400 Years of Dort: Eight Things You Should Know About the Synod of Dort

1. The full name of the document produced at the Synod (popularly known as the Canons of
Dort) is: The Decision of the Synod of Dort on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in
Dispute in the Netherlands. The Synod was composed of around 100 delegates, 14 of
whom were Remonstrants.
2. The Canons of Dort is one of the Three Forms of Unity (the other two being the Belgic
Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism) which serve as the doctrinal standards for
many reformed denominations including the Christian Reformed Church, the United
Reformed Church, and the Heritage Reformed Church.
3. The Synod was convened on November 13th, 1618 in order to settle a controversy
between the Remonstrants (followers of Jacobus Arminius) and the Dutch Calvinists. In
1610, forty-six of Arminius’s followers had drafted a document entitled “The Five
Articles of Remonstrance” in which they put forward five points where they disagreed
with the Dutch Reformed Church. Those five points are: 1) election based on foreseen
faith, 2) universal atonement, 3) the free will of man/partial depravity, 4) the resistibility
of grace, 5) the possibility of losing salvation. The Synod of Dort affirmed five points in
response: 1) election is unconditional, 3) the atonement is efficacious only for the elect,
3) since the Fall, every part of man’s being is corrupted by sin, including his will, 4) man
cannot resist the grace of God and thereby frustrate His sovereign will, 5) the elect are
eternally secure and will not fall away from their salvation.
4. The Canons of Dort is divided into five main heads of doctrine (three and four are
combined into one section), each of which is further subdivided into articles and
rejections. In the articles they set forth positively what they believe to be taught by
Scripture and in the rejections they repudiate the errors of the Remonstrants and show
where they contradict the Scripture. There are fifty-nine articles and thirty-four rejections
in the Canons.
5. Contrary to the popular misconception about Calvinism, namely, that it undermines the
motive for evangelism, the Canons of Dort robustly affirm that, “This promise [of the
gospel], together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and
published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to
whom God out of His good pleasure sends the gospel.”1
6. The Canon’s of Dort exalt God’s sovereign grace in salvation. They reject any notion
where man’s will is ultimate and determinative of his salvation or in any way must
cooperate with grace to effect his own salvation. On the contrary, they place salvation
entirely in the hands of God as the almighty and gracious savior.
7. The Synod of Dort mentioned the 4th century heretic Pelagius (or Pelagianism) eight
times in their document. They believed that the doctrines of the Remonstrants drew from
the same well as Pelagius and was dangerous because it undermined the very foundation
of our salvation. In doing this, the Synod stood squarely on the shoulders of the Council
of Orange (529) and the Council of Carthage (418) which condemned the teachings of
Pelagius and his followers.

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II.5
 8. The majority of the Dutch Reformed ministers accepted the Canons of Dort, however
around 200 of them sided with the Remonstrants and were deposed in years following the
Synod.

The Synod of Dort was a major point in the post-Reformation era. Calvinistic theology was
refined, defined, and put into confessional form over against Arminianism. It was another
hammer blow breaking up the Pelagian captivity of the church. The heart of the reformation
centered on the sufficiency of grace – was God’s grace sufficient to bring His elect to salvation?
Or was it dependent on the autonomous operation of human will? Luther and Erasmus debated
this in their works on the freedom and bondage of the will – Luther arguing that the will was in
bondage to sin and Erasmus the opposite. The Synod of Dort continued this debate and sides
strongly with Luther. This debate has continued to our day, but sadly many do not know how it
was dealt with in the past – it is not a new issue. Christians have wrestled with it and argued for
the sufficiency of God’s grace throughout every generation. We should look to them as we still
fight for the freedom and sufficiency of God’s grace over against the supposed autonomy of
man’s will.