not. There's variety within the Reformed tradition on the extent of the atonement, and one needn't have some bias toward one view or the other to fairly admit that.

Nonetheless I'll give you my personal views. I am a four-pointer and I prefer non-speculative forms of hypothetical universalism because I think it allows for better exegesis of many Scriptures than a limited atonement view. Tangentially, I have come to learn at Calvin Seminary that the Reformed tradition did not hold to a compatibilist view of free will, which has helped me better understand their positions including their views on saving grace. Back to subject, unlike Amyraut, the non-speculative hypothetical universalists (Musculus, Vermigli, etc.) let the plain reading of Scriptures hold that Christ tasted death for every man without speculating as to the ordering of decrees in which this took place like Amyraut. Such a non-speculative view is comfortable saying that Christ effectually paid the penalty of sin only for the elect (meriting certain benefits for his sheep alone), but it stops short of saying that Christ's death paid the penalty of sin only for the elect. Instead, it claims that he paid the penalty of sin for the whole world. I believe that it is unfortunate that many within the Reformed camp today wish to will away part of their own history regarding this issue. Too often there's much rhetoric about what the canons, confessions, and major theologians said without really making a case from the texts themselves.

Frankly, it is a lesser issue like the differences between supralapsarian and infralapsarian and there were hypothetical universalists on both sides of that debate on the decrees. It is a lesser issue precisely because the canons and confessions do not condemn it as they do not condemn certain views of the decrees.

I'm not reading too much into effectually. The canons were forged against the Arminians who wanted to say that Christ's death actually or effectually merited salvation for no specific people, but only conditionally on the account of faith. The canons do not pronounce on the extent of the atonement beyond making it clear that the salvific efficacy of Christ's death infallibly was for and only for the elect. Reformed hypothetical universalists agree. You have yet to show any quotes from the canons that say what limited atonement says: Christ died for and only for the elect. I'm still waiting for a clear statement from the canons on this point. I'll have to keep waiting, though, because there is no such language in the canons. The closest one was the intention of God that the efficacy of Christ's death should infallibly apply to and only to the elect. That still is not the same as saying that the intention of Christ's death was to pay the penalty of sin for only the elect. I don't care what Hoeksema thinks it says.

I think this will be my last post here. I recommend Muller on this, and you claim you respect him, so see if he also can't read the confessions right, superimposes some anachronistic view of effectual, is some closet Almyradian, or some weak three-pointer. I'll leave you with a quote from him that was published in our school's journal earlier this year. He is reviewing Preston's book about the "softening of the Reformed tradition"

Muller: Clear statements of nonspeculative hypothetical universalism can be found (as Davenant recognized) in Heinrich Bullinger’s Decades and commentary on the Apocalypse, in Wolfgang Musculus’ Loci communes, in Ursinus’ catechetical lectures, and in Zanchi’s Tractatus de praedestinatione sanctorum, among other places. In addition, the Canons of Dort, in affirming the standard distinction of a sufficiency of Christ’s death for all and its efficiency for the elect, actually refrain from canonizing either the early form of hypothetical universalism or the assumption that Christ’s sufficiency serves only to leave the nonelect without excuse. Although Moore can cite statements from the York conference that Dort “either apertly or covertly denied the universality of man’s redemption” (156), it remains that various of the signatories of the Canons were hypothetical universalists–not only the English delegation (Carleton, Davenant, Ward, Goad, and Hall) but also the [sic] some of the delegates from Bremen and Nassau (Martinius, Crocius, and Alsted)–that Carleton and the other delegates continued to affirm the doctrinal points of Dort while distancing themselves from the church discipline of the Belgic Confession, and that in the course of seventeenth-century debate even the Amyraldians were able to argue that their teaching did not run contrary to the Canons. In other words, the nonspeculative, non-Amyraldian form of hypothetical universalism was new in neither the decades after Dort nor a “softening” of the tradition: The views of Davenant, Ussher, and Preston followed out a resident trajectory long recognized as orthodox among the Reformed. Richard Muller, “English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology,” by Jonathan D. Moore. Reviewed by Richard A Muller, in Calvin Theological Journal, 43 (2008), 149-150. (Italics mine)

BJ