Saumur Academy, where Amyraut taught, was
suppressed by royal edict in 1685.
Nothing remains of it, but its site is said
to have been here,
where the Hotel de Ville stands today.
We saw previously, when discussing Davenant’s view of the death of Christ, that it is a variant of ‘hypothetical universalism’. But then we also saw that any view that regarded Christ’s death as of infinite value, can be thought of as hypothetical universalistic as well. For such a view is committed to the proposition that if God had ‘arranged’ (Davenant’s preferred verb) or had decreed that the salvific effects of the Christ’s death would have a universal effect, issuing in the salvation of everyone, then everyone would have been saved. A hypothesis leading to a consequence about universalism. Even John Gill is committed to that. He does not hold that had the number of the elect been greater than in fact it is, the sufferings of Christ would have to have been correspondingly greater! Any hypothesis that has universalism as a consequence, or aim, or possibility is a case of hypothetical universalism. So that the term ‘hypothetical universalism’ is pretty useless at discriminating one version of the scope of the death of Christ from another.
More could of course be said, but that's sufficient for now.
where the Hotel de Ville stands today.
We saw previously, when discussing Davenant’s view of the death of Christ, that it is a variant of ‘hypothetical universalism’. But then we also saw that any view that regarded Christ’s death as of infinite value, can be thought of as hypothetical universalistic as well. For such a view is committed to the proposition that if God had ‘arranged’ (Davenant’s preferred verb) or had decreed that the salvific effects of the Christ’s death would have a universal effect, issuing in the salvation of everyone, then everyone would have been saved. A hypothesis leading to a consequence about universalism. Even John Gill is committed to that. He does not hold that had the number of the elect been greater than in fact it is, the sufferings of Christ would have to have been correspondingly greater! Any hypothesis that has universalism as a consequence, or aim, or possibility is a case of hypothetical universalism. So that the term ‘hypothetical universalism’ is pretty useless at discriminating one version of the scope of the death of Christ from another.
The Formula Consensus Helvetica
To get a statement of Amyraldianism from a
contemporary or near contemporary kind we need to visit the Formula Consensus Helvetica (1695),
prepared by Francis Turretin and J.A. Heidegger. (A PDF of the Consensus
translated by Martin Klauber is
available through Google). Canon VI reads as follows -
Wherefore, we can not agree with the opinion of those who teach: l) that God, moved by philanthropy, or a kind of special love for the fallen of the human race, did, in a kind of conditioned willing, first moving of pity, as they call it, or inefficacious desire, determine the salvation of all, conditionally, i.e., if they would believe, 2) that he appointed Christ Mediator for all and each of the fallen; and 3) that, at length, certain ones whom he regarded, not simply as sinners in the first Adam, but as redeemed in the second Adam, he elected, that is, he determined graciously to bestow on these, in time, the saving gift of faith; and in this sole act election properly so called is complete. For these and all other similar teachings are in no way insignificant deviations from the proper teaching concerning divine election; because the Scriptures do not extend unto all and each God's purpose of showing mercy to man, but restrict it to the elect alone, the reprobate being excluded even by name, as Esau, whom God hated with an eternal hatred (Rom 9:11). The same Holy Scriptures testify that the counsel and will of God do not change, but stand immovable, and God in the, heavens does whatsoever he will (Ps 115:3; Isa 47:10); for God is in finitely removed from all that human imperfection which characterizes inefficacious affections and desires, rashness, repentance and change of purpose. The appointment, also, of Christ, as Mediator, equally with the salvation of those who were given to him for a possession and an inheritance that can not be taken away, proceeds from one and the same election, and does not form the basis of election.
The view referred to is generally taken to
be Amyraldianism. At first the phrase ‘at length’ seems rather vague. Notice that it couples the view sketched with ‘similar teachings’, perhaps
having Bishop John in mind. But later on when the Canon refers to
‘inefficacious affections and desires, rashness, repentance and change of
purpose’, expressions used to characterise 2) above, there is clear reference
to a prior (logically prior, not temporally prior) inefficacious divine decree,
and that in the Amyraldian scheme of things 3) represents a ‘change of purpose’
in the divine mind, at least in the sense that the decree with inefficacious consequences is now augmented or
supplanted by a second decree to elect, and effectively bring those elected to
salvation. That God has a purpose that includes human failure as part of it,
does not mean that the purpose itself has failed. Nor that he has a
revealed will that human beings fail to keep is the sign of a failed purpose. Of course things are different in
the case of a secret purpose of God to will the salvation of all people which
does not issue in the salvation of a single one, as we have seen Du Moulin
charges the Amyraldians with holding.
