antinomianism

A number of years ago, a young man who had been trained at a Reformed seminary that subscribes to the Westminster Standards was being examined for licensure on the floor of Presbytery. He was asked, "Is the covenant of grace conditional? If so, what is or are the conditions?" Without hesitation,...

T he counterpart to (English) Antinomianism, which I considered last time , is Neonomianism. People today typically use the term “Neonomian” to depict views that they consider to be legalistic or moralistic. Historically, however, it was coined and employed by English Congregationalists at the end...

I n several articles, I have referred to the so-called “ antinomians ” by which I mean the 17th century English theologians who were labelled antinomians. In this article, I will provide a brief explanation of English antinomianism. The term “antinomian” was a term of abuse and rejected by most if...

H ow can God, who is simple (theologically speaking), unchanging and impassible, meaningfully interact with a world that is constantly changing? The Westminster divine Anthony Burgess had to face this issue in his interactions with the so-called antinomians in London during the middle of the 17th...

For part 1 of this series, see here . T here are two errors that need to be avoided regarding the doctrine of the imitation of Christ. One error is theological liberalism or moralism , which teaches that Jesus suffered and died merely to set an example for us to follow. This is a serious error and...

O ne of the great fictional adventure stories of all-time is one of the oldest: The Odyssey by Homer. In this book, the main character, Odysseus, along with his crew, are sailing home. During their long journey, they are forced to sail through a narrow strait between two rock peaks. There were two...

The Presbyterians and the Congregationalists had an extremely difficult time working through their theological differences in the 1690s (see parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ). There are a number of reasons for this, some of which we have already considered, but one was that they approached the issues from...

Our presbytery youth camp director this summer assigned Puritan team names for the campers: Watson, Owen, Bunyan, and Perkins. No surprise at an Orthodox Presbyterian Church camp, until the staff and counselors picked a name for their “team.” We chose “Crisp” after the alleged antinomian Tobias...

A lthough the antinomian-neonomian controversy of the 1690’s (see part 1 ) involved godly ministers who were all part of the same but broad Reformed family—most of them had even formally united together on the basis of Reformed confessions—they did not treat one another very well during their...

E ver since I studied the Antinomian-Neonomian controversy that took place among the English Dissenters in London during the final decade of the seventeenth century, I have wanted to write on the debate itself. Part of the impetus for this was that during my studies the Federal Vision controversy...