From time to time I have mentioned various Reformed scholastics -- for instance, Turretin or Voetius. But it occurs to me that I have never mentioned the most famous and influential Protestant scholastic of them all, Jacobus Arminius.
Strict Calvinists, as a rule, wish he weren't so influential; he is the Calvinist theologian Calvinists love to hate, in part because he deviates so strongly from the traditional Calvinist view of the relation between faith and the decree of election. (He holds that the election of believers in general precedes anyone's foreseen faith; but that the the election of particular believers follows it.) Strictly speaking the classic 'five points' formulation of Calvinism is not a formulation of Calvinism; the five points are simply the five responses of traditional Calvinists to five points of the Remonstrants (who were Arminians). Far from being the heart of traditional Calvinism, the five points are just the points on which traditional Calvinists are distinguished from Arminians. It is a sign of just how much influence Arminius has had through the centuries that Calvinists are repeatedly so insistent about these five distinguishing marks.
You can find the Works of James Arminius at the Wesley Center Online.
