Donald W. Sinnema (b. 1947) on the Compromise at the Synod of Dordt on Article II

When the Canons were being drafted, the difficulties remained especially with Art. II. In response to the first committee draft, the majority of the synod wanted to restrict the universal statements of Scripture to the elect alone. The British delegation, on the contrary, contended that such universal statements should neither be explained nor restricted to the elect. This would lay a foundation for preaching the gospel to all people, and it would in large part avoid giving offense to Lutherans (Limborch: 1684, 565–566).

In preparing the final draft of the Canons, the final difficulties had to do with rejections two and six of the Rejection of Errors section. The debate on the last rejection six centered on the scholastic issue of the nature of the necessity—absolute or hypothetical—of Christ’s incarnation for the sufficiency of the price of human redemption. On 18 April, as the last changes were being made to the Canons, the British theologians debated the matter at length over against the rest of the synod. They thought rejection six was a matter of scholastic speculation, and so they argued that this rejection should be omitted from the Canons. Most other synod delegates wished to retain this rejection. The president proposed that it be expressed in such a way that everyone would be satisfied. On 23 April, the synod, on the recommendation of the drafting committee, finally decided to delete this last rejection (Balcanqual: 1673, 2:144, 148–150, 153–154; Sinnema: 2011, 304–306; Lynch: 2019, 169–172).¹⁶

The final version of chapter II of the Canons accepted the received distinction between the sufficiency of Christ’s death for all and the efficacy of his death only for the elect. But this chapter is also clothed with universal language and emphases, reflecting the influence of the British and Bremen theologians.
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16. On this issue, see also Gatiss: 2013, 143–163.

Donald Sinnema, “Doctrinal Dissension among Delegates at the Synod of Dordt (1618–1619),” in A Landmark in Turbulent Times: The Meaning and Relevance of the Synod of Dordt (1618–1619), ed. Henk van den Belt, Klaas-Willem de Jong, and Willem van Vlastuin, Refo500 Academic Studies 84, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022), 186–87.

Donald W. Sinnema on Calvin and Lapsarianism

Though scholars have differed on whether Calvin was supralapsarian or infralapsarian,¹⁷ it is incorrect to define his position as such, since this issue did not become formulated in terms of these alternatives until Theodore Beza, the first to present a clear supralapsarian position.¹⁸ While Calvin could speak of God predestinating man before he was created or fallen,¹⁹ in other passages he spoke in a more Augustinian fashion of God electing and reprobating from the condemned mass of perdition.²⁰ Calvin never presented his ideas on predestination in terms of an order of decrees; nor did he seek to identify the “object” of predestination, the two classic ways that the issue was formulated.
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17. Those who consider Calvin supralapsarian include Klaas Dijk, De strijd over infra- en supralapsarisme in de Gereformeerde Kerken van Nederland (Kampen, 1912), p. 25; E.A. Dowey, The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology (Grand Rapids, 1994), p. 213; and J. Fesko, Diversity within the Reformed Tradition: Supra- and Infralapsarianism in Calvin, Dort, and Westminster (Ph.D. diss., University of Aberdeen, 1999), pp. 81–139. Others who consider Calvin infralapsarian include Henri Blocher, ‘Calvin infralapsaire,’ La Revue Réformé 31 (1980), 270–276; and Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 vols., trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. (Phillipsburg, 1992-1997), 1:349–350.
18. Donald Sinnema, ‘Beza’s View of Predestination in Historical Perspective,’ in Théodore de Bèze (1519–1605), ed. Irena Backus (Geneva, 2007), pp. 225–229.
19. Institutes, 2.12.5; 3.23.7; Predestination, pp. 101, 121 (De praedestinatione, pp. 102, 144).
20. Institutes, 3.23.3; Predestination, pp. 89, 101, 121, 125 (De Praedestinatione, pp. 82, 102, 144, 150–152).

Donald W. Sinnema, “Calvin and the Canons of Dort,” in Church History and Religious Culture 91.1–2 (2011): 91–92.