Common Grace (Volume 3): God's Gifts for a Fallen World

By Abraham Kuyper

God's Gifts for a Fallen World

Common Grace is often considered Abraham Kuyper's crowning work, an exploration of how God expresses grace even to the unsaved. Kuyper firmly believed that though many people in the world will remain unconverted, God's grace is still shown to the world as a whole.

In this third and final volume of Common Grace, Kuyper brings his argument to its logical completion by turning to practical implications. With detailed explorations on matters of church and state, family, upbringing, and society, Kuyper provides practical guidance for all who desire to flourish within the created order, a world in which God's grace is generously given to all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Release date: Aug 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781577996965

Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper (1937-1920) was a prominent Dutch Calvinist theologian, politician, educator, and writer. His thinking has influenced the Neo-Calvinist movement in the United States and Canada. Many of his writings, including Pro Rege, have never been translated into English.

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CHAPTER ONE

TOO LONG FORGOTTEN

His majesty is above earth.

PSALM 148:13

The first and second volumes of our expositions concerning common grace have been brought to a close. In the first volume the origin and existence of common grace were explained historically, and in the second this marvelous aspect of God’s mercies was expounded doctrinally and connected with particular grace. We do not exaggerate when we state with gratitude that by means of these two volumes, a surprising light already has dawned for many people upon the truth and, under the discipline of that truth, upon life. We have received many appreciative comments about our treatment of common grace, indicating that, in the main, our expositions have hit their target. Yet we are not in denial of the fact that we have not yet convinced all those brethren whose assent we would value. In a very recent controversy about training for the ministry of the Word, our writings on common grace were attacked in a none-too-gentle manner to cast reproach on the Free University. This institution, it was claimed, became more and more a school of common grace, and saving grace was supposedly made subordinate to common grace and hence invalidated. It was even argued that we had moved increasingly in the direction of the Groningen theologians, who dissolved orthodox Christian confession into a nurturing of humanity by God.¹ We will not mention the author by name, nor the publication in which this appeared. It is sufficiently sad for us to discover that there are still brethren, even in the bosom of our orthodox Reformed churches,² who, after all that we presented, remain closed in their thinking to this beautiful aspect of God’s mercies to such an extent that they even resort to bitter denunciations in order, if possible, to arrest the acceptance of this doctrine in Christian churches.

Yet we will guard against the tendency to ascribe this bitter resistance to ignoble motives. We personally know the person all too well who wrote so bitterly to do so. He and those standing with him are driven and gripped only by the fear that the line of demarcation between the sacred and the profane should fade. Meanwhile, these brethren themselves will have to admit that no organ of the press has championed the drawing of this boundary as decisively and sharply as possible as De Heraut has done from its inception.³ This boundary is threatened by only two things. It is threatened, first, by not positing regeneration as absolute and, second, by the doctrine that Christ has brought about personal and efficacious atonement for all the children of man. These are the two wedges that, since the days of our forefathers, people have been trying to drive into the wall of Zion’s temple, so to speak, and it is through these two notions that the sacred and the profane gradually have come to be intermixed. Both inside and outside our circles, it is sufficiently and abundantly known how, from its inception, De Heraut prominently stood specifically against these two misrepresentations of the gospel. Our first series, which focused on grace being particular in nature, served to strike a fatal blow to so-called universalism. And our fierce struggle for the possibility that regeneration potentially could already occur in the cradle had no other purpose than to cause regeneration to be honored as an absolute work of God, under which man stands absolutely passive, and to which the sinner not only contributes nothing but that, if possible, he very definitely would resist. In the case of the adult, this is not quite as striking because the adult already has a measure of knowledge; however, precisely in the cradle, the absolute character of this act of God is beyond all doubt.⁴

The aim and intention of the individual who made this charge and, in his written comments, put us on a par with the Groningen theologians can therefore be explained on the basis of misunderstanding. It shows that perhaps a few of our expositions, which we have published since 1878 and over the last twenty years, were read only superficially and perhaps not even read through to the end; however, such readers surely have not followed us in our writings. We dare to venture that a verdict has been rendered on our expositions concerning common grace without adequate knowledge of those expositions. But we do not blame in the least this individual who has criticized us. Nor do we claim that our writings will be read by everyone. We do think, however, that we are permitted to ask the question as to whether it is good, or reasonable, or responsible to pronounce such a contrary verdict, which is not based on a knowledge of the facts, and this in a publication that finds its way around circles where De Heraut is virtually unknown. Since 1892 in particular, we have had believers from other circles confess to us that in the past they had been systematically warned against De Heraut and consequently had harbored the most painful suspicions against our alleged undermining of the truth. Yet, once they personally came into contact with De Heraut, they confessed to what extent they had been misled by ministers and had condemned what they in fact did not know. But after they had come to understand it, our teaching appeared to be entirely in agreement with God’s Word, speaking to their heart and broadening their vision in extraordinary ways. One of these individuals even wrote to us to tell us that he was still busily removing the weeds that had sprouted from the evil seed of misjudgment that he himself formerly had sown so lavishly.

We believed it necessary to place this fact in the foreground at the beginning of this third, and final, series because the healthy character of our Reformed confession depends indeed on whether we deny or honor the doctrine of common grace. As evidence of this reality, the history of our Reformed churches has actually been disappointing in many respects. In Poland, in Italy, and in France our churches have succumbed all too quickly to the dominance of the hostility being directed against them. In the southern Netherlands they were practically eradicated as soon as they were separated from the northern provinces. And in Germany the Lutheran influence soon became dominant, and what was still called Reformed to a large extent has been mixed with Lutheran elements.

