Thread: The Heidelberg Catechism and unlimited atonement

Originally Posted by KMK

Let me just say that I don't get 'overly' concerned about anything. That is just not how I am wired. It might be a character flaw.

What I meant was that Ursinius' writings seem to demonstrate big misunderstanding about the atonement and how it is applied, but the catechism itself, less so.

It is amazing to me how these old Reformers use language that, if used today on PB, would cause great indignation.

John Calvin:

“Who taketh away the sin of the world.” He uses the word sin in the singular number, for any kind of iniquity; as if he had said, that every kind of unrighteousness which alienates men from God is taken away by Christ. And when he says, the sin OF THE WORLD,5 he extends this favor indiscriminately to the whole human race; that the Jews might not think that he had been sent to them alone. But hence we infer that the whole world is involved in the same condemnation; and that as all men without exception are guilty of unrighteousness before God, they need to be reconciled to him. John the Baptist, therefore, by speaking generally of the sin of the world, intended to impress upon us the conviction of our own misery, and to exhort us to seek the remedy. Now our duty is, to embrace the benefit which is offered to all, that each of us may be convinced that there is nothing to hinder him from obtaining reconciliation in Christ, provided that he comes to him by the guidance of faith. Besides, he lays down but one method of taking away sins. John Calvin, John 1:29.

Yes definately Ken. There have been countless rebuked on the internet for saying much less than some of what we read from them..


AS an aside, does anyone know if Caspar Olevianus has any commentary on any of this? Maybe he is more clear and correct.

Here is Ursinius' commentary on Q 20:

Question 20. Are all men, then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ?

Answer. No; only those who are ingrafted into him, and receive all his benefits by a true faith.

EXPOSITION.

Having explained the mode of our deliverance through Christ, we must now inquire carefully who are made partakers of this deliverance, and in what manner it is effected ; whether all, or only some are made partakers thereof. If none are made partakers of it, it has been accomplished in vain. This twentieth question is, therefore, preparatory to the doctrine of faith, without which neither the Mediator, nor the preaching of the gospel, would be of any advantage. At the same tune it provides a remedy against carnal security, and furnishes an answer to that base calumny which makes Christ the minister of sin.

The answer to this question consists of two parts : Salvation through Christ is not bestowed upon all who perished in Adam ; but only upon those who, by a true faith, are ingrafted into Christ, and receive all his benefits.

The first part of this answer is clearly proven by experience, and the word of God. " He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." " Except a man be bom again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3: 36 ; 3: 3. Matt. 7 : 21.) The reason why all are not saved through Christ, is not because of any insufficiency of merit and grace in him for the atonement of Christ is for the sins of the whole world, as it respects the dignity and sufficiency of the satisfaction which he made but it arises from unbelief; because men reject the benefits of Christ offered in the gospel, and so perish by their own fault, and not because of any insufficiency in the merits of Christ.

The other part of the answer is also evident from the Scriptures. " As many as received him to them, gave he power to become the sons of God." " By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." (John 1 : 12. Is. 53 : 11.) The reason why only those who believe are saved, is, because they alone lay hold of, and embrace the benefits of Christ ; and because in them alone God secures the end for which he graciously delivered his Son to death ; for only those that believe know the mercy and grace of God, and return suitable thanks to him.

The sum of this whole matter is therefore this : that although the satisfaction of Christ, the mediator for our sins, is perfect, yet all do not obtain deliverance through it, but only those who believe the gospel, and apply to themselves the merits of Christ by a true faith.

It sure sounds like Ursinius believed that Christ provided perfect satisfaction for every man, yet not every man obtains that satisfaction because they reject it and do not apply it to themselves.

Originally Posted by KMK

Here is Ursinius' commentary on Q 20:

Question 20. Are all men, then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ?

Answer. No; only those who are ingrafted into him, and receive all his benefits by a true faith.

EXPOSITION.

