The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Calvin and Limited Atonement

!. The accusation that Calvin's view of the atonement is contrary to all the Reformed Confessions and Catechisms is flatly false!!

2. This subject has been discussed in detail here over the years and I personally have shown that Calvin held to a universal atonement is false.

3. I have also recommended, among several other things, that one read Calvin and the Calvinists by Paul Helm (Banner of Truth, 1982). Helm takes R.T. Kendall to task on his claim in his book Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, published in 1981, that later Calvinism was in fact a departure from the theology of the Reformer. In Helm's book he shows that there is an unbroken continuity between Calvin's view of the atonement and other doctrines are the same as the later Reformers and Puritans.

4. One need only to read some of Calvin's sermons and treatises where he wrote on the extent of the atonement to see that he believed in a Limited/Definite Atonement which was iterated at the Synod of Dordt (1618-19).