This series is from the From the Editor’s Desk column of the Sword and Trumpet. The articles were co-authored by Paul Emerson and myself.
The Synod of Dort adopted the Counter-Remonstrant views, securing a majority Calvinist position in the Dutch Reformed Church. As a result, much of the necessary balance was lost as the Remonstrant preachers were defrocked and subsequently run out of the Dutch Reformed church. Dutch Reformed Protestantism became nearly exclusively 5-Point Calvinistic. After 1625, the Remonstrants were gradually accepted back into Dutch life,[1] but they never regained their influence.
Though Arminianism didn’t continue its influence in the Dutch Netherlands, it did take root in England. Arminian theology was accepted by some English Congregationalists, General Baptists, and most widely by the Methodists under the influence of John Wesley. Negatively, Arminianism earned a reputation for influencing people toward liberalism. “Many Arminians…blended Arminianism with the new natural religion of the Enlightenment; they became the early liberals of Protestantism.”[2] Many who initially accepted Arminianism moved eventually to humanism and unitarianism. Bible-minded scholars recognize that this shift represented a move away from Scripture; Arminianism is not necessarily to blame. This history does however provide a sobering reminder of the consequences of accepting systems over and above biblical truth.
Not all Arminians were liberals, however. John Wesley, who along with George Whitefield was instrumental in the Great Awakening, accepted and promoted Arminianism. He recovered a form of classical Arminianism, close to what Arminius taught and therefore close to Scripture. In contrast to many of the liberalizing Arminians, he emphasized man’s inability to be righteous, and therefore believed that prevenient grace was necessary for the sinner to be saved. “He affirmed passionately and wholeheartedly justification by grace alone through faith alone because of what Christ has done on the cross.”[3] Even sanctification, which he preached on frequently and passionately, he believed was the work of God within a person which is received by faith alone.[4]
He and George Whitefield worked closely together in their early years. They, along with John’s brother Charles, met in college and became close companions, fellowshipping together in the “Holy Club.” Whitefield was younger than the Wesleys and deferred to them in the early years. But it was Whitefield’s evangelistic fervor which sparked the Great Awakening. In 1739 he began preaching outdoors, taking the gospel from sophisticated England to the streets. The Wesleys followed his passionate example. As men and women came to Christ, he relied on John Wesley to disciple them.[5]
But things were not to continue so peaceably. Whitefield was sympathetic to Puritanism, which had inherited Calvinist doctrines. He was also influenced by Jonathan Edwards, the American Puritan. Whitefield and Wesley disagreed on the nature of election and on the extent of Christ’s atonement (Wesley rejected divine election and held to universal atonement; Whitefield accepted divine election and held to a particular atonement). The disagreement was known between them privately, but it exploded in public controversy when Wesley preached a sermon “Free Grace” in which he attacked Whitefield’s Calvinistic views. The effect was exacerbated by the fact that Wesley preached the sermon immediately after Whitefield had sailed to America to evangelize. After over a year of private correspondence, Whitefield published a polemical letter against Wesley, countering arguments made in his sermon.
The tension simmered, boiled, and eventually scalded their relationship. Upon his return to England, Whitefield separated from Wesley and led a group of Calvinist Methodists. Wesley maintained his influence over the mass of Methodism, and most Methodists adopted his Arminian views. The conflict was the worst between their followers.
In 1742, three years after Wesley preached his sermon, things started to cool. “Far more united the antagonists than ever separated them. Whitefield was a moderate Calvinist; he did not let the doctrine of predestination hinder him from offering grace to all, or from insisting on the need for holiness in believers. John Wesley allowed (for a time) that some souls might be elected to eternal life. When not overheated, both men saw such issues as non-essentials.”[6]
Ultimately, they were able to work cordially together, though the breach was never fully mended. Whitefield ceased his leadership of the Calvinist Methodist societies, no longer competing with the Wesleys to lead the Methodists. Whitefield later described Charles Wesley as ‘my very dear old friend’ and John as an ‘honored brother.’”[7] When Whitefield passed away, he requested that John Wesley preached his funeral. Wesley accepted and preached three memorial services for Whitefield throughout England.
Arminianism in the 18th and 19th centuries was mostly shaped by John Wesley. “After Wesley’s death, most of the leading Arminian theologians were his followers. The entire Methodist movement and its offshoots (e.g. the multiform Holiness movement) adopted Wesley’s version of Arminian theology.”[8]
Arminianism ebbed and flowed through the 19th century and into the 20th. Popular conceptions of Arminianism changed in the 20th century when Charles Finney, a self-identified Arminian, developed and preached a modified Arminianism (actually semi-Pelagian in essence). “He vulgarized Arminian theology by denying something Arminius, Wesley and all the faithful Arminians before him had affirmed and protected as precious to the gospel itself—human moral inability in spiritual matters, and the absolute necessity of supernatural prevenient grace for any right response to God, including the first stirrings of a good will toward God.”[9] He denied that man in his natural state needs God’s grace in order to receive the gospel.
[1] Olson, Roger, The Story of Christian Theology (InterVarsity Press, 1999), 464.
[2] Olson, Roger, Arminian Theology (InterVarsity Press, 2006), 23.
[3] Ibid., 24.
[4] Ibid., 24.
[5] J. D. Walsh, Wesley Vs. Whitefield, https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/wesley-vs-whitefield.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Olson, Arminian Theology, 25.
[9] Ibid., 27.