In the main, therefore, we can say that the Reformed churches held up only in our country, in part in Switzerland, and in the British Isles, specifically in Scotland. In North America nothing existed at the time but insignificant colonial settlements. Consequently, the influence of the Reformed churches has been far too limited for their development, and specifically their theological academic development was unable to expand to the degree that was initially intended. But this resistance would have been less serious if the Reformed churches in these countries could have developed freely and independently. But there lies the impediment. In Switzerland, Zwinglianism formally gained the upper hand, so that the government became the ruler in Christ’s church and its natural development was arrested. Geneva, of all places, fell into the hands of the Libertines. In the British Isles the struggle with the state church, by reason of its exaggerated ritualism, required all of its energies, with the result being that the Reformed faith either became extinct or developed along a one-sided spiritualistic path. Scotland, especially in the Highlands, remained faithful to the confession of the fathers the longest, but more in a conservative than in a progressive sense. People became set in traditional patterns of thought and closed themselves off from wider development. In our own country the sad course of events is sufficiently known to anyone who is acquainted with our church history. First, all energy was spent on the struggle with Arminianism. Then, all kinds of non-Reformed elements crept in among us through the rise of the national church. Here, too, the iron fist of the government prevented free development. And the dilution of theological orthodoxy across the spectrum by different schools of thought cut off the possibility of healthy development, and all too often one school wasted its strength in polemics with the other.

This is a chief reason why life in our Reformed churches became increasingly divorced from their theological roots. The two should have been one, and behold, each chose a different course. The living church ceased to embrace and sharpen its theological foundations, while theology became ever more impotent in terms of guiding the life of the church. Both streams ran side by side. The consequence was that, in the end, the theological stream dried up entirely, first as a result of supranaturalism⁵ and then due to rationalism, while the stream of church life split itself into a broad arm of semisecular piety and a small branch of genuine spiritual life. In the end, Reformed theology had become an unknown entity in all our schools, and in the bosom of the national church the great mass of people went along with the spirit of the age. Only the small stream that remained as the bearer of genuinely Reformed life was able to withstand the spirit of the age and continued to flourish out of love for Christ.

This curious position brought a danger for this small remnant, one that must not be underestimated. Still hidden in the wider, largely unbelieving national church, this remnant was entirely without ecclesiastical organization and ecclesiastical leadership as demanded by Reformed principles. Fellowship took the place of the church, and the lay preacher took the place of the minister of the Word. In the great social upheaval that characterized the end of the eighteenth century, people floated down the stream without a theological compass. Older, more practical literature was the nourishment of most people, especially literature translated from English, and the difference in perspective that gradually emerged among believers as a result of the lack of leadership remained long unnoticed only because people had almost no contact with one another and lived scattered throughout the country. Who in Zeeland knew what went on in Friesland, and who in Holland knew the spiritual movement of life on the Veluwe? Thus, it was understandable that, gradually and imperceptibly, all unity was lost, so that in the various provinces people’s temperament, aptitude, and character began to exercise a diverging influence on the development of basic beliefs. The result was that, in the various regions of our country, certain types settled whose belief system was unsound and whose connection to the whole was lacking. Evidence of this can still be found almost everywhere; after all, sooner or later some forceful personality would arise in various circles who would put his stamp on his surroundings without any academic training.

This continued until, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, both the pietist literature from Germany and the methodistic writings of the Réveil found acceptance, and the appearance of men like Bilderdijk, da Costa, and Groen van Prinsterer had a unifying influence on life.⁶ The natural consequence was that either the one or the other kind of literature appealed more to the groups that had been formed in the meantime. It did not take long, therefore, until these trends became more clearly delineated. Some were more mystical, on the one hand, while others tended to be more methodistic. Between these two a third movement arose with ever-clearer self-awareness, nourishing itself with our old Reformed stalwarts and urging the restoration of church life, albeit initially with much too great an emphasis on a return to a pristine past.

The seriousness of the division this caused among believers cannot be overstated, simply because initially there was no theological guidance. Thus, no attempt materialized such that theological differences could be overcome by penetrating more deeply into the truth or by returning to the fundamentals of our forefathers. Neither Bilderdijk, nor da Costa, nor Groen van Prinsterer were theologians in the strictest sense, and although each labored and strove in the name of the Lord, this occurred without achieving the higher unity that could be provided only by confessing the theological fundamentals. Bilderdijk lived more in the Middle Ages than in the glory of the Reformation, da Costa injected the chiliastic element into the battle, Groen van Prinsterer recoiled from the Canons of Dort, and across the land each lay preacher followed his own path without there being any hope of a theological remedy.

The same happened in the realm of the church. Here, too, there were three parallel streams. On the one hand were the men of the Réveil, who had given up all hope for the life of the church. Then there were those who clung to a reformation of the national church. And between those two were others who, in differing degrees, despaired of healing the national church and were intent on restoring the church through their own initiative. But however much these three diverged, they all had one thing in common: theological guidance was almost entirely absent. Given their very deficient knowledge of our forefathers, they could proceed and find support only in the life of the congregation as, by the grace of God, it still persisted, albeit in a very weakened condition.