An
agenda?
One question is, why did Amyraut and his
chums go to these lengths? For surely they must have believed that God would
know that were he to decree such and such, then such and such would come to pass,
whatever it was. Why then, they may have asked themselves, did God go to the
lengths of actually decreeing what he knew would have an inefficacious result,
not the result that he in his philanthropy for the fallen human race wished but
one that he would have infallibly known would be the result? And there are
other questions too, besides the question ‘Why did God go to this trouble?’ Is
this decree with an inefficacious effect still in place? Alternatively, has God
rescinded it or annulled it in some way? And how would we know if it was still in
place, or that he had rescinded it or not? Indeed, what is the biblical basis for
there being such a view in the first place? These were Reformed theologians,
remember. One might have expected one or
two pieces of scriptural evidence to be offered in its favour. Is there empirical evidence since the time of
the Apostles for such a philanthropic universal distribution of the
call to Christ? At this point at least, Davenant’s appeal to the idea that
Christ had dual intentions, a general intention and a particular intention,
side by side as it were, is milder. Though if God had such a general intention
it might be asked why, as a part of general providence, is the gospel heard not
by everyone?
What this suggests (to me, at least) is that
the Amyraldians may have been proposing their scheme as part of a wider agenda.
As sharp divines they must have realized what a dog’s breakfast it was, but
were willing to put up with it for other reasons. But what could that wider agenda
be? We may note that one thing that the Amyraldian proposal does is to weaken
connection between the plight of the race in the fall of Adam. For now the responsibility of
each of the non-elect comes simply from hearing and not receiving the gospel
message. So maybe this is part of a general weakening of the headship of Adam.
Or maybe the agenda was to weaken the place of natural revelation in human
responsibility, the first kind of the ‘two-fold knowledge of God’ prominent in
Book I of Calvin’s Institutes, for
example. It is hard to say whether or not a consequence of the Amyraldian
scheme was an intended consequence,
or even a foreseen consequence of those who invented it.
One agendum of these versions of hypothetical universalism might be to ‘soften’ what were perceived as the hard edges of Calvinism. But
such softening of Calvinism is illusory in either version. For what emerges from the Amyraldians' support for a
second particularistic decree supplanting the failure of the general decree is
a decree that is, if we permit the use the language of hardening and softening in this
connection, is as hard-edged as orthodox Calvinism. The net effect is the same,
for Amyraut, or Davenant, as hard as the hard edges of orthodox Calvinism: a
definite atonement issuing in the salvation of the elect, of all and only those
for whom Christ died. For the second
decree of the Amyraldians, (as well as gthe followers of Davenant) the decisive decree, the one that succeeds, as all
parties agree, is as hard as ever.
A pastoral strategy?
But maybe this is not the agendum. Maybe what concerns them is that in the proclamation of the gospel everything relevant to a positive response to that proclamation is and should be manifest. Who is among the number of God's elect and who not, is not manifest, as it would be if a list of such people was publicly available. It is secret; and the question, am I one of the elect? can only be answered a posteriori, in terms of a person's response to the gospel, so that Christ and a person's relation to him is, as Calvin put it, the mirror of that person's election.
So the argument may be, a person's response to the gospel ought not to have to surmount the doctrine of 'limited atonement' which logically depends on election. t clutters up the free offer of the gospel, Christ's atonement is not sufficient in some abstract sense only. He died for the world, as John 3.16 teaches, and with his finger on that text the preacher can say ex animo and in an unqualified sense to his hearers, that 'Christ died for you'. If that's the concern, then Davenant's hypothetical universalism is the neater fit. But Calvin's point seems me to meet these concerns of Davenant and Amyraut, if indeed they had such concerns. But perhaps not, and so perhaps the hypothetical universalists we have been thinking about are on to something - a pastoral strategy with a textual basis in the NT - that is important. It is all a bit murky.
