Michael Lynch

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

In my late teens and early twenties, I was part of the early so-called, “young, restless, and Reformed” movement. This meant, among other things, that I had to read some Geerhardus Vos, whom everyone at the time recommended as a must-read. As an undergraduate student at a Bible institute, I was well-prepared to handle Vos’s […]

Contemporary Reformed theologians, ministers, and congregants often misunderstand their early modern ancestors on the issue of baptismal regeneration. Such misunderstanding has come from two different sides of contemporary Reformed theology. On the one hand, there are those who claim that even the Westminster Confession teaches baptismal regeneration. Of course, were this the case—and it is […]

First Witch: Where hast thou been, Sister? Second Witch: Killing Swine Shakespeare, Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 3) One of the pleasures of my day job is reading older texts with young people. In my course on the Old Testament, we quickly bump into questions related to how we ought to interpret the Bible in light […]