Paul Testard’s (1594–1650) Dualistic View of the Atonement

Paul Testard, along with his friend Moïse Amyraut, was acquitted of heterodoxy at the national synod at Alençon in 1637. These men are often portrayed as if they taught that Christ died equally for all without making important qualifications, i.e., as if they deny all particularity in Christ’s intent in dying. As in the case of Amyraut, one can also see that Testard was a kind of dualist as well. Here’s what I mean.

While Testard did maintain that Christ died to save all, he also thought that Christ did so with a particular or special intention to save the elect. The satisfaction was equal for all (i.e., Christ did not suffer so much for one and not so much [or not at all] for another; rather, he suffered all that the law required of all sinners), but his intention in doing so was two-fold or dual (unequal intention). There is a general or universal mercy shown to all as a result of Christ’s work by the will of God, but there is also an efficacious grace given to the elect (according to the special decree/will) when the Holy Spirit applies Christ work to them through the gift and instrumental condition of faith. These men should not be represented as if they said there’s no special particularity that concerns the elect alone in Christ’s intention in dying (which is typically done in the secondary sources that critique them), as the following quote shows:

When Testard attempts to explain the difference between universal and particular mercy, he says that although Christ died for all, he did not die equally for all. In Les véritables Sentiments et raisonnements.… Testard says:

However, Christ did not die equally for all men.…But he died particularly for those he chose and elected, he gives light particularly to them, he is their Redeemer and Savior of a particular intention, so that he wanted absolutely to obtain them and obtained by his death and his illumination not only the power to be saved by the grace explained previously which is made sufficiently to all, but also even their actual salvation.¹

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1. Testard, Les véritables Sentiments et raisonnements....[1649] Chap. VIII, p. 21, par. 1: “Neantmoins Christ n’est pas mort également pour tous hommes….Mais il est mort particulierement pour ceux qu’il a choisis & esleuz, il leur esclaire particulierement, il est leur Redempteur & sauveur d’une intention particuliere, entant qu’il a voulu absolument leur obtenir & a obtenu par sa mort & son illumination non seulement la puissance d’estre sauvez par la grace cy devant expliquée qu’il fait suffisamment a tous, mais aussi leur salut actuel mesmes.” See also Testard, Eirenikon.…[1633] thesis 95, pp. 70–71.

Donald Davis Grohman, The Genevan Reactions to the Saumur Doctrine of Hypothetical Universalism: 1635–1685 (PhD diss., Knox College, Toronto, 1971), 46.

The point of this post is not to endorse every view of Testard (or Amyraut for that matter), but to clarify one of their positions because of the constant misrepresentations given by their ultra orthodox opponents. Disagree with them if you wish, but at least try to represent them fairly. Isn’t this what Calvinists demand of the Arminians on the subject of Calvinism? Then why don’t the stricter Calvinists accurately represent Testard and Amyraut on the issue of the design of Christ’s death?