This explains why believers throughout the nineteenth century have stood dualistically over against the world and have developed a much too one-sided spirituality. No thought was given to recapturing the higher spheres of academia, of societal life, and of political involvement. In their timidity they did not dare to aim higher than salvaging the spiritual life for their own group. Therefore, they isolated themselves within their own circle. What lay outside that circle was left to its own devices. The governing emphasis was especially on practical activity. And once tranquility and legal recognition finally arrived after the violent acts of 1834 and subsequent years,⁷ they were not clear on what else could be accomplished. At any rate, any sort of national influence in the wider sense was lost, and the highest goal seemed to have been achieved when in one’s own limited circle there was freedom to serve God in one’s own home and in one’s own church, according to the dictates of one’s own heart. In the end, several theological schools were established, but only with the practical aim of providing teachers for the newly emerging churches. There was not the vaguest notion or the faintest concept of a call to allow sacred theology to take the lead in setting the tone in terms of foundational scholarship or the entire life of the people.

It was only the battle for equal state funding for education based on religious principles, engaged in and led in such a masterful way by Groen van Prinsterer, that brought about a change in this situation. Undeniably, Christian schools for many years were viewed by many people as exclusively a source of religious indoctrination, as a means to let the little ones come to Jesus. Nevertheless, Christian schools helped raise a social and civic element that made itself felt ever more strongly in terms of pedagogy. In this way, and without noticing it, people were moving spontaneously beyond their closed circles and taking steps outside the life of the church. And when issues of funding also drew attention to questions of health, nursing care, psychiatry, and a variety of social issues that touched Christian circles as well, interest and involvement in a wider sphere of social concern outside the church blossomed automatically, which made the former tendency toward ecclesial isolation increasingly untenable.

This caused a turnabout that necessarily had to lead—and in fact did lead—to making us understand, based on the fruits of scholarship and a return to first principles, that we could not progress forward by adopting the dominant assumptions governing the non-Christian world. Such assumptions simply did not square with our confession of faith; it would have been like attempting to join iron and clay.⁸ Thus, we came to stand at a fork in the road. Either we had to go back to the accepted church-centered way of thinking and relinquish all involvement with matters of culture such as science and art, land and nation, or we were forced to construct once again our own foundation that was in harmony with our Reformed confession. Up to this point, no one had objected to making do with our universities based on their commitment to nonbelief, as long as our children remained faithful to the church. But now people realized that this dualism needed to be eliminated and that we needed to cultivate our own scholarship, based on our own theological convictions, at our own university.

But then the real difficulties began. The scholarly works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no longer sufficient, for we were no longer faced with the Arminianism of old but with a worldview that was constructed altogether differently, a view of the world that sought its strength in Modernism, ethical pluralism, pantheism, and evolution. At the same time, we could not make a tabula rasa in order to build anew from scratch. We were a historical denomination. We did not want to be anything other than Reformed. And thus the urge and desire sprang forth to return to the original sources of Reformed life in its golden age, to ask how the lines of demarcation had been drawn back then, according to which a solution could be found for the battle in our day as well. Once that direction had been found, we could courageously and through serious study establish the stakes that would demarcate the way for our future development.

In order to achieve this goal, it was necessary that the traditional Christian doctrine of common grace, stripped of the dust that had accumulated through the centuries, be seriously and accurately placed before us in a clear light. For those who are inclined to isolate themselves within their narrow ecclesial circles, the study of particular grace is enough. But those whose faith calls them to participate in the realms of science, civic matters, and education, for example, must orient themselves in terms of life outside the institution of the church. And it is precisely this wider sphere of cultural engagement that remains beyond the horizon of our faith unless we are serious about this wondrous doctrine of common grace that explains to us God’s rule over life outside the church. This realization led us to set ourselves to the task of clarifying the doctrine of common grace with a measure of completeness, and we hope to explore this realm in its practical applications in this final series. Now, if there are fellow believers who think that they know a better way, let them be served notice: they cannot get away with firing an incidental volley here or there in our direction. Rather, the very serious moral obligation rests on them to show from their perspective a better way and to plead their case as thoroughly as we have done before the court of Scripture and truly Reformed principles. Then they, too, must set forth a theological framework that connects life within and life beyond the institutional church. Moreover, they must do this in such a way that their theory is manifestly deduced from Reformed principles and fits within the totality of our Reformed confession.

