2. The Rise and Growth of Amyraldianism1
Rev Neil M Ross
Summary of Amyraldianism. Before considering the beginnings and development of Amyraldianism it will be useful to have in mind a summary of Amyraut’s teaching on the atonement. In The New Dictionary of Theology, Roger Nicole defines his teaching thus: (1.) “God, moved by His love for mankind, had appointed all human beings to salvation provided they repent and believe.” (2.) “He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of all mankind in order to implement this purpose.” (3.) “However, since human beings would not on their own initiative repent and believe, God then chose to bestow a special measure of His Spirit to some only, who are the elect.” So we see that Amyraut held, contrary to Scripture, that Christ died for all human beings, not only the elect. The elect are defined just as those chosen by God to be given grace to repent and believe.
Moise Amyraut – the man. We shall now look at a few facts about Amyraut himself. Moise Amyraut (or Moses Amyraldus in Latin), after whom the system of Amyraldianism is named, was a seventeenth-century French Protestant minister and theologian. Like Calvin, he studied to be a lawyer but switched to theology, under John Cameron, Professor of Theology at the Huguenot Academy of Saumur, which was founded by the French Reformed Churches. Cameron regarded Amyraut as his most notable scholar, and it was from Cameron, “a learned but restless Scotchman”, as George Smeaton describes him,2 that Amyraut imbibed certain erroneous teachings.
In his Scottish Theology, John Macleod states that Cameron had “a dash of ambition in his nature, and more or less, too, of the brilliant about him; he became a man of significance from the fact that he led a school of thought; he tried to steer a middle course between the Calvinism of the Synod of Dort and the Arminianism which it condemned”3. Macleod adds, “The issues of his mongrel compromising teaching were far-reaching”.
It is to be kept in mind that Amyraut had in fact tremendous admiration
1The second part of a paper given at the 2011 Theological Conference. The first part dealt with the atonement and its extent.
2The Apostle’s Doctrine of the Atonement, p 540.
3Scottish Theology, pp 60,62.
for Calvin, and under Cameron’s influence he took up the idea that the Calvinism of his day had deviated from Calvin’s own teaching. Therefore he propounded a system of universal atonement which he stated to be the logical development of concepts he claimed to have found in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.
In 1633, when he was 37, Amyraut was appointed Professor of Theology at Saumur and taught there for 31 years. During that time he had a decided but detrimental influence on the Reformed Church in France and beyond. He took a very active part in all the great controversies on predestination and Arminianism which disturbed the Reformed church in Europe in those days.
Amyraut’s Treatise on Predestination. In 1634 he published his most controversial work, Treatise on Predestination, in which, among other things he rejected a limited atonement, propounding instead his idea of a universal atonement. Amyraut’s aim, in positing his theory of universalism over against the particularism of the Canons of Dort was to mitigate what he believed were the harsh features of predestination. His intention, Nicole says, was “to soften the edges of the traditional orthodox Reformed view and thus to relieve difficulties in the controversy with Roman Catholics and facilitate a reunion of Protestants in which Reformed and Lutheran could join ranks”.4 Amyraut’s friend, Paul Testard,5 also produced a work in which he argued for the idea of universal atonement, but less ably than Amyraut.
Francis Turretin (1623-87), Professor of Theology at Geneva, observes that Amyraut and Testard had “a certain pious design (as it seems) of promoting ecclesiastical peace and . . . a desire of disputing more strongly with the Remonstrants”6 (the followers of Arminius), but peace did not ensue. In fact, their works, especially Amyraut’s treatise, gave rise to tremendous controversy within the Reformed Church and met with determined and vigorous opposition. Amyraut himself believed he was adhering to Calvin’s theology, and insisted that his own doctrine could be found, not only in Calvin’s writings, but also in Augustine’s teaching and, of course, in the Scriptures. He also asserted that what he taught was in agreement with the Canons of Dort, to which he had subscribed.
Among the theologians who ably contended against him, and for the true doctrine, were Pierre du Moulin (1568-1658) who taught in the Protestant Academy of Sedan, Andre Rivet, a professor of theology at the University of Leiden, and Friedrich Spanheim, also a professor of theology at Leiden.
4New Theological Dictionary, p 17.
5Testard (1599-1650) was pastor in Blois. His work, entitled Eirenikon seu Synopsis Doctrinae de Natura et Gratia, was produced a year earlier than Amyraut’s treatise.
6Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol 1 p 395.
Amyraut tried by the French Reformed Church. The controversy came to a new height in 1637, when Amyraut and Testard were summoned by the French Reformed Church to answer charges of heresy before its Synod, which met at Alençon that year. They were acquitted of the charge of heresy, but were given a mild rebuke for using unguarded language that could be misinterpreted.
