Jacobus Arminius in the context of "Remonstrance of 1610"

Arminianism is a theological tradition in Protestantism which emerged in the early 17th century and is based on the ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the Remonstrance (1610), a theological statement submitted to the States General of the Netherlands. This expressed an attempt to moderate the doctrines of Calvinism related to its interpretation of predestination.

Classical Arminianism, to which Arminius is the main contributor, and Wesleyan Arminianism, to which John Wesley is the main contributor, are the two main schools of thought. Central to Arminian beliefs is that God's prevenient grace, which prepares regeneration, is universal and that his grace, allowing regeneration and ongoing sanctification, is resistible.

The governmental theory of the atonement (also known as the rectoral theory, or the moral government theory) is a doctrine in Christian theology concerning the meaning and effect of the death of Jesus Christ. It teaches that Christ suffered for humanity so that God could forgive humans without punishing them while still maintaining divine justice. In the modern era, it is more often taught in non-Calvinist Protestant circles, though Arminius, John Wesley, and other Arminians never spoke clearly of it. It is drawn primarily from the works of Hugo Grotius and later theologians such as John Miley and H. Orton Wiley.

The Remonstrants (or the Remonstrant Brotherhood) is a Protestant movement that split from the Dutch Reformed Church in the early 17th century. The early Remonstrants supported Jacobus Arminius, and after his death, continued to maintain his original views, called Arminianism, against the proponents of Calvinism. Condemned by the synod of Dort (1618–1619), the Remonstrants remained a small minority in the Netherlands. In the middle of the 19th century, the Remonstrant Brotherhood was influenced by the liberal Dutch theological movement.

The doctrine of the clarity of Scripture (often called the perspicuity of Scripture) is a Protestant Christian position teaching that "...those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them". Clarity of scripture is an important doctrinal and Biblical interpretive principle for historical Protestants and, today, for many evangelical Christians; it is adhered to by the Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Methodist churches. Perspicuity of scripture does not imply that people will receive it for what it is, as many adherents to the doctrine of perspicuity of scripture accept the Calvinist teaching that man is depraved and needs the illumination of the Holy Spirit in order to see the meaning for what it is. Martin Luther advocated the clearness of scripture in his work On the Bondage of the Will. Arminius argued for the perspicuity of scripture by name in "The Perspicuity of the Scriptures".

Nevertheless, the Lutheran teaching on perspicuity and the Reformed doctrine of perspicuity differ from one another.