CHAPTER TWO

PRESERVED IN THE WORLD

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

PSALM 8:1

§1 The starting point of the Reformed confession lies in the sovereignty of God and not in the salvation of man or the deliverance of the sinner. It is true that every confession presupposes someone who confesses, and that in the self-consciousness of the confessor lies the starting point of one’s calling out for and to Jesus. But the point on which the Reformed confessor differs from all other confessors is that he does not stop there but asks himself, How do I come to the place of confessing? At that point, he cannot answer in any other way but that God, in his majesty, irresistibly urges him. He recognizes himself in what is written by Jeremiah, when the prophet wanted to get rid of God but the stirring of the Spirit of God was as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones until he simply had to call out, LORD … you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed [Jer 20:7, 9]. For the Reformed believer, therefore, God’s sovereignty is not merely a philosophical postulate that says there must be order in the universe, and therefore all that exists must be subject to the sovereign God who rules all. Not in the least. Our Reformed confession arises just as much from the life of our soul as Luther’s justification by faith. But whereas in Luther the saving side of God’s working stands in the foreground and therefore is limited to one’s own soul, Reformed theology compares salvation to wrestling with God, as was the case with Jacob, a struggle that involved the prize of heaven and earth. In the Reformed teaching, it is fallen man who has placed himself over against the living God as master of creation and master over himself. Fallen humanity is an echo of the satanic You will be like God, supported by the paradise ordinance You will have dominion over all kingdoms of the world. According to the Reformed confession, one is not an amiable fanatic but a former opponent of God who has been in rebellion against God and wanted to be sovereign himself. Now that he has surrendered, he is vanquished. God, not he, has been revealed as sovereign, and far from making the human being ill-fated and broken, this defeat has imparted a blissfulness that transcends all the joys of the world. He knows that he was Jacob and that God, in his all-transcending sovereignty, acknowledges that he has become Israel. Thus, for him, God’s sovereignty began not with God’s omnipotent ordination governing the stars and the angels, the sea and its islands, the animal world and the nations, but rather with the experience and the sensation of God’s sovereignty over the self, his very person, his own being, which encompasses the past, the present, and the future.

The confession You are stronger than I, and you have prevailed—that and that alone is the starting point. And it is therefore the height of absurdity ever to think that an earnest worshipper, as mentioned in Zephaniah 3:10 (sv)—which is precisely the character of the Reformed Christian—could ever begin with common grace. No, the focus of his entire existence lies in the moment when, as da Costa sang, he was vanquished by God, laid down his weapon, and knelt down in worship before his Lord and his Master and the King of his soul. His point of departure therefore cannot lie in a philosophical assertion but must always be discovered in particular grace. And this is precisely why, for the Reformed Christian, the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty always coincides with the blessed acknowledgment of his own election by his God. After all, election is nothing but the sovereignty of God that goes back in our past, behind our past, indeed, into eternity past.

§2 But once the believer has arrived at this point, it cannot be otherwise: one senses with every bit of one’s soul that everything—indeed, the entire cosmos—is subject to God’s omnipotence. God is then the Sovereign over one’s soul, the Sovereign over one’s body, the Sovereign over one’s family, the Sovereign over one’s occupation, the Sovereign over one’s homeland, the Sovereign over all peoples and nations, indeed, the Sovereign over the entire heavens—everything is subject to the sovereignty of the Lord of lords. Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens [Psa 8:1]. But even more than that, we cannot confess the sovereignty of our God over our very own soul without at the same time acknowledging the same sovereignty over all that exists. It is also that acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty over what falls outside the sphere of particular grace that should urge and compel every true Reformed Christian to confess the common grace of our God as well. The doctrine of common grace is without question a doctrine that surely has arisen from the heart and core of our Reformed confession and the experience of the Reformed soul. For this reason, objectivists are foolish when they want to preach a sovereignty of God that bypasses the experience of the Christian’s own soul. But subjectivists are equally foolish when they do not automatically extend the sovereignty of God, which they discovered in the wrestling within their own soul, to all that exists outside of them. Before the eye of our soul, God’s sovereignty must be recognized even as it extends over Satan. There is simply nothing that falls outside its influence. It includes and encompasses everything. It extends over heaven and earth and over what is under the earth.

To argue that people automatically believe and confess this, and that for this reason the doctrine of common grace is not necessary, would be unthinking and careless. The Lord appears to us in the lowest moment of the struggle of our soul as the Holy One. This is precisely the difference between a philosophical construal of sovereignty, which aims only at subsuming the universe under a single category, and the Reformed confession, which spiritually ascends from the defeat of its own rebellious heart to the knowledge of God’s omnipotence. For the Reformed-minded Christian, the light of Peniel dawns [see Gen 32:30]. And at Peniel, the believer’s own defeat is not only the acknowledgment of one’s own guilt and misery but also the acknowledgment of the sovereign holiness of one’s God. The philosopher knows nothing of this, but for the Reformed Christian this is his one and all. In this personal experience, and as concerns both the self as well as all of God’s elect, the Reformed believer finds a wonderful solution to the battle between personal sin and God’s holiness in Christ, the Son of his love, and the blood of the Lamb. But the world rejects this Christ. It has no part in Christ. It persists in its rebellion. It remains the enemy of God. And from this fact, then, arises the unavoidable question of how this sovereign and holy God nevertheless can continue to support this world, which keeps resisting him, and why he, the Sovereign and Holy One, does not destroy it immediately with the breath of his mouth. This question is answered by the doctrine of common grace and by this doctrine alone. It explains to God’s elect how a holy God can continue to allow this unholy world to exist, how God is still involved with it, and how he still continues to make it subservient to the honor of his name.

