Jacobus Arminius
1559 CE–1609 CE · Modern · Oudewater
Jacobus Arminius (born Jakob Hermanszoon, c. 1559–1609) was a Dutch Reformed pastor and theologian whose critique of strict Calvinist predestination became the seedbed of a major current in Protestant soteriology. Ordained in Amsterdam in 1588, he served as a parish minister for fifteen years before being appointed professor of theology at the University of Leiden in 1603, where he engaged in celebrated public disputations with his colleague Franciscus Gomarus. His central contention — that divine election is conditioned on foreknown faith rather than unconditional divine decree — was systematized by his followers in the 1610 Remonstrance; the Reformed response at the Synod of Dort (1618–19) hardened both sides of the debate into the landmarks of early-modern Protestant theology. Through John Wesley and the Methodist tradition, Arminian soteriology spread into broad swaths of global evangelical Christianity.
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OudewaterNetherlands
What they did here
Born Jakob Hermanszoon in Oudewater, then part of the province of South Holland; his mother and most of his family perished when Spanish forces sacked the town in 1575.
About Oudewater
Oudewater, a town in the province of Utrecht, the Netherlands. It was the birthplace of the theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560), from whom Arminianism takes its name.
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