The Remonstrants rejected the Augustinian/Reformed view of the consequences of the fall. For the Remonstrants, denied that original sin, of itself, is sufficient to condemn humanity. We might call them semi-Pelagian, insofar as they formally conceded that we fell into sin with Adam but Synod called them Pelagians repeatedly, in part, because they downplayed the effects of the fall. For the Pelagians, we become sinners only when we sin. For the Remonstrants, we become guilty only when we sin.

One of the features of Synod’s reply to the Remonstrants is Synod repeated essential parts of their reply under the different heads of doctrine. So, in the Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine they re-stated the Augustinian and Reformed doctrine of original sin and total inability (or corruption or depravity). The Reformed doctrine of “total depravity,” of course has been caricatured and misrepresented as saying that sinners are as evil as they can be. This is not our understanding of Scripture. We understand that God mercifully restrains wickedness after the flood and he shall do so until our Lord Jesus returns. This is the promise of the rainbow covenant:

I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (Gen 9:13–16; ESV).

When mercy ends, judgment will begin but, for now, we live under the shared mercy of God whereby he causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). The orthodox Reformed theologians spoke of God’s “common grace” in restraining evil. This approach to common grace was in stark contrast to the way the Remonstrants spoke of common grace, whereby they tended to conflate nature and grace and to talk about God’s “antecedant will” in ways that were virtually indistinguishable from the Pelagianizing way the William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel spoke about it in the 14th and 15th centuries. Under those formulations, God is said to have endowed all humans with certain “antecedents,” essentially natural endowments with which, they said, God is prepared to “co-act.” Biel’s formulation became notorious in the Reformation as Martin Luther and the Protestants rejected it as flatly Pelagian and an assault on grace, the gospel, and on Christ’s finished work. Biel said, “To those who do what lies within themselves, God denies not grace.” Arminius taught this view in his 1608 Declaration Of Sentiments, which he delivered orally to the States of Holland and which we have today in print. When we read together the third and fourth heads of the 1610 Arminian Remonstrance we see hints of the same doctrine, especially in the 4th head. The third head is more or less a feint, a dodge, a bit of misdirection.

So, we understand that, in his good providence, God has endowed image bearers with natural gifts for the civil and common good but not as a saving good. Remarkably, those who reject the orthodox Reformed view of common grace end up not far from the Remonstrants whom they oppose so strongly inasmuch as both fail to distinguish between nature (creation) and grace (salvation).

The Remonstrants also rejected the Augustinian/Reformed view of the consequences of the fall. For the Remonstrants, denied that original sin, of itself, is sufficient to condemn humanity. We might call them semi-Pelagian, insofar as they formally conceded that we fell into sin with Adam but Synod called them Pelagians repeatedly, in part, because they downplayed the effects of the fall. For the Pelagians, we become sinners only when we sin. For the Remonstrants, we become guilty only when we sin. Synod explicitly rejected this approach when they confessed: “Synod reject the errors of those who teach, that, properly speaking, it cannot be said that original sin in itself is enough to condemn the whole human race or to warrant temporal and eternal punishments” (RE 3/4.1). ¹

The ground for this critique is Romans 5:12, 16. Sin and death entered the world through Adam’s disobedience. In Adam’s sin all men not only sinned but died. The Arminian way of speaking about sin was that of the medievals. We are ill or wounded (the classic example is the Levite who, according to Luke 10:30, was “half dead.”) Original sin is actual, spiritual death not merely the potential for death.

So, Synod continued in their rejection of the Remonstrant errors:

[Synod rejects the errors of those] who teach that the spiritual gifts or the good dispositions and virtues such as goodness, holiness, and righteousness could not have resided in man’s will when he was first created, and therefore could not have been separated from the will at the fall.
For this conflicts with the apostle’s description of the image of God in Ephesians 4:24, where he portrays the image in terms of righteousness and holiness, which definitely reside in the will (RE 3/4.2).

The Remonstrants not only downplayed the effects of the fall, they rejected the covenant of works and the Heidelberg Catechism when it says that Adam was created in righteousness and true holiness. Synod continued:

[Synod rejects the errors of those] who teach that in spiritual death the spiritual gifts have not been separated from man’s will, since the will in itself has never been corrupted but only hindered by the darkness of the mind and the unruliness of the emotions, and since the will is able to exercise its innate free capacity once these hindrances are removed, which is to say, it is able of itself to will or choose whatever good is set before it—or else not to will or choose it. This is a novel idea and an error and has the effect of elevating the power of free choice, contrary to the words of Jeremiah the prophet: “The heart itself is deceitful above all things and wicked” (Jer. 17:9); and of the words of the apostle: “All of us also lived among them [the sons of disobedience] at one time in the passions of our flesh, following the will of our flesh and thoughts” (Eph. 2:3) (RE 3/4.3).

Here, of course, Synod addressed and directly contradicted the Remonstrant steps toward Pelagianism. And here:

[Synod rejects the errors of those] who teach that unregenerate man is not strictly or totally dead in his sins or deprived of all capacity for spiritual good but is able to hunger and thirst for righteousness or life and to offer the sacrifice of a broken and contrite spirit which is pleasing to God. For these views are opposed to the plain testimonies of Scripture: “You were dead in your transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1, 5); “The imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil all the time” (Gen. 6:5; 8:21). Besides, to hunger and thirst for deliverance from misery and for life, and to offer God the sacrifice of a broken spirit is characteristic only of the regenerate and of those
called blessed (Ps. 51:17; Matt. 5:6) (RE 3/4.4).

Finally, in RE 3/4.5 Synod addressed directly the Remonstrant corruption of the orthodox Reformed doctrine of common grace:

[Synod rejects the errors of those] who teach that corrupt and natural man can make such good use of common grace (by which they mean the light of nature) or of the gifts remaining after the
fall that he is able thereby gradually to obtain a greater grace—evangelical or saving grace—as well as salvation itself; and that in this way God, for his part, shows himself ready to reveal Christ to all people, since he provides to all, to a sufficient extent and in an effective manner, the means necessary for the revealing of Christ, for faith, and for repentance.

For Scripture, not to mention the experience of all ages, testifies that this is false: “He makes known his words to Jacob, his statutes and his laws to Israel; he has done this for no other nation, and they do not know his laws” (Ps. 147:19–20); “In the past God let all nations go their own way” (Acts 14:16); “They [Paul and his companions] were kept by the Holy Spirit from speaking God’s word in Asia”; and “When they had come to Mysia, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit would not allow them to” (Acts 16:6–7).

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