This brief summary of our findings thus far is necessarily positioned here at the outset in order to make it clear to those believers who continue to pass by this wonderful doctrine, shaking their heads and sometimes (not without apprehension) even turning their back on it, that they are resisting what is self-evident in the faith. And perhaps this rehearsal constitutes one final effort to get the scales to fall from their eyes. After all, some of these people are members of and ministers in our Reformed churches. Love demands the acknowledgment that the most fundamental traits of the Reformed life are not foreign to them. And it anticipates that they will wholeheartedly affirm, even as they acknowledge the very experience of their own souls, what we have sketched as the starting point for the confession of common grace. In that case, they cannot continue to defend their weak or defensive position. Either they must acknowledge with us that the confession of common grace flows naturally from this, or they must show how, without common grace, a sovereign and holy God with forbearance can continue to uphold and make subservient to the glory of his name a world that is—and continues to be—in rebellion against him and rejects his Christ. Thus, raising random objections or offering flippant condemnations is insufficient. Anyone who claims the right to oppose a scholarly, historical, and doctrinal affirmation of such great importance must take upon himself the task of showing that he grasps the issues at stake. In addition, while rejecting the theology of Calvin and those who follow in the Reformed tradition, he must show that his is the better, more faithful position that needs to be offered to the church of God. And should that in fact happen, then we are prepared to test this new position against Scripture, history, and reality, and to cross swords in an honest debate. But as it stands now, any doctrinal battle is impossible. As long as things remain on the level of what might be called petulant grumbling, there is nothing left to do other than to quietly continue with the exposition of what we have chosen as our subject.

§3 There is good reason for adding to the historical and dogmatic study of common grace yet a third volume, one that is practical in nature. For the Reformed Christian, precisely because he is an earnest worshipper (Zeph 3:10 sv), every part of his confession has consequences. From each piece of his confession flows something for the practice of his life. He is not a dreamer who reflects on his confession only within himself, but he asks himself at each point along the way what his calling, his task, and his duty are that God has laid upon him, and how he might fulfill this task in view of his confession. The Reformed man is certainly a man of feeling, but no less is he a man of thought. Yet he is equally a man of action. He must live, he must act, he must be among people, and he must act among people; in all this he must be dominated and guided by his confession. A confession for Sunday but a life without confession on weekdays is inconceivable to him. His whole person, all his possessions, all his worldly goods, all he does must be one great offering that he devotes to God, not in order to earn heaven but out of heartfelt gratitude. Here a distinct choice must be made. He must do one of two things: either he must withdraw into the ministry of the church with all that is his, isolating that church from the world, or he must occupy a position in the world that does not contradict his confession.

If there were no common grace, then the first option would be the only correct and permissible one. A Reformed Christian must not make common cause with what is hostile to God. The enemy of God must be his enemy, too, and even if he had to die of hunger because of it, there would be no place for him in a world where this evil character was intermixed. Consider the following. If the world is analogous to the waters of the flood, and if the church is the ark of God that floats on those waters but is totally shut off from the world, then our place is in that ark, and those waters are for us nothing less than perdition and death. Anyone who is born again and converts must then of necessity leave the world. This would require not merely separating himself from its garrulous and silent sins, but separating himself strictly from its life and having nothing in common with it. For then the garment is stained by the flesh. In this way, we then could have no calling in or to the world. Our only calling in that case would be to condemn the world while ensconced in the ark of God with all of God’s elect.

Consider a second possibility. If, in spite of ourselves, we find ourselves in the world’s midst so that we cannot avoid it, we must resist it to its face in such a way that it attacks us, seizes us, and banishes us by means of pyre, dungeon, or scaffold. This would be the principled and consistent response. This would be to possess and display the courage of our convictions in a dualistic sense. And, in fact, this was precisely the position occupied in part by Christians in the second and third centuries, as well as by the monastics, the stylites,¹ various hermits and anchorites in the Middle Ages, and later in part by the Anabaptists. And those who today are all too inclined to condemn the dualism of Tertullian,² of Simeon Stylites,³ and of the Dutch Anabaptists, but at the same time are half-hearted in the faith, would do well to take a closer look at the original, historical motivation of these dualists. All three of these aforementioned dualistic movements saw in the world nothing other than the world that lies in the power of the evil one [1 John 5:19]. Tragically, they did not open their eyes to common grace. Consequently, they stood on principle as faithful servants over against the world, and adding deed to word, they broke with the world and consistently withdrew into the holy realm of the church. What drove and motivated them was no narrow-minded churchism or desire to lock themselves up within their own circle and to avoid the struggle and troubles of life; rather, they were moved by a genuinely godly desire to cut off all communion with a world that lay in the power of the evil one and was hostile toward God.

§4 In Tertullian and those who thought like him, this sprang from two kinds of reaction: reaction against the brutally sinful life of the pagan civilization of that time and reaction against persecution. The pagan world did in fact ostracize Christians, and over against that enmity, Tertullian and like-minded Christians found it doubly cowardly and sinful when Christians surreptitiously sought to benefit from the pleasures and privileges of the world. Separation from the world therefore became their way of life. This notion was taken to its logical conclusion in the monastic world, of course. After all, it was not possible to live in towns and villages among people, that is, in the midst of the world, and still separate oneself from the world. Being a member of a family, managing possessions, and so forth repeatedly brought one into contact with the world. Anyone who wanted to be serious about making a break with the world could therefore not do anything but move from the world into the desert, from the towns to the monastery, which required that one cut off marriage, say goodbye to all possessions, and place oneself under a spiritual leader, renouncing one’s own will. And where even living together with others appeared to have brought the world into the monastery, others pushed the logic still further: climbing up in a tower where they lived and died, or becoming hermits in a forest, or letting themselves be shut up in a cell. All these things subsequently led to abuse as well as sin and pride, but originally they sprang from an earnest desire to serve God and not to have fellowship with a world that was in rebellion against him.