Having explained the mode of our deliverance through Christ, we must now inquire carefully who are made partakers of this deliverance, and in what manner it is effected ; whether all, or only some are made partakers thereof. If none are made partakers of it, it has been accomplished in vain. This twentieth question is, therefore, preparatory to the doctrine of faith, without which neither the Mediator, nor the preaching of the gospel, would be of any advantage. At the same tune it provides a remedy against carnal security, and furnishes an answer to that base calumny which makes Christ the minister of sin.

The answer to this question consists of two parts : Salvation through Christ is not bestowed upon all who perished in Adam ; but only upon those who, by a true faith, are ingrafted into Christ, and receive all his benefits.

The first part of this answer is clearly proven by experience, and the word of God. " He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." " Except a man be bom again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3: 36 ; 3: 3. Matt. 7 : 21.) The reason why all are not saved through Christ, is not because of any insufficiency of merit and grace in him for the atonement of Christ is for the sins of the whole world, as it respects the dignity and sufficiency of the satisfaction which he made but it arises from unbelief; because men reject the benefits of Christ offered in the gospel, and so perish by their own fault, and not because of any insufficiency in the merits of Christ.

The other part of the answer is also evident from the Scriptures. " As many as received him to them, gave he power to become the sons of God." " By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." (John 1 : 12. Is. 53 : 11.) The reason why only those who believe are saved, is, because they alone lay hold of, and embrace the benefits of Christ ; and because in them alone God secures the end for which he graciously delivered his Son to death ; for only those that believe know the mercy and grace of God, and return suitable thanks to him.

The sum of this whole matter is therefore this : that although the satisfaction of Christ, the mediator for our sins, is perfect, yet all do not obtain deliverance through it, but only those who believe the gospel, and apply to themselves the merits of Christ by a true faith.

It sure sounds like Ursinius believed that Christ provided perfect satisfaction for every man, yet not every man obtains that satisfaction because they reject it and do not apply it to themselves.

Then Christ did not die for the sin of unbelief? I am getting more and more confused by his statements.. Not that that is a hard thing to do becasue I get easily cofused at times.. At times he speaks 100% true, and the next clause is a different vien of thought.

Kimedoncius : Calvin and Calvinism » Blog Archive » Jacob Kimedoncius on the Death of Christ: Unlimited Expiation and Redemption
Paraeus : Calvin and Calvinism » Blog Archive » David Paraeus (1548-1622) on the Death of Christ: Unlimited Expiation and Redemption

I found this. These guys represent the Heidelberg school.

Hope this helps.

So have we decided if the Heidelberg teaches Unlimited Atonement? I think those two links should shed some light on it, since they were representative of the Heidelberg school, and clearly both of them held to Unlimited atonement.

IMHO, it would appear that the HC does not teach LA. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that it teaches UA. I am willing to give Ursius et al the benefit of a doubt because Owen had not yet come along and defined LA so clearly. It seems to me that since Owen and Dort it is impossible to waffle between UA and LA.

Originally Posted by christianyouth

So have we decided if the Heidelberg teaches Unlimited Atonement? I think those two links should shed some light on it, since they were representative of the Heidelberg school, and clearly both of them held to Unlimited atonement.

Gentlemen,

This should not even be a question. One of my original points still stands: if the Heidelberg Catechism taught anything incompatible with the Canons of Dort, then why did that Synod not change the Heidelberg Catechism in any way? After all, it did modify the Belgic Confession somewhat. How could the greatest theologians of that age have missed the unlimited atonement in the Heidelberg if it taught such a doctrine? How could 400 years of Reformed theologians, ministers, and members in our churches have missed this if it were so?

I would encourage you all to read Q&Q 37 in light of the Canons of Dort, Second Head of Doctrine, and ask yourself if there is a contradiction. Relevant are the following:

Question 37. What dost thou understand by the words, "He suffered"?
Answer: That he, all the time that he lived on earth, but especially at the end of his life, sustained in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sins of all mankind: that so by his passion, as the only propitiatory sacrifice, he might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and obtain for us the favour of God, righteousness and eternal life.

Article 3: This death of God's Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.

Article 4: This death is of such great value and worth for the reason that the person who suffered it is—as was necessary to be our Savior—not only a true and perfectly holy man, but also the only begotten Son of God, of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Another reason is that this death was accompanied by the experience of God's anger and curse, which we by our sins had fully deserved.

