5. Its Prevalence and Danger Today1
Rev Neil M Ross
Amyraldianism today. Although 379 years have elapsed since Amyraut’s erroneous views were published in his Treatise on Predestination, they are very much alive today. One very influential proponent of an Amyraldian-like form of modified Calvinism is R T Kendall (former minister of Westminster Chapel, London), who, in his 1979 book Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, tried to show that Calvin’s followers, in espousing the doctrine of a limited atonement, veered from the Reformer’s teaching. Calvin, argues Kendall, actually held to what was a universal atonement position! Although Kendall’s thesis has been effectively demolished by several theologians, and notably by Paul Helm in his book, Calvin and the Calvinists (1982), in which he clearly shows that Calvin held to a limited atonement,
1The final part of a paper given at the 2011 Theological Conference. Last month’s article looked at the effects of Amyraldianism on English and Scottish Churches.
Kendall continues to hold to a universal atonement. In one interview he stated, “I believe that Jesus died for everybody without exception but that the blood He shed was applied to God’s elect only . . . I regard myself as a four-and-a-half point Calvinist.”2
Another advocate of Amyraldianism is Alan Clifford, the exceedingly zealous leader of the Amyraldian Association in Britain. At one of the Association’s conferences, the concluding speaker exhorted the attendees to “declare to all people indiscriminately that God loves them, that Christ died for them”.3
Objectives in Amyraldianism. Amyraldians aim by their doctrine to address, for instance, pastoral concerns. They labour under the misapprehension that the universal call of the gospel and a limited atonement are mutually exclusive; they therefore deny the definiteness of the atonement. Ian Hamilton informs us that Amyraldian Edward Polhill asks the question, “But if Christ in no way died for all men, how came the minister’s commission to be so large?” Balmer, in his preface to Polhill’s work, argues that, “if the Scriptures only teach particular atonement, the universal call becomes an absurdity”.4
Referring to the offer of the gospel in evangelising, the Amyraldian Association says (on its website), “We also maintain with Calvin that the death of Christ has a reference to all the world and not merely to the redemption of the elect. Thus Christ is to be offered to all people indiscriminately in obedience to His command.” To declare indiscriminately to all people that God loves them and that Christ died for them, as do Amyraldians today, is indeed to preach another gospel.
Scripture gives no basis whatsoever for concluding that there is a hiatus between preaching a definite atonement and, at the same time, giving the indiscriminate, free offer of the gospel. It is a fact, as Ian Hamilton points out, that “the strictest Calvinists in the Westminster Assembly held to the universal call while utterly rejecting any notion of a universal atonement”.5 Also, as Rev Donald Beaton states, “Our Scottish divines, though Calvinists of unquestioned orthodoxy, have all along held the doctrine of the free offer of the gospel while holding that Christ died only for those who were given Him by the Father. . . . This is the doctrine taught in our Confession of Faith. It is to be clearly distinguished from the Arminian [and Amyraldian] view that the free offer of the gospel is a corollary of the doctrine of a universal atonement.”6
2Quoted from http://www.puritanboard.com/f121/lloyd-jones-r-t-kendall-limited-atonement-what-your-take-42776.
3http://www.cprf.co.uk/articles/amyraut.htm.
4Ian Hamilton, The Erosion of Calvinism, p 52.
5The Erosion of Calvinism, p 64.
6The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 43, p 292.
