Common Grace, 2.12

Last updated on: December 1, 2020 at 8:00 am by Coyle Neal

Common Grace, 2.12 2020-11-27T12:20:19-07:00 Coyle Neal

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This post is part of a series walking through the second volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace.

Woven into our very nature in our creation is our ability to be affected by common grace. This is not a last-minute stop-gap, or a cage for a wild animal. It is rather a strong drink that works with who we are to have a natural effect. That common grace (i.e. the solution to the problem that has been under discussion for the first eleven chapters of this volume) comes from without is no counter-argument to its role any more than the fact that hunger and thirst are satisfied by external means is somehow an argument against the legitimacy of hunger.

At the end of the day, we must either see that predestination governs our creation as being compatible with receiving both common and particular grace, or the Roman Catholic/Anabaptist dualism is right and salvation is therefore “outside an organic relationship with our inner life.” (104-105)

Even our own Reformed documents have at times made these kinds of dualistic mistakes, and a robust doctrine of common grace is now a necessary corrective. Specifically, we have a tendency to see predestination only as the groundwork for ‘election and reprobation,’ thus shading predestination and election into each other. This in turn forces a focus on the whole of grace onto just the elect’s salvation, and ignores both the lost and the whole of the rest of creation. This ultimately glorifies the elect and makes the Scriptural plan and revelation but a means to that goal. Finally, preaching is affected and fosters a radical individualism rather than a unified body of believers.

Yet, God’s truth and creation are an organic whole, and must not be dissolved! This is not to remove the place of the elect or to rebuke our predecessors, who worked with the tools and ideas available to their own times. Though we do need to accuse recent (i.e. the last 200 years) theologians of laziness, and call them to a clarifying creativity for our own time. Common grace slipping through the theological cracks makes this an especially necessary renewal, given its clear necessity to the doctrine of predestination–otherwise Adam and Eve would have died the day they ate the fruit! So too common grace preserves the pre-conversion elect, provides space for the pre-destined church to flourish, prepares the way for the predestined Incarnation, prepares the world for predestined missions, and prepares individuals and families for the coming of particular grace. “Particular grace presupposes common grace”, as evidence Kuyper thinks we should just look at their “Christian educational system”! (109)

The theologians missed this, and so missed the link that ties the whole thing together. We must not get lost in the infra-/supra-lapsarian debate, but must instead see the unity of creation and election, as well as the diversity of creation that will dwell in glory. This coming diversity in glory also unites predestination and creation.

Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO

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