The Anabaptists also took this approach, especially in our country, and nothing is more unfair than judging these people only on the basis of the lunacy of John of Leiden,⁴ or the Amsterdam nudists,⁵ or the Mennonite lies.⁶ On the contrary, it was the Anabaptists who, before Calvinism broke through, have borne the heat of the day and from whose ranks the larger part of our martyrs have come. Initially, they were earnest, godly, consistent persons who had the courage to fully accept the consequences of their position. Thus, even though we continually warn against the influence of the Anabaptist error, this never reduces the respect we have for their allegiance to their faith and their heroic courage. They did not know common grace. For them, the world still lay exclusively in the power of the evil one. Consequently, they sought to establish their own kingdom of God in opposition to that world in order to retreat into that spiritual kingdom and to sever all connection with the world.

Whether we look at Tertullian, the monastics, or the Anabaptists, their original struggle can fill us with awe and respect, for it is remarkable what sacrifices they brought and what they were willing to give for their convictions. And it should be stated quite clearly that those in our day who struggle and live in the world but nevertheless tend to be proud of their spirituality cannot even stand in the shadow of these original heroes and heroines of dualism. Let this sink in deeply: Reformed Christians who go halfway into Anabaptism without accepting its consequences are and remain amphibians, as it were, that are incapable of exerting real power either on land or in the water.

§5 However, if we choose against this dualism, in accordance with Jesus’ word, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one [John 17:15], and equally according to Paul’s word, since then you would need to go out of the world [1 Cor 5:10], then of necessity we arrive at the acknowledgment that the calling of the Christian absolutely does not lie in the sphere of the church alone, but that Christians also have a calling in the midst of the life of the world. And the question as to how this is possible, how it is conceivable that a child of God should still be involved with a sinful world, has a brief, clear, and simple answer: it can and must be because God himself is still involved with that world. And it is this involvement of our God with the world that is explained to us in the doctrine of common grace. From this it also follows that we must clearly perceive the nature and the rule and the significance of common grace because this is precisely what must govern our conduct with respect to our involvement with—and our calling in—the world. Thus, it becomes quite clear why it is insufficient to study this doctrine only historically and dogmatically; the exceedingly practical conclusions must be drawn from it as well, and we are only half done if we omit this final part of our study.

Because we have attempted to shed as much light as possible on the great contrast between confessional faith and what we might refer to as churchism, we will say no more about it. The spiritual inertia and laziness of the latter does not deserve the honor of being considered true religion. To close ourselves off in our own family, in our own camaraderie, or in our own circle and to flatter ourselves by looking down condescendingly in imagined excellence from one’s perch on others as they pass by is an unappealing phenomenon that one can observe in all large cities and among all political parties following their victory. The same sort of collective egoism has also crept into the realm of the church under what we might call churchism. It is a kind of self-satisfied isolation that is as equally unspiritual as it is unsavory. But entirely apart from this, such dualism has reared its head three times in Christ’s church with good intentions and great earnestness. It has always proceeded from the assumption that the church is holy but the world is sinful, and it therefore resulted in withdrawal into the sacred ark in order to avoid spiritual death in the turbulence of the waters of the world.

In opposition to this dualism, which is understandable and also would be obligatory for us if the world not only were to lie in the power of the evil one but had been abandoned to that power by God, stands the confession of common grace. This confession teaches us how God, in his mercy, also has lifted up his hand over this world, arresting sin and curse, and how the world again presents God’s children with the possibility of serving their God in the context of this world, to his utter glory. An awareness of this truth suddenly changes our calling. In comparison to a calling to leave the world and cut off all contact with it, our present calling is to go out into the world and preserve ourselves in that world. In contrast to the Anabaptist contention, this is the position of anyone who is Reformed.

This latter position is not easier but in fact is much more difficult. In the first position (Anabaptism) there is one difficult moment: the moment of making a final break with the world. Once that has occurred, the battle is largely over; thereafter, no battle or temptation exists. In the Reformed position, by contrast, the battle and troubles last until our death, and we can never put down our weapons in order to lie down and rest on our laurels. Our calling then lies in the midst of the world. The Lord our God must be glorified in the midst of this world. And each morning and each evening the temptation assails us to say farewell to God in this world. In this battle, which is so much more strenuous, we therefore need an unfaltering step and firm stride, and to acquire this we need guidance and direction. Without a compass, this churning sea of the life of the world cannot be navigated by any child of God. And we lack this compass when we do not keep in mind the origin and extent of common grace and when we fail to see the beams of light that cast a glow on the path before us.

From this important summary we now move to a discussion of the practical consequences of the doctrine of common grace. We begin with a discussion of the state and government because this institution embodies most clearly the essence of common grace.

CHAPTER THREE

CIVIL SOCIETY

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.

TITUS 3:1

§1 Common grace finds its direct and intentional embodiment in civil society, and the many false notions that have crept in—even among Christians—concerning the nature of civil society have their origin largely in the gross and far-reaching ignorance about the nature of common grace. Especially in discussions about the mutual relationship between church and state, the most boundless confusion of ideas is caused by not taking common grace into account. Clarity of insight and judgment comes only when we have a clear conception of the two spheres in which grace operates. The one is common and for all who are human; the other is particular and only for those who die in Jesus. If these two spheres in which God’s grace operates stand in clear distinction over against one another, then it is immediately obvious that the institutional church and the institutionalized power of the state are two institutions of widely divergent natures. Even the least sophisticated among our readers will see that the state is the institution of common grace and that the church is the institution of particular grace. There is no mistaking the difference here. And once we have clearly perceived the fundamental difference between the nature of the state and the nature of the church, it is equally a matter of course that the relationship between these two institutions, which differ to such an extent in their nature, is governed by the fundamental relationship that exists between common grace and particular grace. Only then do we acquire a firm footing; at the same time, it becomes immediately clear why those who began to argue about such a difficult issue without having found any correct starting point will necessarily end up in a state of hopeless squabbling.

