A Word from Bob
For the past several years, I’ve been studying what Reformed theologians teach about common grace. You can find a collation of all of that material here: Common Grace and Biblical Counseling.
As part of this study, I’ve been reading Abraham Kuyper’s biblical teaching on common grace. Here are earlier posts on Kuyper:
- Abraham Kuyper on Common Grace, from Wisdom and Wonder: Common Grace in Science and Art.
- Every Square Inch of Human Existence: Kuyper on God’s All-Encompassing Common Grace: from Common Grace, Volume 1.
Today, we’re applying common grace to biblical counseling from Volume 2 of Kuyper’s Common Grace: God’s Gift for a Fallen World. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes in this post will come from this work.
What’s the Big Idea?
Here’s the big idea from today’s post:
- Common grace does not glorify the unregenerate person, just like saving grace does not glorify the regenerate person. Common grace glorifies God!
Where Sin Abounds, Common Grace Superabounds!
Kuyper maintains a God-centric, God-glorifying focus in his doctrine of common grace. For Kuyper:
- Common grace is God the Sovereign Warrior combatting the curse.
- Common grace is God the Sovereign Shepherd providentially shepherding His creatures and His creation.
“It is God himself who takes up the battle against the curse—that is, against all common misery that is a consequence of the fall. His common grace, in its essence and as it is intended, is nothing other than a combatting of the curse in order to temper and mitigate it. And it is he himself who has devised and ordained the means to accomplish this” (528-529).
“Common grace means that God the Lord, out of pure mercy and apart from salvific grace, had ordained common means against the common misery, or if you will, against the common consequences of sin” (528).
Common grace doesn’t glorify fallen humanity or regenerate humanity. Common grace glorifies God!
“Everything that lives or breathes is placed in service to the self-glorification of the triune God” (xxx).
“Kuyper repeatedly urges us to use all legitimate means and opportunities provided through common grace to combat sin and misery, and thereby to acknowledge God wherever we find his grace in operation” (xxxv, Craig Bartholomew, in the Introduction).
Don’t miss what Bartholemew is saying.
As biblical counselors combat sin and misery—as we address sin and suffering—we use all legitimate means—finding truth and grace wherever God provides it—for the glory of God’s amazing grace.
What Reality Does Common Grace Address? “The Enigma of Life”
Let’s be honest. Sometimes our non-Christian neighbor seems to put us and our fellow Christian neighbors to shame—in their kindness, their generosity, their sacrifice… Kuyper calls this “the enigma of life” (19).
Speaking of the doctrine of total depravity of the non-Christian and the doctrine of salvation/regeneration of the Christian, Kuyper says that we can “formulate succinctly” the “enigma of life” this way,
“The world turns out to be better than expected and the church worse than expected” (10, emphasis in the original).
Kuyper is a biblical realist. He looks at the Bible; he looks at life. Here’s what he finds:
“Two things clearly confront us because of our deeper investigation into the doctrine of common grace. First, we discover the well-known fact that when tested against the doctrine of our depravity through sin,
- the unconverted world is not as bad as expected,
- and when tested against the doctrine of regeneration, the church is worse than expected.
And second, we find that in conformity with holy Scripture, the Reformed confession explains the first phenomenon by the fact that common grace curbs and tempers sin in its effect, while the other is true since the regenerated life remains hindered in its manifestation because of the lasting effects of our sinful nature, until death….
And as long as we clearly keep in view the tempering of sin by common grace, as well as the hindering of renewed life through the aftereffects of sin, we can readily explain how unbelievers both are better than expected and believers worse than expected” (29-30).
Kuyper explains this theologically by describing two phenomena and two principles:
“In this enigma, there are two phenomena at work:
- the restraining of the sinner so that sin does not run rampant in him,
- and the believer being still embodied in the flesh….
There are two principles at work:
- the principle of sin against God,
- and the principle of grace against sin” (22).
Abimelech and Abraham
Kuyper sees these dual phenomena and dual principles everywhere in Scripture, including in the Genesis narrative about the pagan king, Abimelech, and God’s chosen patriarch, Abraham. Abraham cowardly tells his wife to pretend she is his sister. Abimelech, discovering the ruse, is more moral than Abraham! Kuyper succinctly states:
“Abimelech even appears to put Abraham—the friend of God—to shame” (59).
How in the world do we explain this? Common grace explains this. Common grace explains why our non-Christian neighbor appears to put us and our Christian neighbors to shame.
“Thus we have here a direct working of God on the person of Abimelech, whereby a sinful urge was curbed, a compelling sin was restrained, and a premeditated evil was thwarted. It was thus a direct working that affected Abimelech’s senses as well as his soul, took away the sensual urge in his body, and broke the lust in his soul. We had to go into some detail on this because holy Scripture presents us here, in more detail than usual, the working of common grace” (69).
Grace, Greater Than Our Sin
It seems contradictory that pagan Abimelech morally outshines patriarch Abraham. God’s common grace explains this apparent contradiction:
“This contradiction is completely resolved by the confession of common grace. ‘Incapable of any good, and prone to all evil’ expresses how each human being, apart from regeneration, would prove himself to be if common grace did not keep his evil impulse in check. Experience shows us how the power of the Lord largely renders ‘the evil nature’ harmless behind the bars of common grace” (59).
We see God’s infinite power and affectionate sovereignty at work in common grace. “The Lord largely renders the evil nature harmless behind the bars of common grace.” Where sin abounds, God’s common grace superabounds.
Yes, Kuyper understands and teaches the noetic effect of sin—total depravity negatively impacts the unregenerate mind.
Yes, Kuyper understands and teaches the noetic effect of common grace—common grace positively renders the evil nature harmless.
Is this glorifying the unregenerate? No! It is glorifying God. It is God’s common grace.
