Jacobus Arminius

Sola scriptura; he argued as a Reformed pastor within Reformed confessional bounds.

Total depravity is fully affirmed — Arminius is often misread here. His move is that prevenient grace, given to all, restores enough ability that a person can respond or refuse.

Election is conditional, grounded in God's foreknowledge of who will believe rather than in a prior unconditional decree.

Christ died for all; the atonement's benefits are applied on faith.

Justification by faith, with righteousness imputed — substantially agreeing with the Reformers on this locus, which is often forgotten in the caricature.

He declined to settle it, and said so in his own public doctrinal statement. His positive claim is strong: believers grafted into Christ have sufficient power to win against sin and Satan by the Spirit's help, and cannot be 'seduced or dragged out of the hands of Christ.' But he then asks the Synod to investigate whether a person might through negligence 'desert the commencement of their existence in Christ,' and disclaims ever having taught final apostasy while refusing to pretend the contrary texts are answered. Genuinely unresolved in his own lifetime — the position that carries his name was settled by later Remonstrants, not by him.

WORTH CORRECTINGCORRECTION, 2026-08-19. This entry previously asserted stance `can-fall`. That is what Arminius's own words disclaim: "I never taught that a true believer can, either totally or finally fall away." The stance was retrojected onto him from later Remonstrant theology — the exact error this project's method warns against. Now encoded as a genuine open question (s:null) rather than a position he held. The tier was already `contested` and was correct; the stance was not.

"Though I here openly and ingenuously affirm, I never taught that a true believer can, either totally or finally fall away from the faith, and perish; yet I will not conceal, that there are passages of scripture which seem to me to wear this aspect; and those answers to them which I have been permitted to see, are not of such a kind as to approve themselves on all points to my understanding."Declaration of Sentiments, V

Union with Christ — and therefore the Spirit's indwelling — is the effect of faith, not its cause. Arminius calls that union 'the primary and immediate effect of that faith by which men believe in him as the only saviour,' and names faith as the bond 'by which Christ is given to dwell in our hearts.' The Declaration of Sentiments puts the same order plainly: believers are those who 'have been grafted into Christ by true faith, and have thus been made partakers of his life-giving Spirit.' Prior to faith the Spirit is genuinely and powerfully at work, but as an operation upon a person rather than as indwelling: internal vocation is 'the operation of the Holy Spirit illuminating and affecting the heart,' and the Spirit is even 'the author of faith.' The difference from the Reformed order is not whether the Spirit acts first — Arminius insists he does — but whether that action can be refused.

WORTH CORRECTINGCommon misreading in both directions. Arminius says flatly that "the author of faith is the Holy Spirit" (Private Disp. XLIV, VI) and that evangelical faith is "an assent of the mind, produced by the Holy Spirit" — quoted alone, that sounds monergistic, and it gets used that way. What distinguishes him is resistibility, which he identifies as the whole of the dispute: "the controversy does not relate to those actions or operations which may be ascribed to grace... but it relates solely to the mode of operation, whether it be irresistible or not" (Declaration of Sentiments, IV). Two precision caveats from the verification pass. (a) None of the disputations read uses the word 'indwelling' of the Holy Spirit — XLV.VI has *Christ* 'given to dwell in our hearts' through faith, while the Spirit is said to 'flow into believers' and be 'communicated to believers.' The stance rests on those phrases and on the stated order, not on an explicit indwelling formula. (b) XLV.VI presents faith and the Spirit as the two halves of one bond, which reads as simultaneous within the union; what fixes faith as prior is XLV.I calling the union faith's effect. Private Disputation LXIII on baptism was not read this round; the baptism locus is untouched by this entry.

"The bond of union... On the part of believers, it is faith in Christ and God, by which Christ is given to dwell in our hearts." — Private Disputation XLV, VI. On the prior work: "The internal vocation is through the operation of the Holy Spirit illuminating and affecting the heart."Private Disputation XLII, X

Infant baptism, in the Dutch Reformed context.

Eternal conscious punishment.