I prefer the WLC:

Q. 44. How doth Christ execute the office of a priest?

A. Christ executeth the office of a priest, in his once offering himself a sacrifice without spot to God,[171] to be reconciliation for the sins of his people;[172] and in making continual intercession for them.[173]

Q. 59. Who are made partakers of redemption through Christ?

A. Redemption is certainly applied, and effectually communicated, to all those for whom Christ hath purchased it;[251] who are in time by the Holy Ghost enabled to believe in Christ according to the gospel.[252]

Originally Posted by dannyhyde

Originally Posted by christianyouth

So have we decided if the Heidelberg teaches Unlimited Atonement? I think those two links should shed some light on it, since they were representative of the Heidelberg school, and clearly both of them held to Unlimited atonement.

Gentlemen,

This should not even be a question. One of my original points still stands: if the Heidelberg Catechism taught anything incompatible with the Canons of Dort, then why did that Synod not change the Heidelberg Catechism in any way? After all, it did modify the Belgic Confession somewhat. How could the greatest theologians of that age have missed the unlimited atonement in the Heidelberg if it taught such a doctrine? How could 400 years of Reformed theologians, ministers, and members in our churches have missed this if it were so?

I would encourage you all to read Q&Q 37 in light of the Canons of Dort, Second Head of Doctrine, and ask yourself if there is a contradiction. Relevant are the following:

Question 37. What dost thou understand by the words, "He suffered"?
Answer: That he, all the time that he lived on earth, but especially at the end of his life, sustained in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sins of all mankind: that so by his passion, as the only propitiatory sacrifice, he might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and obtain for us the favour of God, righteousness and eternal life.

Article 3: This death of God's Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.

Article 4: This death is of such great value and worth for the reason that the person who suffered it is—as was necessary to be our Savior—not only a true and perfectly holy man, but also the only begotten Son of God, of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Another reason is that this death was accompanied by the experience of God's anger and curse, which we by our sins had fully deserved.

Danny, I do nto believe Ken is saying it speaks of universalism. Yet is does slant towards a sufficient for all, efficient for the elect slant. And again the bigger problem is in Ursinus's lectures/commentary compared to the HC itself.

I will have to mention again that the COD articles 2nd head, MUST be qualified with the rejection section in the same head.

I personally see no problem with the HC, only becasue when I read atonement, and see mankind, I only equate that with the elect. Kinda like world doesnt mean worls and all doesnt mean all.

Originally Posted by Amazing Grace

I personally see no problem with the HC, only becasue when I read atonement, and see mankind, I only equate that with the elect. Kinda like world doesnt mean worls and all doesnt mean all.

I tend to do that as well, but then I wonder if I am being true to the text. Ursinius does seem to desire to be true to the text.

Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by KMK

Originally Posted by Amazing Grace

I personally see no problem with the HC, only becasue when I read atonement, and see mankind, I only equate that with the elect. Kinda like world doesnt mean worls and all doesnt mean all.

I tend to do that as well, but then I wonder if I am being true to the text. Ursinius does seem to desire to be true to the text.

Any thoughts?

Well I can only assume he means the elect becasue of putting 'our' and 'us' in the next section. But again, the problem I am having with Ursinus is in his commentary and lectures that you provided, he seems to go against this vien of thought Ken. In conclusion, I do not believe I am reading it as Urisnus may have intended it to be read. I think he was a 'double ender' as marty calls them..

Originally Posted by dannyhyde

Gentlemen,

This should not even be a question. One of my original points still stands: if the Heidelberg Catechism taught anything incompatible with the Canons of Dort, then why did that Synod not change the Heidelberg Catechism in any way?

Dear Danny, you make a good point. However, the Canons of Dort allow for a variety of positions on the extent of the atonement. Double-enders (the so-called "hypothetical universalists") like Davenant and Ward along with a single-ender like Gomarus were able to sign the canons.

When we examine the writings of the Heidelbergers, Kimedonicius and Paraeus, we see that they held to something like the double-end view as well, Christ died efficiently for the elect but sufficiently for all, not just in the sense that Christ's death could've been sufficient for all, but that it actually was sufficient for all.