Having established the practical significance of the doctrine of common grace, we thus necessarily begin our discussion of its application with the role of the civil state. The reason for this is the following. Undoubtedly, common grace reaches much further than the life of the state. As we have shown in the two preceding volumes, it extends across the entire life of the world, over nature, over flora, over fauna, over the whole of human life both materially and spiritually; in this respect, then, the realm of the state constitutes only one of its manifestations. It might be thought that we should begin our treatment of the practical ramifications of common grace with a discussion of our relationship to the realm of nature, to our wider human existence, or to the realm of human history, and only thereafter do we arrive at civil society as the institution in which common grace has become embodied most clearly. This, however, would not be the correct approach; rather, the reverse is the better way. When we deal with creation, it is true that we begin with nature, as Genesis 1 does, and then move from nature to the world of plants and the world of animals, in order to progress finally to man. But in the case of common grace, it lies in the nature of things that an entirely different order is required. Sin and ruin did not come to humankind from nature; rather, sin arose in humankind and expanded from the human person as a curse over all of nature. Destruction, therefore, proceeded from humankind and descended from humankind upon nature. If all grace—and, hence, all common grace—is a power of God that opposes sin, finds within sin the motivation for its function, and serves exclusively to destroy or arrest sin with its consequences, then it is very clear that grace in general—and thus also common grace—has its starting point in humankind and extends over the rest of nature only in connection with the human person.

When it comes to particular grace, there is general agreement on this point. Without question, particular grace also will have its ultimate effect on our physical body and on all of nature. This is our confession of the return of Christ, of the resurrection of the flesh, and of the rebirth of nature (Matt 19:28). But even though all sincere Christians agree on this, no one would consider beginning with, say, the resurrection of the flesh or the regeneration of nature in order to best understand the practical ramifications of particular grace. We begin where the beginning in fact lies: that is, with saved persons and with their living together in the church of God. Only thereafter do we point to the wonderful consequences that particular grace ultimately will have as it concerns nature and our bodies. The same applies to common grace. For this reason we focus initially on what is central to the doctrine itself: the human person after the fall, and life in civil society.

However, the twofold question might arise whether it would not be better to begin with the practical application of the doctrine to the individual person, and, if not this, then perhaps we should begin with the practical application to the household and family. Here we must simply answer in the negative. We do not begin with the individual, since all that relates to the individual belongs in the doctrinal discussion, which has already been fully treated. Nor do we start with the household or the family, for the simple fact that neither household nor family arises from common grace. Both issue out of creation; for this reason, given their nature and essence, both are best discussed in the context of creation or, if you will, under the discussion of human nature by virtue of creation. Regarding the civil state, however, we do not begin with creation, since the state would not exist apart from sin; hence, it owes its existence to common grace. All other aspects of human life have undergone a measure of change through common grace but do not have their origin in it. And in this regard we find that both the civil state and the church are to be distinguished from all other aspects of human life. There would not have been an institutional church if there had not been particular grace, and by the same token there would not have been a civil state without the reality of common grace. The civil state is something entirely new that is added to the sphere of creation, and this is why common grace finds its direct and immediate manifestation in the civil state. In considering the practical ramifications of common grace, then, we must therefore ask ourselves, first of all, What in our human life is the tangible phenomenon through which common grace becomes embodied deliberately and directly? If the question is framed in this way, no other answer is possible other than our initial focus on the life of the state.

§2 In doing so we cite our Confession, which states in Article 36,

We believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, has appointed kings, princes, and magistrates; willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies; to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained, and all things carried on among them with good order and decency. For this purpose He has invested the magistracy with the sword for the punishment of evil-doers and for the protection of them that do well.

One observes how broad and all-encompassing this confession is. It points out how things must be among human beings in general. It states how the world must be governed. And it states that this is why governments are instituted and armed with the sword. Understood as such, the confession acknowledges that this is not how it was by reason of creation, but rather that government has been instituted because of the depravity of the human race. At the same time, common grace is confessed in the fact that God is called "our gracious God, who has ordained and decided it for our benefit and by reason of mercy. In the articles that precede it, the origin and existence of the church are explained first, and here Article 36 moves beyond the realm of the church to the realm of common grace, summing up this reality with the remarkable claim that God has instituted government for human beings out of pure mercy. Holy Scripture, of course, takes the lead in this. For when Paul in his first epistle to Timothy comes to the practical application of faith as it affects husbands and wives and leaders in the church, he precedes it with the earnest exhortation, First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior" [1 Tim 2:1–3]. Here the relations that constitute our entire external human life are introduced in the light of humans’ relationship to government, that is, in association with the life of the state.

