ANTINOMIANISM

Antinomianism may be defined as the theological position that the Old Testament law is

not binding on Christians. The Antinomian approach is so fundamental to Protestant

theology, defining it and representing its edgy boundaries, that understanding it is critical

to good theology. It has constantly been used as a term of abuse, sometimes without great

precision. It was anticipated to some extent in the theology of the medieval Family of

Love. Within MARTIN LUTHER’S solafideist theology there was a certain antinomian

potential. Luther did not merely assert that the Christian is forgiven, he asserted the

doctrine of JUSTIFICATION by FAITH alone so that the sinner stood before God

without claiming any works. Luther held the position of being a sinner (see SIN) and

justified in a dialectical relationship. On occasion he argued that the law was not

necessary for true Christians, but was necessary since even the justified remained sinners.

Later in his life in the face of controversy he placed a greater emphasis on the role of the

moral law.

Other REFORMATION theologians found his position uncomfortable. The issue

exploded in a debate between Luther and Johannes Agricola at Wittenberg in 1537. The

so-called antinomian controversy between the two grew out of Agricola’s emphasis on

the importance of denying the power of works-righteousness. Agricola retracted his

views, but others maintained the position, among them NIKOLAUS VON AMSDORF.

Luther accused many of the Anabaptists of antinomianism (see ANABAPTISM). The

evidence of this was supposedly seen in the doctrines of the Anabaptist radicals at

Muenster, although in fact eschatological interpretations of the BIBLE were critical in

this case. JOHN CALVIN was careful to avoid any hint of antinomian views; he

emphasized the need to maintain the moral aspect of the law because only the ceremonial

law was abrogated by Christ’s coming. He insisted that faith was confirmed by outward
signs of conformity to the moral law.

Antinomianism remained during the next two centuries a tension within Protestant

thought, and in the seventeenth century there was a revival of antinomian sentiment. It

particularly flourished among the fringes of extremist Puritan and dissenting opinion (see

DIS-SENT). ANNE HUTCHINSON, who arrived in Boston in 1634, privately taught

that Puritan teaching was enforcing a covenant of works. A controversy erupted in the

Massachusetts Bay settlement, and in 1638 she was exiled to Rhode Island, although her

claim to direct revelation from God was a significant factor in her rejection.

The encyclopedia of protestantism 128

In ENGLAND, too, antinomian views circulated among the sectarian groups that

flourished with the introduction of religious liberty from 1647, occasioning a sharp

denunciation by the formalist Calvinist theology of the WESTMINSTER CONFESSION.

The Antinomians have been widely seen as a symbol of the radical edge of Protestantism,

although recent scholarship has tended to challenge this emphasis. John Eaton was the

founding father with his tract The Honeycomb of Free Justification by Christ Alone

(1642); another favorite author was Tobias Crisp, and others included Walter Marshall,

Samuel Richardson, and John Saltmarsh. All in various ways encouraged an intense

spirituality that rose above “mere legality.” Often interpreted in a Calvinist framework,

they need to be seen as actually espousing a Lutheran theology, although they added to it

a belief in eternal justification, a special kind of PREDESTINATION. For this and for

alleged libertinism they were attacked by Calvinist Puritans like Samuel Rutherford and

RICHARD BAXTER, who had moved to a more voluntarist understanding of faith. The

ferocious debate was a reflection of how much Puritans wanted respectability.

Antinomian views survived in Particular Baptist groups in the eighteenth century. The

sudden growth of the Moravian movement spread a Lutheran view of solafideism in

England and America, and for some its implicit antinomianism became explicit in a

libertine lifestyle (see MORAVIAN CHURCH). Some early Methodists rose up against

the legalism of the law, but more typically Calvinist and Moravian Methodists were

somewhat harshly tarred with the brush of antinomianism for their emphasis that the

basis of assurance of salvation was an inner sense, not any outward evidence in life. Thus

James Hervey’s Thereon and Aspasio, a popular evangelical classic, was attacked as

being antinomian. Such views were ferociously and insensitively attacked by JOHN

WESLEY’S associate, John Fletcher in his Checks to Antinomianism. A number of small

but popular groups advocated the doctrine, including those associated with William

Cudworth, James Relly, and William Huntingdon. Antinomian opinion fed into the

origins of groups like the Universalists through James Relly, and the PLYMOUTH

BRETHREN in their interpretation of Pauline theology.

Some scholars have suggested that antinomianism became a commonplace of popular

religiosity, traced through a radical, albeit a shadowy, history of the Muggletonians,

through to the antinomianism of WILLIAM BLAKE’S poetry, although even here the

antinomianism is conditioned by other exotic beliefs.

It should be emphasized that denial of the authority of the Old Testament law did not

necessarily mean libertine lifestyles, despite the allegations of Burns’s “Holy Willy’s

Prayer.” The accusation of antinomianism seemed to carry with it an implication that

blackened the reputation of a number of sectarian groups, often unjustifiably; they saw

themselves as bound in Christ under a new ethical basis.

References and Further Reading

Cooper, Timothy. “The Antinomians Redeemed: Removing some of the ‘Radical’ from mid-

Seventeenth-Century Religion.” Journal of Religious History 24 no. 3 (2000):247–262.

Gunter, W.Stephen. The Limits of “Love Divine”: John Wesley’s Response to Antinomianism and
Enthusiasm. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989.

Hall, David D. The Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638: A Documentary History. Middletown,

CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1968.

Volume 1 Entries A-C 129

Hill, Christopher. “Antinomianism in English History.” In The Collected Essays of Christopher

Hill vol. 2. Brighton, UK: Harvester Press, 1986.

Huehns, Gertrude. The Antinomians in English History with Special Reference to the Period 1640–

1660. London: Cresset Press, 1951.

Rohr, John von. The Covenant of Grace in Puritan Thought. Decatur, GA: Scholars Press, 1986.

Stoever, William K.B. “A Faire and Easie Way to Heaven”: Covenant Theology and

Antinomianism in Early Massachusetts. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1978.

Wallace, Dewey D. Puritans and Predestination: Grace in English Protestant Theology 1525–

1695. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.

PETER LINEHAM