Professor John Murray well says, “The doctrine of limited atonement any more than the doctrine of sovereign election does not raise a fence around the offer of the gospel. . . . It is upon the crest of the wave of the divine sovereignty and of limited atonement that the full and free offer of the gospel breaks upon our shores. The offer of salvation to all is bona fide. All that is proclaimed is absolutely true. Every sinner believing will infallibly be saved, for the veracity and purpose of God cannot be violated.”7
The dangers of Amyraldianism. What must our conclusions be about Amyraldianism? A A Hodge’s opinion is that it “fails to conciliate Socinians or Arminians, while it alienates true Calvinists. The experienced shun it, because they know how often it conceals serious error.”8 The error of Amyraldianism is insidious because, while its proponents disown Arminianism, they plausibly portray themselves as bona fide Calvinists. It has to be said, however, that the person who rejects the doctrine of a strictly-limited atonement, invalidates any claim he makes to be a Calvinist. We agree wholeheartedly with the anonymous contributor to the Banner of Truth website who wrote, “Calvinism is an interwoven system of theology which must be accepted or rejected as a whole. . . . Four-point Calvinism is no Calvinism at all. If limited atonement is false, then the other four points are false as well. One cannot truly and consistently believe in total depravity, unconditional election, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints without accepting definite atonement.”9
Ian Hamilton asserts, “Amyraldianism is not confessional Calvinism, even in a so-called ‘modified’ state”. And he adds, “It is right that Amyraldianism has its own name. It may continue to lay claim to the mantle of Calvinistic orthodoxy, but its claim will always exceed its grasp. Authentic Calvinism continues to assert, with the compilers of the Westminster Confession, ‘To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, He doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same’.”10
John Kennedy rightly says that Amyraldians are “Calvinists in their vows and Arminians in their tendencies. . . . Sometimes they seem staunch Calvinists, and at other times utter Arminians. They try to move on the boundary line between the two systems, and would fain keep a foot on either side. But the fence is too high to admit of this. They therefore display their agility in leaps from side to side. But this is very fatiguing work; and must soon be
7Arminianism and the Atonement, online at http://www.the-highway.com/arminianism.html.
8A A Hodge, The Atonement, pp 379-380.
9“The Inconsistency of Four-Point Calvinism”, quoted from: http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?416
10Amyraldianism – Is It Modified Calvinism?, pp 19, 20.
given up. They will find that they must walk on one side or the other. As it was an Arminian bias that moved them to these gambols, the most probable finale is, that they shall utterly abandon the Calvinistic side.”11
The slide from Amyraldianism into Arminianism was very evident in the French Church. One contributor to the book, John Calvin: His influence in the Western World, says, “The period after 1633 was the period of the decline of Calvinism in France. As a Provençal proverb says, ‘the rotting of a fish begins with the head’, and under the regrettable influence of theologians of the Academy of Saumur, such as Moise Amyraut, Louis Cappel, and Josué de la Place, the faith of a growing number of pastors and churches was impregnated with Arminianism.”12
Another gross error to which Amyraldianism may lead is Romanism. Roger Nicole says, “Amyraut thought he could establish a bridge that would make it easier for Roman Catholic people to embrace the Reformed faith. He seemed to remain oblivious to the fact that most bridges carry two-way traffic: he unwittingly made it easier for Reformed people to turn to Romanism. He may deserve to be called . . . ‘the gravedigger of the French Reformed Church’.”13
But Amyraldianism is especially dangerous because it strikes at the very heart of the gospel by devaluing the atonement. As Iain Murray helpfully explains, “Belief that a real expiation has been accomplished by Christ for all without exception has come, sooner or later, to affect the whole meaning of the atonement. For if Christ rendered satisfaction for the sins of all men as their substitute then something more than the work of the cross is necessary to actually save anyone (in Amyraut’s view, an additional decree). The death of Jesus, in itself, is thus reduced to nothing more than something potentially saving, whereas Scripture represents that sacrifice as complete and perfect. All that is necessary for the application of redemption was secured when He purchased His people with His own blood.”14
May we then humbly bless God for bequeathing to us, in its entirety and purity, “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” and the true view of the precious doctrine of the necessity and extent of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. To Him we must look that we may ever walk in what Jeremiah calls “the old paths” and “the good way”; and that by His grace we may be enabled to say, “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Rom 5:11).
11 Man’s Relations to God, 1869, pp 100-116.
12 Quoted in Amyraldianism – Is It Modified Calvinism?, p 20n.
13 Quoted in Amyraldianism – Is It Modified Calvinism?, pp 19,20.
14 “Calvin and the Atonement”, The Banner of Truth magazine, November 1996.