“It is a bit surprising that the name of Moise Amyraut (Latin form Amyraldus; hence “Amyraldianism”) is not better known in a time such as ours when so many evangelical Christians want to be known as “four point Calvinists.” Many, indeed, in our time seem to want to say (a) that Christ atoned in some sense for the sins of every human being, (b) that nevertheless all men are not saved, and (c) that in the final analysis it is God, not man, who determines what persons shall be saved and which ones lost. But making these propositions work together in a Scripturally and logically cogent way is a task requiring considerable subtlety of mind, and no one, to my knowledge, has ever done it better than Amyraut. Further, Amyraut wove these propositions into the context of a rather distinctive theological approach—a method, emphasis, and style significantly different from those of other theologians of his time (1596–1664). I suspect that the appeal of “four point Calvinism” even today can be best understood by reference to Amyraut’s general theological mentality—a mentality shared to some extent by many today who know little of Amyraut. Thus, both proponents and critics of the “four point” position can benefit from a study of Amyraut’s theology and approach to theology”

It’s been quite interesting to do a little bit of reading about Amyraldianism over the last couple of weeks.  Here’s a few things I’ve discovered:

1. There are different streams of “Hypothetical Universalism” in 17th century thought (Cameron, Testard, Amyrald).
2. Francis Turretin, who famously opposed them, saw them as “our ministers” and thus not outside of Reformed orthodoxy like Roman Catholicism or Arminianism.
3. It is a form of Covenant Theology.
4. It utilises separate Antecedant & Consequent wills, rather than Calvin’s one will, with 2 aspects: Secret/Revealed.  That is, a scholastic distinction between separate wills or decrees.  Amyraut sees a hypothetical universal decree to save all upon the condition of faith, and an absolute decree to grant faith.  The former is antecedant to the decree of Christ’s death.  The latter is consequent to it.  Calvin on the other hand saw that God’s will was simple and one.  And yet it had two aspects: the Secret aspect pertaining to God’s chosen individuals, and the Revealed aspect pertaining to the universal Gospel call.

Basically, Amyraldianism has to do with a re-ordering of the divine decrees, and the insertion of a hypothetically universal decree of salvation.  Let me explain:

In Eternity, there is an antecedent hypothetical decree for the universal salvation of all on condition of their faith.  Logically next, Christ is decreed to die with that intention.  But, logically next – God, foreseeing that nobody would be saved due to total depravity created a consequent decree to grant faith to a particular number.  Do you see how the granting of faith in the consequent will fulfills the condition of the antecedent will?  That’s the logic of Amyraldianism.  I think it’s quite brilliant, actually.

Amyraldus (according to Mark Thompson, the Latinised versions of names were in vogue back then!) wrote the following in his Brief Traitte. See how it pertains to the antecedent decree:

“The sacrifice that He has offered for the propitiation of their offenses has been equally for all.  And the salvation that He has received from His Father in order to communicate it to men in the sanctification of the spirit and the glorification of the body is destined equally to all, provided, I say, that the disposition necessary in order to receive it is also equally present.”

I’ll post up some of my thoughts on this position soon, but for now – I think it’s at least interesting that Turretin considered Amyraldians “our ministers.”  This ought to ease at least some of the tensions between those who hold to Particular Redemption and those who hold to Amyraldianism.

8/8/99: On another subject: what is preaching, anyway? I don’t mean the preaching of the OT prophets, or Jesus, or Peter at Pentecost, or Paul on his missionary journeys. I mean the preaching we hear every Sunday morning. You see, this “ordinary” preaching is not quite the same as the others, though to be sure there are similarities. The preaching of the prophets, apostles, and Jesus, was specially inspired of God, for one thing. Ordinary preaching is not, or at least doesn’t have to be. And the apostolic preaching was usually out in the open, not in a gathered worship service of God’s people. And its themes are almost entirely judgment and/or grace. It is evangelistic in thrust. When we gather in church, of course, we need to hear the Gospel again and again; but we are not in the position of those in the marketplace. We have believed, and we need to hear what Scripture says about living the Christian life.

All the Reformational emphasis on the power of the preached Word seems to transfer what Scripture says about the marketplace preaching of the apostles to the ordinary preaching of the church. Reformation theology built a huge theological construct on this equation: the Second Helvetic Confession even said, “the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.” We have spent a lot of time talking about heralding and so on. But were the Reformers and we right to make such an equation between the extraordinary and the ordinary? Maybe so. But the issue hasn’t been studied much, and somebody ought to do it.

Some have found the origins of ordinary preaching in the Synagogue, or in the great occasion when Ezra expounded the Law to the returning exiles and the Levites “gave the sense.” So the essence of this kind of preaching is biblical exposition. This is closer to the mark, in my view. We don’t know if the church followed the synagogue pattern in the very beginning of its existence. 1 Cor. 14 looks like something rather different. Eventually, things did settle down, and something like a Christian synagogue did develop. But note that if this is the model we are to follow, we cannot bring into ordinary preaching all that Scripture says about preaching being the saving power of God, being a heralding of redemption, about the preacher as God’s special representative, and so on. There may something in all that, but it needs to be shown.

So far as I can see at the moment, Scripture never commands us to preach sermons in church, or in synagogue either, for that matter. At least the kind of sermons we are accustomed to. 1 Cor. 14:26 does refer to a “lesson” (didache) taught in the worship service, but it says very little about the character of that teaching. In general, Scripture doesn’t tell us anywhere to preach on a single text (even the inspired preaching of the apostles fails to do this), or to have just one sermon per service. It doesn’t tell us that every sermon has to be by an ordained officer, and by only one. It doesn’t forbid drama as a means of communication. It doesn’t tell us we must always preach on the history of redemption as opposed to “moralistic” ethics. It doesn’t appoint the preacher to be an official herald of the coming age. Indeed, it doesn’t tell us much of anything. Thus it seems to me that we have great freedom.

I do think we should have sermons in church, simply because believers and visitors alike need to hear God’s Word. But I think there can be a simplicity about ordinary preaching. It does not have to be something dreadfully complicated that requires enormous theological sophistication. It’s simply teaching one another what the Bible says. So it seems to me that the teaching of preaching can be simple too.

There are many maxims in homiletical texts. But in my estimation, there are only four rules: (1) make it biblical, (2) make it clear, (3) apply it correctly to the congregation, (4) make it interesting. I wish we could focus on these rules in the teaching of homiletics. But instead, the students have to focus on the Reformation theology of preaching and to master the biblical theology of texts. (Why BT and not ST or ET?) They learn methods of preparing sermons that require maybe 40 hours for each message. Their applications are not very practical, usually not much more than “Isn’t Christ great?” and ”Repent and believe.” (As a bottom line, that hardly fulfills the promise of profundity made by the Redemptive-Historical method.) And most students never do learn to communicate. So many Reformed Christians turn to the Grahams, Swindolls, and others, people who were taught preaching (usually by a mentor) without all the theological elaboration.

Perhaps some of our failure here stems from our pride, our wanting to be seen as preaching more profoundly than mere fundamentalists, and with much better scholarship. And as God’s poetic justice would have it, the result is often less rich, less interesting, less penetrating, and less clear than many mere radio preachers. We should be able to do better, perhaps by setting our sights lower.