I was reading two somewhat unrelated books these last two days, and was struck by the individualism that was described in each. There is an interesting connection between Arminianism and post-modernism and the Canons of Dort seem to be a superb assault on each!
First, I was reading Louis Praamsma’s contribution to Crisis in the Reformed Churches: Essays in Commemoration of the Great Synod of Dort, 1618-1619. His chapter, entitled “The Background of the Arminian Controversy (1586-1618)”, gives a nice historical-theological summary of Jacobus Arminius, the Remonstrance and even those whom Praamsma describes as their “precursors.”
I was struck by the number of times words like individualism, freedom and autonomy could be (or were) used to describe some of these Arminian or pre-Arminian theologians. Praamsma notes that the main thing that all Arminian precursors had in common was that “all of them came into conflict with a confessional church which wanted to maintain its doctrinal standards as Forms of Unity without any compromise.” He continues:
The real issue between these precursors and the confessional church they held to be that of freedom of conscience. This tenet of theirs they viewed as a fundamental principle of the Reformation. All historians who have defended the Arminians have maintained that the Reformed churches should have been “liberal” from the beginning, liberal in the sense of accepting a complete freedom of individual opinions around an open Bible.
Crisis in the Reformed Churches, pg. 42. (Emphasis added)
Praamsma proceeds to describe the major issues in dispute among the Arminian theologians and notes the similarity between the main point of the Arminian precursors and the Arminians themselves:
First of all, the permanence of the character and authority of the confessional standards was at stake. Arminius and his followers … never wearied of expressing themselves in favor of a revision of those standards. What kind of revision did they have in mind? Was it to be a revision of grammar and style? Was it a revision of details in those articles to which they had specific objections? Indeed not. They had in mind a permanent attitude of openness and freedom. These men argued that a binding confession ultimately conflicted both with the authority of Scripture and with the freedom of the individual conscience.
Crisis in the Reformed Churches, pg. 46. (Emphasis added)
Praamsma writes further:
All this shows that an important principle was at stake. Was the Reformed church to be confessional or liberal?… That this principle was clearly at stake becomes even more apparent, when we remember that the Arminians of that period were both unwilling and seemingly unable to raise specific objections to both Confession and Catechism. When finally compelled to state their objections openly at the Synod of Dort, the English reporter Hales called them “a poor impertinent stuff.” Increasingly it became clear that what the Arminians wanted was full doctrinal freedom, while the Calvinists insisted on doctrinal unity and stability.
Crisis in the Reformed Churches, pg. 47.
Praamsma’s chapter ends by recounting the persecution of Reformed Christians that took place prior to the Synod of Dort. This “full doctrinal freedom” and “complete freedom of individual opinions” did not extend to people who thought that the church should unite around confessional standards. Praamsma describes that the general attitude exhibited by Arminian sympathizers prior to the Synod of Dort was one of “a perplexing display of ‘liberal intolerance’” (pg. 49).
All these thoughts tie in with the second thing I was reading, namely David Wells’ book The Courage to be Protestant: Truth-Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World. In his third chapter, entitled “Truth,” Wells draws attention to the fact that the “complete freedom” desired already during the Reformation period is still with us, only now it has grown to absurd proportions. Wells notes that truth and morality considered as “absolute” are waning so quickly because the individual has become the standard for his own actions – what he calls “the autonomous self.”
In an ironic twist wherein the “post-modern = the most modern,” postmodernity ends up embodying the very core that it loathes: the individualism of modernity. Though PoMo fancies itself as all about “community,” its relentless desire for “freedom” simply cannot sustain true community, not least the community that is found when Christians unite around a confession of faith.
Wells explains:
There is actually a thread of continuity that ties that age [the age of Enlightenment rationalism] to ours, and this thread is quite unbroken.
This thread is our understanding about the self. Then, as now, it has become loosed from every external constraint, be it in God, the past, or religious authority. We demand to be free. We today, postmodern though we may be, are more unconstrained, more emancipated from everything except our own selves than were the proponents of the Enlightenment.
The Courage to be Protestant, pg. 62.
Isn’t it interesting where the same kind of fervent desire for “freedom” and praise of “individualism” championed by the Arminians has led? Well’s writes:
We are living in a civilization of the most marvelous intricacy and one of stunning brilliance, but it is built over a vacuum. The individual is therefore without accountability to anything or anyone higher than himself or herself. This is so because private interest has become the sole value. And when private interest is the only norm, the sole controlling value, then conflict in society, and its fragmentation, is simply inevitable.
This kind of attack on all religious authority has for several centuries been the central project of the Enlightenment. In the 1970′s in America, it was carried forward in the name of secular humanism. The literature of that decade was filled with secular-humanistic optimism that its views would prevail.
The Courage to be Protestant, pg. 68.
But Wells notes what happened next:
In an eye-catching reversal, however, by the 1990′s, 78 percent of Americans were describing themselves as “spiritual.” The problem with much of this spirituality … is that so many of these “spiritual” people are stripped of any reference points outside of themselves, whether in the past, in the present, or in a God external to themselves. What is sacred is within and indistinguishable from the self. It arises within the self and is accessed from within the self and asks nothing the self is unwilling to give.
The Courage to be Protestant, pg. 69.
I’m struck by the progression. The Enlightenment told us that man is the measure of all things. But even before this, Christians were busy fashioning God in their own image and thumbing their noses at anyone who told them they were wrong to be doing it. The Arminians, with their idol of “arbitrary free will,” started the ball rolling for Christians to more and more envision God in human categories and ascribe to him human attributes and actions. Why is anyone surprised that open theism finally came into its own?
And now open theism isn’t even enough and here we stand. We took Joan Osborne seriously; we made God so one of us that suddenly it dawned on us that he was us! God became so assimilated to self that frankly, he was no longer needed!
The Synod of Dort was a magnificent achievement and its Canons are a most wonderful summary of biblical truth. The Canons of Dort are a wonderful answer, not only to Arminianism and its muddled view of God, but to all who would blur the creator/creature distinction!
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Andrew Compton
Amen!