Is this glorifying the mind of the unregenerate? No! It is glorifying the mind of God.
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33).
Common Grace and the Book of Conscience
In discussions about common grace, theologians often ponder Romans 1 and the “book of nature”—natural or general revelation. Kuyper does indeed discuss that. However, Kuyper (like Calvin, Bavinck, and Van Til) also discusses Romans 2 and “the book of conscience.”
“Fallen man has in his inner man a certain awareness of the good even when he lacks higher grace” (15, emphasis in the original).
“And this common grace manifests itself in the first place in this: they still have something written on their hearts” (15).
“God has not entirely withdrawn from the fallen sinner his original spiritual work in humanity. He has always left some divine handwriting on their hearts” (15, emphasis in the original).
All of this explains why Kuyper (like Calvin, Bavinck, and Van Til) believe Christians can and should biblically examine, evaluate, and potentially avail themselves of common grace findings.
Kuyper continues:
“It follows from Romans 2:13-15 not only that this common grace allowed the continuation, preservation, and functioning of an awareness within the fallen sinner of what is honorable and dishonorable, of justice and injustice, of good and evil; it follows also that this common grace lends the fallen sinner strength to do what is good. Paul says, ‘when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires’” (19, emphasis in the original).
Speaking of the “enigma of life” that the unsaved “so often are better than expected” and that the saved “so often worse than expected,” Kuyper explains that in Romans 2:
“Paul has provided us with the answer to this enigma of life by point us to common grace—the light of nature. This means nothing less than that God (1) left in the fallen sinner a continuing remnant of the divine handwriting of the law; (2) expresses this remnant upon the soul’s awareness so that the fallen sinner bears witness to that remnant of the law; (3) presses for the rendering of judgment in society that uses this remnant as standard; and (4) in many respects effects powers within sinners to accomplish good” (19).
Common Grace and Our Human Nature
In our estimation, we assume that because of total depravity the unregenerate person has zero insightful information. According to Kuyper, biblically this is a faulty worldview that denies the theological doctrine of the inner workings of God’s common grace.
“We state that our human nature is not mutilated but corrupted; this means that the powers and capacities that originally indwelt human nature have not been taken away, but have been partly condemned to inaction and, as concerns their working, have been partly turned into their opposite” (95).
“Meanwhile, these powers that have been turned into their opposite remain subject to God, even in their sinful state. He [God] can keep the working of these powers in check, curb them, temper them, or he can allow them to continue functioning unhindered and unimpeded.
The doctrine of common grace expresses that it has pleased God in general—that is, among humanity as a whole, and in each human being individually—not to allow the unholy working of these powers that have turned into their opposite to continue unhindered, but to temper and restrain them. And it is in this sense that we teach, on the one hand, the total corruption of our nature by sin; this means that in its corruption, our nature, if left to itself, would immediately surrender itself as prey to eternal death. And we teach, on the other hand, that in the actual life of humanity we have our eyes open to the continuing rich development of which humanity proved capable and to so many beautiful things in humanity that come to manifestation.
The dogma of the corruption of sin tells us what becomes of us if God let go of us; the dogma of common grace tells us what can and does still flourish in our human race because God preserves us” (95).
“The history of our human race show clearly how, on the one hand, an evil, displaying a hellish and demonic character, rages in our human race, and how nevertheless within that same human race a human life flourishes that, even outside the realm of particular grace, often strikes us as ennobling” (96).
Kuyper illustrates the noetic effect of common grace using a medical analogy.
“Common grace must be compared with a calming tonic that wards off and stems the overly strong stimuli of the nerves, and thereby prevents a flaring up of the blood erupting in anger and rage” (103-104).
Is the unregenerate person sin-sick? Yes. Is the unregenerate person dead in sin? Yes. Where sin abounds, does God’s common grace superabound? According to Romans 2, and to Kuyper, yes! Where sin abounds, common grace superabounds!
The Extent of Common Grace: Every Square Inch
Kuyper’s theology of common grace is extensive—as far as the human race extends.
“Common grace and all its treasures extend as far as the human race extends. And in order to make us understand this better, and to preclude any misunderstanding on this point, we must emphasize the fact that it is by no means a rare occurrence when, in the case of cultural developments, God opens the eyes, not of one of his servants, but of unbelievers who reject him.
In their own generation the children of the world often are richer in inventiveness than the children of light. Indeed, it is not at all unusual for the children of the world to be the first to use various inventions and discoveries to their own superior advantage, and for the disciples of the Lord to bring up the rear only much later to enjoy these same benefits…. The people of God almost never take the lead in such things” (587).
Common Grace and Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls
In the context of discussing the extent of common grace, Kuyper highlights the biblical truth that common grace addresses the spiritual and the physical—because for God there is no dichotomy between them. There is no sacred/secular divide in God’s economy—because all is sacred.
“Jesus did not walk through life avoiding and evading, but he seized life and engaged in wrestling with it. This is shown in his miracles when he heals the sick, releases the demon possessed, commands the winds, subjects the sea to his will, takes regal control over the nourishing properties of bread, and intervenes in existing conditions and transforms them according to his pleasure in so many other ways” (176).
“We find our Savior continually engaged with the things of this earthly life when he heals the sick, feeds the multitude, or points his listeners to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air in order to exhort people toward a quiet acceptance of their external lot in life” (407).
“At the same time, even the apostolic literature is filled with all kinds of admonitions and consolidations aimed not merely at the spiritual life but at the ordinary earthly life” (407).
Jesus and Paul model the biblical truth that we are soul physicians of embodied-souls. Biblical counselors comprehensively address the whole person—the embodied-soul. Embodied-soul interventions are “just as spiritual, in face, more spiritual, than interventions that unbiblically try to dichotomize between the sacredness of the body and the soul.
