Jacobus Arminius (1559-1609) composed 61 public disputations during his brief tenure as professor of theology at Leiden University, 36 of which have never before been collected and published, and have been neglected by scholars for four centuries. This critical edition supplements the works of Arminius by presenting these texts in the original Latin, complete with notes and summaries in English. The texts are preceded by a helpful introduction to the genre of theological disputations. In addition, the question of disputation authorship is treated exhaustively for the first time, demonstrating Arminius's primary authorship of these documents.

19 October 2009 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Jacobus Arminius in Leiden. He was esteemed for the way in which he sought a via media between strict Calvinism and a more humanistic variant of Christian belief. However, because of his deviation from mainstream Calvinism, he has also been violently attacked. Was he a pioneer, who enriched the Reformed tradition by opening it towards new horizons, or a heretic, who founded a new tradition, as an alternative to Reformed theology? The day of the death of this remarkable theologian was commemorated with a conference at Leiden University on Arminius, Aminianism, and Europe (9 and 10 October 2009). The main contributions to that conference are collected in this book. The first part contains some essays on the thinking of Arminius himself: the structure of his theology, his relation to Augustine, and to Rome. The second part deals with Arminianism. Was it influenced by Socinianism, as its opponents often claimed? How was it received in Europe: in Germany, Switzerland (Geneva), England, and Ireland? How far did Arminianism prepare the way for the ideals of the Enlightenment, which made its entry later on in the seventeenth century? An extensive iconography of Jacobus Arminius and an annotated bibliography of all his known writings complete, in the third part, this volume.

With a focus on England from the accession of Elizabeth I to the mid-1620s, this book examines the practice of direct, scholarly disputation between fundamentally opposing and oftentimes antagonistic Catholic, Protestant and nonconformist puritan divines. Introducing a form of discourse hitherto neglected in studies of religious controversy, the volume works to rehabilitate a body of material only previously examined as part of the great, subjective mass of polemic produced in the wake of the Reformation. In so doing, it argues that public religious disputation - debate between opposing clergymen, arranged according to strict academic formulae - can offer new insights into contemporary beliefs, thought processes and conceptions of religious identity, as well as an accessible and dramatic window into the major theological controversies of the age. Formal disputation crossed confessional lines, and here provides an opportunity for a broad, comparative analysis. More than any other type of interaction or material, these encounters - and the dialogic accounts they produced - displayed the shared methods underpinning religious divisions, allowing Catholic and reformed clergymen to meet on the same field. The present volume asserts the significance of public religious disputation (and accounts thereof) in this regard, and explores their use of formal logic, academic procedure and recorded dialogue form to bolster religious controversy. In this, it further demonstrates how we might begin to move from the surviving source material for these encounters to the events themselves, and how the disputations then offer a remarkable new glimpse into the construction, rationalization and expression of post-Reformation religious argument.

Richard A. Muller, P. J. Zondervan Professor of Historical Theology, Calvin Theological Seminary --

Jacob Arminius was a Dutch theologian whose views have become the basis of Arminianism and the Dutch Remonstrant movement, and are quite influential on Wesleyan, and therefore Methodist, theology as well. Arminius attempted to reform Reformed theology and ended up lending his name to a movement that resisted some of the primary tenets of Calvinism. Rustin E. Brian outlines the life and theology of Arminius, shedding fresh light on his life, theology, and writings. In hopes of better understanding Arminian theology and Arminianism, Brian concludes with a constructive comparison and contrast of Arminius and several prominent theological figures: Pelagius, John Wesley, and Karl Barth.

The doctrine of "the covenant of works" arose to prominence in the late sixteenth century and quickly became a regular feature in Reformed thought. Theologians believed that when God first created man he made a covenant with him: all Adam had to do was obey God's command to not eat from the tree of knowledge and obey God's command to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth. The reward for Adam's obedience was profound: eternal life for him and his offspring. The consequences of his disobedience were dire: God would visit death upon Adam and his descendants. In the covenant of works, Adam was not merely an individual but served as a public person, the federal head of the human race. The Covenant of Works explores the origins of the doctrine of God's covenant with Adam and traces it back to the inter-testamental period, through the patristic and middle ages, and to the Reformation. The doctrine has an ancient pedigree and was not solely advocated by Reformed theologians. The book traces the doctrine's development in the seventeenth century and its reception in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Fesko explores the reasons why the doctrine came to be rejected by some, even in the Reformed tradition, arguing that interpretive methods influenced by Enlightenment thought caused theologians to question the doctrine's scriptural legitimacy.

Inspired by the ideas of the Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius, Arminianism was the subject of important theological controversies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and still today remains an important position within Protestant thought. What became known as Arminian theology was held by people across a wide swath of geographical and ecclesial positions. This theological movement was in part a reaction to the Reformed doctrine of predestination and was founded on the assertion that God's sovereignty and human free will are compatible. More broadly, it was an attempt to articulate a holistic view of God and salvation that is grounded in Scripture and Christian tradition as well as adequate to the challenges of life. First developed in European, British, and American contexts, the movement engaged with a wide range of intellectual challenges. While standing together in their common rejection of several key planks of Reformed theology, supporters of Arminianism took varying positions on other matters. Some were broadly committed to catholic and creedal theology, while others were more open to theological revision. Some were concerned primarily with practical matters, while others were engaged in system-building as they sought to articulate and defend an over-arching vision of God and the world. The story of Arminian development is complex, yet essential for a proper understanding of the history of Protestant theology. The historical development of Arminian theology, however, is not well known. In After Arminius, Thomas H. McCall and Keith D. Stanglin offer a thorough historical introduction to Arminian theology, providing an account that will be useful to scholars and students of ecclesiastical history and modern Christian thought.