Charges were brought against them again at the Synods of 1644 and 1659. Those Synods had clear evidence not only of erroneous writings by both Amyraut and Testard but also able refutations of their views which were presented in writing to the French Church by Moulin, Rivet and Spanheim. The Synods also received from the Reformed Churches in Holland and Switzerland expressions of their deep concern about the spreading errors.
It would seem that both the accused men, in their statements to the Synods, were disingenuous and used ambiguous language. “Naturally enough, in the explanations they gave,” says Nicole, “Amyraut and Testard sought to conform their presentation and language as closely as they could to the traditional Reformed views without making an outright disavowal of their previously printed sentiments. It would be difficult to maintain that they were wholly free of dissimulation in this matter. For instance, it seems fairly obvious that their printed utterances were ill in keeping with the Canons of the Synod of Dort, to which they pledged allegiance. In view of what they wrote later, the conclusion is inevitable either that they were not very forthright or that they did not yet grasp well the implications of their own position.”7 One wonders if Nicole is being rather charitable to them.
Amyraut and Testard were acquitted yet again. The final decision of the Synod in the case of Amyraut reads thus: “This Assembly being very well satisfied with his explications and sense given of his doctrine agreeable to that of the Synod of Alençon; and judging it best to bury in the grave of oblivion all those reciprocal complaints brought in from all parties, hath, as formerly, dismissed the said Sieur Amyraud, with honour to the exercise of his professorship, wherein he is exhorted to employ himself with courage and cheerfulness”8
Unfaithfulness of the French Reformed Church. Sadly, the French Church had culpably failed to grasp the nettle. William Cunningham observed, in a speech in the General Assembly of the Free Church of 1859 (on the Tercentenary of the first national Synod of the French Reformed Churches which met in Paris in 1559): “The Synod of 1637 manifested a considerable amount of unfaithfulness to God in connection with the doctrines, and that unfaithful-
7Standing Forth – Collected Writings of Roger Nicole, p 315.
8Quick’s Synodicon, vol 2, 455, quoted in The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 42, p 447.
ness did not fail to appear in the Synod of 1644 – the one only 17 and the other 25 years after the solemn adoption by the National Synod of the Canons of the Synod of Dort. The National Synods and purity of doctrine seem very much to have gone down together.”9
As was inevitable, the result in France for both the Protestant faith and the Reformed Church was disastrous. The teachings of Amyraut and his party so predominated that the national Church slid into Arminianism, and its Protestantism became weak. Nicole gives this analysis of the damage: “The doctrine of hypothetical universalism acted as a corrosive factor in the French Reformed Church. Tolerated at first because it was felt that an outright condemnation would lead to schism, it slowly undermined respect for the confessional standards and disrupted internal unity and cohesion. As far as can be seen, it did not in fact help to promote any basic union with the Lutherans, nor did it materially assist in preventing abjurations to [Roman Catholicism]. On the other hand, it did provide a bridge toward Arminianism and perhaps toward the Semi-Pelagian tendencies of the Church of Rome. The advantages that Amyraut had envisioned failed to materialize, and the dangers against which his opponents had warned did in fact eventuate.”10
Defenders of the faith. However, although the Reformed Church in France proved unfaithful in dealing with Amyraut, there were those both within and outwith that Church who ably refuted his teachings, for example, Moulin, Rivet and Spanheim, mentioned above. Spanheim’s treatise against universal atonement, entitled Universal Grace, is the “great work . . . on the subject,” says Smeaton. “Here every point is calmly and lucidly reviewed, with little of the acrimony of controversy.”11
Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1643) although refuting Arminianism, also counters the theory of Cameron, Amyraut and Testard. Owen summarises their error in this way: “Christ died for all, but only conditionally for some, if they do believe, or will so do (which He knows they cannot do of themselves); and He died absolutely for His own, even them on whom He purposeth to bestow faith and grace, so as actually to be made possessors of the good things by Him purchased”.12
The teachings of Cameron and Amyraut were also robustly repelled in the Formula Helvetica Consensus (1675). It was the last of the major Reformed confessions of faith during those formative stages of Reformed theology, and was formulated by the Swiss Reformed Churches, which also required their
9Quoted by Smeaton in Our Lord’s Doctrine of The Atonement, 2nd ed, p 469.
10Standing Forth – Collected Writings of Roger Nicole, p 326.
11Our Lord’s Doctrine of the Atonement, p 471.
12John Owen, Works, Edinburgh, 1862, vol 10, p 222.
ministers to subscribe it. One of its framers was Francis Turretin, not only a strong opponent of the theology of Saumur, but also a zealous defender of the Canons of Dort.
His able refutation of Amyraut’s errors can be seen in two sections of his masterful Institutes of Elenctic Theology.13 These indicate a certain lack of logic and consistency in Amyraut’s theory, of which we have given just a summary, but we hope to expand upon it later.