If my name was Aesop and this was a fable, the moral of the tale would be, “Never ask a group of 9^th and 10^th graders at CCA what aspect of Reformed Theology they would like to see discussed on ClassicalU.” The quick response from this particular group is going to be the doctrine of election every time, which rolled straight away into “those 5 Calvin points” which are expressed in a 5-letter acronym forming the name of a type of flower. Not a lily, but TULIP.

Very narrow, non-controversial topic. Thanks guys.

Most in the CCA community have heard of or are familiar with TULIP. Many could probably name two or three of the five points expressed by the acronym, perhaps some all five. Probably only a few, though, know where TULIP comes from and how it came about. Originally, this post was going to be a one-part discussion, but has blossomed, or perhaps decomposed, into six parts, this first one being the background of what we know as the Five Points of Calvinism.

The five points, popularly recognized as TULIP, are formally known by their slightly less well known and harder to remember title: The Decision of the Synod of Dort on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands, an exciting and pithy 17^th century title if ever there was one, or The Canons of Dort. So how do we get from the Canons of Dort to the 5 Points of Calvinism?

Skipping a whole lot of history, John Calvin had a student in Geneva named Guido de Bres (pronounced de Bray) who penned the Belgic Confession (1561). In the Netherlands in 1610, followers of a Dutch theologian named Jacobus Arminius, known as Arminians, formally presented their exceptions to the Belgic Confession as The Five Points of Remonstrance, or strong disapproval. While they certainly have wider theological implications, the Five Points of Remonstrance deal primarily with our understanding of our role and God’s role in sin and salvation rather than Reformed theology as a whole. The exceptions taken are 1) that election is conditional upon one’s faith, 2) atonement and redemption is made for all, 3) an affirmation of total depravity, 4) man’s ability to refuse grace, and 5) man’s ability to fall from grace, or lose one’s salvation. (These will be explained in plain English in the future, I promise.)

Moving with the swiftness not yet achieved by even the modern church, eight years later in 1618, the Dutch Reformed Church held a national synod at Dort to consider the exceptions to the Belgic Confession taken by the Arminians. The synod, which simply means assembly or council, like the Nicene Council, refuted the Five Points of Remonstrance with five counterpoints from their confession which is based on Calvin’s theology...hence the Five Points of Calvinism.

Next, the first foundational point in Calvin’s doctrine of salvation, election...