Hence, it seems very natural to me to see Heidelberg 37 as allowing for a "double-end" view of the atonement akin to Kimedonicius and Paraeus.

Richard Muller (in a review of a book in the the latest CTJ) contends that this "double-end" view (or "hypothetical universalism"--a phrase I don't think does justice to the position) was an orthodox stream of thought in the reformed tradition and is compatible with Dort:

Clear statements of nonspeculative hypothetical universalism can be found (as Davenant recognized) in Heinrich Bullinger’s Decades and commentary on the Apocalypse, in Wolfgang Musculus’ Loci communes, in Ursinus’ catechetical lectures, and in Zanchi’s Tractatus de praedestinatione sanctorum, among other places. In addition, the Canons of Dort, in affirming the standard distinction of a sufficiency of Christ’s death for all and its efficiency for the elect, actually refrain from canonizing either the early form of hypothetical universalism or the assumption that Christ’s sufficiency serves only to leave the nonelect without excuse. Although Moore can cite statements from the York conference that Dort “either apertly or covertly denied the universality of man’s redemption” (156), it remains that various of the signatories of the Canons were hypothetical universalists–not only the English delegation (Carleton, Davenant, Ward, Goad, and Hall) but also the [sic] some of the delegates from Bremen and Nassau (Martinius, Crocius, and Alsted)–that Carleton and the other delegates continued to affirm the doctrinal points of Dort while distancing themselves from the church discipline of the Belgic Confession, and that in the course of seventeenth-century debate even the Amyraldians were able to argue that their teaching did not run contrary to the Canons. In other words, the nonspeculative, non-Amyraldian form of hypothetical universalism was new in neither the decades after Dort nor a “softening” of the tradition: The views of Davenant, Ussher, and Preston followed out a resident trajectory long recognized as orthodox among the Reformed.

Muller also believes that John Cameron and Salmurian Amyraldianism is very much compatible with Dort:

This [Cameron's covenantal] pattern has major implications for understanding the Salmurian soteriology. It indicates a covenantal or federal continuity with Reformed predestinarianism that has been left unexamined in discussions of hypothetical universalism. Against, Moltmann's assessment, it offers an element of the Salmurian theology that presses it away from rather than toward Arminianism; and against Armstrong's thesis, it demonstrates the point, recognized even by seventeenth-century opponents of Amyralidianism like Francis Turretin, namely, that views of Cameron and his Salmurian successors were not heresy and, like it or not, were consciously framed to stand within the confessionalism of the Canons of Dort. In the specific case of Cameron's covenantal thought, it ought to be understood not as a protest against various developments in Reformed theology but rather an integral part of the rather fluid and variegated history of early Reformed covenantal thought. ("John Cameron and Covenant Theology" in Mid-America Jounral of Theology17 (2006):36-37)

Every blessing in Christ Danny.

Marty, that's a great point. It would seem that the argument Rev. Daniel used could actually bolster the 'double enders'. If unlimited atonement was taught in the Heidelberg and was the dominant view at the time of Dordt, then if Dordt was breaking with that view we would expect two things :
1) Condemnation of the Heidelberg and UA(the Calvinist kind).
2) That Dordt would have only been signed by adherents to strict LA.

more on 2) - If we are to take the condemnations against the Arminian view of UA to be condemnations against any view of UA, we have to disregard the historical fact that 'double enders' signed the Canons of Dordt. They obviously didn't interpret the condemnations of UA to be condemning their own view of the atonement, otherwise they wouldn't have signed it.

So the task would be to show that the Heidelberg itself points toward UA, but then show that representatives of the Heidelberg school were proponents of UA, which I think both have been shown. The other thing, and thanks for pointing this out, Marty, is that there were 'double enders' at Dordt.


So in other words, Rev. Daniel is saying, "The Heidelberg couldn't have taught UA because no where does Dordt condemn the teachings of the Heidelberg" but double enders can turn around and say "Dordt couldn't have taught strict LA because no where does Dordt condemn the teachings of the Heidelberg".: