R. Scott Clark
Puritan Board Senior
I believe that William Ames said that Arminianism is an error tending to heresy.
In the strict sense it's best to define heresy as that which transgresses the catholic (universal, e.g. Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedon, Athanasian) creeds. Thus, we should drop the H bomb very carefully.
We should also avoid speculating about who will and won't be in heaven. Apart from public, ecclesiastical judgment on a particular individual, who knows? Even in the case of ecclesiastical judgment the church is only saying that it does not see evidence of true faith. Churches err. Only God knows these things.
Finally, Arminius made serious errors and laid the foundation for a great deal of damage in the Reformed Churches and even for the rise of aspects of modern Unitarianism (later Remonstrants became Unitarians and the UUA--Unitarian Universalist Assoc-- sometimes traces its roots to Arminius) but he was not as radical as his followers became.
In the strict sense it's best to define heresy as that which transgresses the catholic (universal, e.g. Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedon, Athanasian) creeds. Thus, we should drop the H bomb very carefully.
We should also avoid speculating about who will and won't be in heaven. Apart from public, ecclesiastical judgment on a particular individual, who knows? Even in the case of ecclesiastical judgment the church is only saying that it does not see evidence of true faith. Churches err. Only God knows these things.
Finally, Arminius made serious errors and laid the foundation for a great deal of damage in the Reformed Churches and even for the rise of aspects of modern Unitarianism (later Remonstrants became Unitarians and the UUA--Unitarian Universalist Assoc-- sometimes traces its roots to Arminius) but he was not as radical as his followers became.