Arminius, a Dutch teacher at the University of Leiden, repudiated the Calvinistic dogma of God’s predestination of each individual to either endless bliss in heaven or eternal suffering in hell. Arminius said there is no freedom where there is no power to choose. Such a God would be evil—an absolute tyrant, the opposite of love.

Conrad Wright notes, however, that "his influence on the 18th century was remote," and they did not get their rejection of Calvinism from reading him.