Unbeknownst to many, the Arminian (or Remonstrant) controversy of the early seventeenth century was not the first major early modern dispute about the perennial philosophical and theological questions touching on the relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom. Such an honor must be given to the Roman Catholic dispute leading to the so-called Congregatio De […]
Wednesday, 18 January, 2023 by Michael Lynch
Ignoring social and political factors is one of the many pitfalls in the discipline of historical theology. These factors can and often do shape theological debates. Take, for example, the relatively unknown so-called Mendicant Controversy of the thirteenth century. The Franciscan and Dominican Orders arose at the beginning of the thirteenth century. These medieval orders […]
Friday, 23 September, 2022 by Michael Lynch
I have a confession to make. Even though I teach Latin at a classical school, I have not always been convinced that my students should be learning Latin. Sure, I’m familiar with the terrible arguments for learning Latin, i.e., it helps your English or the crasser version—it will help you on your SAT; but such […]
Wednesday, 27 July, 2022 by Michael Lynch
The work you have on your shelf by that classic Christian author may not, in fact, be the original work said Christian author actually wrote. People are often surprised to find that the classic works they have on their shelves are either abridgments or heavily edited works which bear little resemblance to their originals. In […]
Friday, 20 May, 2022 by Michael Lynch
One of the most significant benefits of the recent resurgence of interest in early modern Reformed theology has been the retrieval of theologians and their works once nearly forgotten. Yet, that retrieval has only begun. Among the mass of recently digitized early modern Reformed theology are works which, because they were written in Latin, never […]
Friday, 18 March, 2022 by Michael Lynch
Because of my knowledge of John Davenant’s hypothetical universalism, I am often asked what the difference is between Davenant’s hypothetical universalism and so-called Amyraldianism. Jonathan Moore’s helpful study on English hypothetical universalism, insisting that we ought to distinguish it from Amyraldianism coupled with Richard Muller’s similar claim that there were varieties of early modern Reformed […]
Monday, 17 January, 2022 by Michael Lynch
It’s been over ten years since I last read John Owen’s famous (or infamous!) treatise on the extent of Christ’s atonement, popularly called The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Since that time, I have written a dissertation on John Davenant, an English delegate to the Synod of Dordt, and his own book […]
Friday, 19 November, 2021 by Michael Lynch
Ever since at least the 19th century, the notion that Protestants, especially Calvinists, and even more particularly Calvin himself, are and have been obsessed with the doctrine of predestination has been something of an ongoing complaint levied by critics of the Reformed faith. The idea that Calvin’s theology is centered on God’s decree of predestination—that […]
Friday, 17 September, 2021 by Michael Lynch
Richard Muller’s attack on the Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis—a thesis which claims that Calvin’s theology was more biblical and unencumbered with the rationalism of later scholastic Reformed theology—has led some to conclude that the very suggestion that later Calvinists disagreed with Calvin is to fall into the very thesis that Muller has already disproven. […]
Friday, 23 July, 2021 by Michael Lynch
Worshiping with the ReformersBy Karin MaagIVP Academic, 2021248 pages (paperback), $24.00 Karin Maag is probably not a household name among Modern Reformation readers. Yet she has for some time been well-known and respected among historians of the Reformation. Worshiping with the Reformers is a rare glimpse, written at a popular level, of her vast research […]
Thursday, 01 July, 2021 by Michael Lynch
In my last post, I explained some of the basic assumptions and reasons for the infra- and supralapsarian debates in the early modern period. In this post I want to give a primer on one of those basic assumptions, namely the treatment of the doctrine of predestination and reprobation in the early modern period. Predestination […]
Friday, 21 May, 2021 by Michael Lynch
There’s something of a disconnect between modern discussions about infra- and supralapsarianism and early modern treatments of the subject. In modern—often popular—treatments, one often finds lists of various divine decrees arranged under the headings: “infralapsarianism,” “supralapsarianism,” “Amyraldianism,” or “Arminian.” Such lists and headings, though they can be found from time to time in the sixteenth […]
Friday, 19 March, 2021 by Michael Lynch