A pastoral strategy?
But maybe this is not the agendum. Maybe what concerns them is that in the proclamation of the gospel everything relevant to a positive response to that proclamation is and should be manifest. Who is among the number of God's elect and who not, is not manifest, as it would be if a list of such people was publicly available. It is secret; and the question, am I one of the elect? can only be answered a posteriori, in terms of a person's response to the gospel, so that Christ and a person's relation to him is, as Calvin put it, the mirror of that person's election.
So the argument may be, a person's response to the gospel ought not to have to surmount the doctrine of 'limited atonement' which logically depends on election. t clutters up the free offer of the gospel, Christ's atonement is not sufficient in some abstract sense only. He died for the world, as John 3.16 teaches, and with his finger on that text the preacher can say ex animo and in an unqualified sense to his hearers, that 'Christ died for you'. If that's the concern, then Davenant's hypothetical universalism is the neater fit. But Calvin's point seems me to meet these concerns of Davenant and Amyraut, if indeed they had such concerns. But perhaps not, and so perhaps the hypothetical universalists we have been thinking about are on to something - a pastoral strategy with a textual basis in the NT - that is important. It is all a bit murky.
Warfield
on Westminster
B. B. Warfield has a commentary on the
Westminster Divines’ construction of Ch. III of the Confession, concerning the divine decree, and especially
the consideration of the sixth paragraph, the last sentence, which reads in its
finished version: ‘Neither are any other redeemed by Christ effectually called,
justified, sanctified and saved, but the elect alone.’ (III.VI) He describes
Edmund Calamy’s position in the debate as a modified version of the
‘Hypothetical Universalistic’ schema (of Amyraut) which he took to involve a decree foreseeing the failure of any to
believe in Christ apart from efficacious grace. Warfield takes Calamy to be holding Davenant’s position, that in dying Christ had a double intention, one intention to the world without
exception, but with no success, and to the elect, a subset of the world of sinners, with full success. (It is
interesting to note that Calamy had been a student in Cambridge from about 1616
onwards, during the time that John Davenant was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity there.
(1609-21) ) As far as I can tell, Calamy himself did not publish anything on the matter. He does not seem to offer a defence in terms of the pastoral strategy that was mentioned earlier, though note that the account of the debate that has come down to us is incomplete.
Calamy and those who thought like him were
given full opportunity to put their views, but the views did not meet with acceptance
in the Assembly. A consequence was the inclusion of these words in the chapter
III: ‘Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified,
adopted, and saved, but the elect only’. (See Cunningham, Historical Theology, II 329 etc. .) Warfield remarks on Calamy, that he
affirmed a double intention on Christ's part in His work of redemption, declaring that He died absolutely for the elect and conditionally for the reprobate. Theologically his position, which has its closest affinities with the declarations of the English Divines at Dort, was an improvement upon the Amyraldian; but logically it was open, perhaps, to all the objections which were fatal to it as well as to others arising from its own lack of consistency.' (The Westminster Assembly and Its Work, 139)Lacking consistency not because it posits a second decree arising because of the divine foreknowledge of the failure of the first decree, (as the Amyraldians did), but because Christ is now thought of having two intentions at odds with each other, the fruit of one unconditional divine decree and the other conditional decree, and the foreseen failure of his conditional decree. This was the objection of Edward Reynolds to Calamy in the debate, that his ‘universal hypothetical’ proposal was: ‘upon a condition that they cannot perform, and God never intended to give them’. (140) Reynolds went on to state that ‘The [Dort] Synod intended no more than to declare the sufficiency of the death of Christ…and to be salvable is a benefit and therefore belongs only to them that have interest in Christ’. (142) It is interesting that in later life, due to the pressure of Laudians on Puritan clergy to conform, the ‘deviant Calvinist’ Calamy became a hot Presbyterian, while during the Restoration the undeviating Calvinist Reynolds became Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and then the Bishop of Norwich.
More could of course be said, but that's sufficient for now.
(The part of the Minutes discussed by
Warfield can be found in Mitchell’s edition
(1874), 151; these are now part of the Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly (ed. Chad Van
Dixhoorn, 2012), III.692f.)
