It has been demonstrated that Arminius owned a copy of Calvin’s
Institutes, and his esteem for Calvin is well known.62 In May 1607, Ar-
minius wrote to his friend Burgomaster Sebastian Egbertsz, praising
Calvin’s commentaries and indicating his respect for the Institutes:
After the reading of Scripture, which I strenuously inculcate, and more
than any other…I recommend that the Commentaries of Calvin be read,
whom I extol… For I affirm that in the interpretation of the Scriptures
Calvin is incomparable, and that his Commentaries are more to be valued
than anything that is handed down to us in the writings of the Fathers—
so much so that I concede to him a certain spirit of prophecy in which he
stands distinguished above others, above most, indeed, above all.… His
Institutes, so far as respects Commonplaces [loci communes], I give out to
be read after the Catechism as a more extended explanation. But here I
add—with discrimination, as the writings of all men ought to be read.63
*****
Calvin defined original
sin as “a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused
into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God’s wrath,
then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls ‘works of
the flesh.’”65
While Arminius emphasized the fact that mankind lost something
when Adam fell, Calvin saw original sin as much more than a mere pri-
vation of holiness. To Calvin original sin involves a genuine corruption
of man’s nature and is, in fact, the source of all wickedness.66
*****
Arminius agreed with Calvin, against Pelagius, that “all who are
born in the ordinary way from Adam, contract from him original sin
and the penalty of death eternal.”70 Like Calvin, he believed that origi-
nal sin extends to the entire human race as a punishment of Adam’s sin.
Arminius was not at all comfortable, on the other hand, identifying
original sin with actual corruption or guilt.
******
Arminius
explained man’s fallen condition in detail when he wrote,
(1) The mind of man, in this state, is dark, destitute of the saving
knowledge of God, and, according to the Apostle, incapable of those
things which belong to the Spirit of God.
(2) To the darkness of the mind succeeds the perverseness of the affections
and of the heart, according to which it hates and has an aversion to
that which is truly good and pleasing to God; but it loves and pursues
what is evil.
(3) Exactly correspondent to this darkness of the mind, and perverseness
of the heart, is [impotentia] the utter weakness of all the powers to per-
form that which is truly good, and to omit the perpetration of that
which is evil.
(4) To these let the consideration of the whole of the life of man who is
[constituti] placed under sin, be added, of which the Scriptures exhibit
to us the most luminous description; and it will be evident, that noth-
ing can be spoken more truly concerning man in this state, than that
he is altogether dead in sin.78
These statements almost sound like they could have been taken
from Calvin’s Institutes, yet they come from Arminius’s Public Disputa-
tions. This is not to say that Arminius was a Calvinist. Still, it must be
confessed that Arminius was not a true Pelagian either.7
****
