[Syntagma Theologiae Christianae (Hanau, 1609; 1615)]

Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (16 December 1561, Opava, Silesia – 17 July 1610, Basel, Switzerland) was a faithful servant of Christ, and a principal light among the early Reformed orthodox. Born in Silesia, he pursued the knowledge of God in diverse schools—Opava, Wrocław, Tübingen, Basel, and Geneva—furnishing his mind with the treasures both of Scripture and humane learning. His early labours were spent as tutor to the noble house of Zierotin in Heidelberg and Basel, and as a teacher at the school of the Bohemian Brethren in Ivančice, ever intent to build up the household of faith. In the year of our Lord 1596, he was called to Basel as Professor of the Old Testament, and was joined in marriage to the daughter of Johann Jakob Grynaeus, thereby uniting two noble lines of Reformed learning. Twice made Dean of the Theological Faculty, and twice advanced to the rectorship of the University, he discharged his office with gravity and diligence. Polanus is chiefly renowned for his Partitiones Theologicae and the magisterial Syntagma Theologiae Christianae, wherein he did methodize the doctrine of faith with precision, after the manner of Ramus, yet always according to the analogy of faith. In his writings he abhorred vain speculation, seeking rather to establish the truth and guard the flock from error. His labours were characterized by lucidity, order, and a zealous defense of Reformed doctrine, though without bitterness or curiosity. In 1603 he produced the first Calvinistic German translation of the Scriptures, thus advancing the kingdom of Christ in the common tongue. A consolidator rather than an innovator, Polanus did not aspire to novelty, but to the faithful conservation of the truth, balancing the doctrines of God’s sovereignty with those of Christ, the covenant, and Christian practice. So did he serve the church of God in his generation, and, having fought the good fight, entered into rest.

Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (16 December 1561, Opava, Silesia – 17 July 1610, Basel, Switzerland) was a faithful servant of Christ, and a principal light among the early Reformed orthodox. Born in Silesia, he pursued the knowledge of God in diverse schools—Opava, Wrocław, Tübingen, Basel, and Geneva—furnishing his mind with the treasures both of Scripture and humane learning. His early labours were spent as tutor to the noble house of Zierotin in Heidelberg and Basel, and as a teacher at the school of the Bohemian Brethren in Ivančice, ever intent to build up the household of faith. In the year of our Lord 1596, he was called to Basel as Professor of the Old Testament, and was joined in marriage to the daughter of Johann Jakob Grynaeus, thereby uniting two noble lines of Reformed learning. Twice made Dean of the Theological Faculty, and twice advanced to the rectorship of the University, he discharged his office with gravity and diligence. Polanus is chiefly renowned for his Partitiones Theologicae and the magisterial Syntagma Theologiae Christianae, wherein he did methodize the doctrine of faith with precision, after the manner of Ramus, yet always according to the analogy of faith. In his writings he abhorred vain speculation, seeking rather to establish the truth and guard the flock from error. His labours were characterized by lucidity, order, and a zealous defense of Reformed doctrine, though without bitterness or curiosity. In 1603 he produced the first Calvinistic German translation of the Scriptures, thus advancing the kingdom of Christ in the common tongue. A consolidator rather than an innovator, Polanus did not aspire to novelty, but to the faithful conservation of the truth, balancing the doctrines of God’s sovereignty with those of Christ, the covenant, and Christian practice. So did he serve the church of God in his generation, and, having fought the good fight, entered into rest.

Table of Contents:

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Chapter XIX: On the Will of God in General

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I. The Significations of the Word “Will”

The word “will” commonly signifieth three things:

  1. The faculty of willing.
  2. The act of the faculty of willing, which sometimes men call volition, an intellectual appetite, or sometimes election or choice.
  3. The object, that is, the thing we will.

According to the first signification, the will is called by the Greeks thelesis; according to the second, boulesis, also natural and rational appetite, and prothesis; according to the third, thelema, thelematos.

Now, as we are to treat of the will of God, it behoveth us first to inquire whether there be a will in God.

II. Whether There Be a Will in God

It is first inquired, “Whether there be a will in God?” And it seemeth that it ought to be denied:

  1. For that the will is a faculty of rational nature diverse from its essence: but in God, nothing is diverse from His essence.
  2. For that if the will, according to those three significations, were in God, He should be composite.

Response: These reasons conclude naught. For, firstly, only the created will in angels and men is a faculty diverse from the essence of their minds, according to common opinion: yet there be also most excellent philosophers who deny that the will is an accidental faculty. But in God, His will is in very deed the same as His essence. Secondly, the distinctions of God’s will are delivered for the cause of instructing our infirmity, not with respect to God Himself, in whom those things that be diverse in us are in reality one and the same, and differ only in reason.

That there be a will in God is testified by Scripture, Psalm 115:3, Romans 9:19, and demonstrated by reason: for every intelligent nature hath a will; but God is an intelligent nature; therefore, He hath a will.