16th–18th centuries

Socinus against substitutionary atonement and Grotius's "governmental theory"

Socinus, according to Berkhof, removed the foundation of the Reformers' teaching – the idea of God's justice demanding the punishment of sin: grace and Christ's merits are incompatible, guilt is personal, substitution is impossible, and forgiveness is an act of pure mercy upon repentance; Christ saves by opening the way of faith and obedience and giving an example. Hugo Grotius proposed a "middle course": the law concerning the sinner is positive and can be relaxed; Christ's sufferings are a nominal equivalent that God agrees to accept, and their reason is the moral government of the universe, since without expressing the inviolability of the law it is unsafe to forgive. According to González, Christ in Grotius suffered not to pay for sins nor to give an example, but to show that God, though ready to forgive, regards the breaking of the law as a serious guilt. The Arminians Curcellaeus and Limborch likewise steered between Socinianism and church teaching, and in the United States the "governmental theory" became predominant.