Here we sense immediately the extent to which the influence of the doctrine of common grace is felt. If we reject or neglect this doctrine, we have no idea what to do with the civil state. Then the civil state strikes the Christian as something worldly, unclean, deficient, or unholy—something reserved only for the unconverted. Of course, this false inclination has indeed reared its head again and again in the course of history and is still at work. It manifests itself most clearly in our country when the Anabaptists cut themselves off from any involvement with the life of the state, and it is found in our own day among the many Christians of various nations who view it as godliness to withdraw into the realm of missions and evangelism and to eschew politics as something too unholy for their involvement. Yet we ourselves must be careful not to look down with condescension on this tendency. It is, of course, contemptible when it manifests itself as a timidity vis-à-vis politics (as evidenced by the battle against Groen van Prinsterer) that holds out only as long as one cannot get his way but then suddenly turns into busy political scheming as soon as one senses the prospect of exerting political influence. At that point no godliness, no earnestness, no tenderness of conscience is to be found; rather, an unholy game is played under the guise of piety. However, this inclination certainly deserves our sympathies when it springs from spiritual sensitivity and actually issues out of an aversion to the many evil machinations by which political power so often has tempted those who hold power.

§3 To the extent that people fail to perceive the enormous significance of common grace and, consequently, fail to view government and state from the perspective of common grace, the life of the state is capable of inspiring little except aversion in the Christian. And it must indeed be acknowledged that, except for a few good heads of state, sinful abuse of power is the order of the day. Understandably, then, the passions of the people are steadily stirred up against this abuse of power, which provokes all kinds of political sin. But our perspective changes drastically as soon as the eye is opened to the glorious truth of common grace. No longer is the focus one-sidedly on all that is sinful in the life of the state. Rather, we do well to ask what would become of human society, which consists of sinful people, if no state and no government had been instituted. We are left to praise and thank the Lord for his great mercy since he has spared us, through the institution of government, the horror of self-destruction. Praise comes to our lips instead of complaint. Then we understand that government is a blessing from our God. And like all mercies of the Lord, it is a blessing that we despoil and defile through our sins and thus are able to enjoy only in imperfect form. At the same time, even in its most deficient expression, it continues to be a valuable and necessary source of order, calm, and peace.

Then we no longer judge government against a criterion of abstract perfection, as if a perfect state of happiness among sinful people were ever possible; rather, we stand under the deep conviction of the general sinfulness of the situation into which we have come through our own fault, and we wonder in admiration at a condition that in so many ways is well-ordered and in which we may live before God, thanks to the institution of government. A simple comparison of our civil society with the unfortunate condition in which entire peoples and tribes in the continents of Africa and Asia still live shows us to what degree civil society is capable of being improved, in spite of the sinfulness that clings to all those in authority.¹ And even though we discern again and again how even our own judiciary can be mistaken and can by no means always be exonerated from partiality, it nevertheless makes us grateful that, as a rule, an independent judiciary appears to be capable of doing justice. This blessing also flows, as it were, automatically and along a demonstrable path, from the institution of government and thus from the creation of God’s common grace. In a sense, there certainly is always class justice to the extent that judicial officials generally are chosen from among society’s more educated. These officials also remain human and never can divest themselves entirely from certain sympathies and antipathies that they have inherited from the community of their social class. But it is equally the case that the judges who have risen from the lower classes of the population, as was the case in Paris in 1793, formed a class justice of a much more odious character, and that a jury in other countries can betray a more partial spirit.² It does not silence the cry for justice even when it becomes clear that the one whose very profession is called to maintain justice adapts it to his own sympathies. In fact, even in the ecclesiastical battles that were waged in the secession of 1834 and the Doleantie of 1886,³ we had sad experiences with such occasionally flagrant partiality, and at the time we complained against them.

But this does not in any way diminish our gratitude toward God for having given us and maintaining a well-ordered administration of justice through government. For the choice is not between an administration of justice that is still in many ways deficient and a perfect administration of justice. The perfect is simply inconceivable among sinful people. Rather, the choice is between an administration of justice that, as a rule, functions well but is sometimes partial and evil, on the one hand, and a situation without an administration of justice in which all people live by their own sword and the strong trample the weak, on the other hand. Stated differently, the choice is between a situation in which nothing but external violence rules, and a situation in which spiritual, moral factors are decisive. The fact that government in its administration of justice causes justice to prevail over power is the invaluable benefit that extends to us through common grace as realized in the institution of government and the formation of civil society. Protest is therefore completely permissible and even a duty as soon as abuse creeps in and becomes publicly known. It remains the calling of everyone to speak ever more loudly in favor of improvement and the pursuit of justice. The more refined and noble the administration of justice, the better. There must not be stagnation, and in many ways, the administration of justice will always remain susceptible to improvement. But in the appreciation and evaluation of all that we possess, we must never stigmatize what exists simply because it does not yet give us the ideal. Rather, we must continually ask ourselves what our condition would be if God had not granted us a government and if there were no administration of justice. If we do the former, then we become dissatisfied, and we begin to grumble and rebel. If we do the latter, then we are grateful, and we praise him who has ordered our sinful life in this way.

§4 We should not think for a minute that divine grace is not at work simply because it falls to us to build civil society, or because we are the ones who must determine justice and law, or because human beings are responsible for organizing the administration of justice in the land. Granted, there is an element of truth in this thinking, for indeed it is the case that God has chosen to use humanity itself as the instrument to bring about polity and judicial administration. But let us be honest: Is there anything in human life that we bring forth out of ourselves that has not been implanted, illuminated, or provided by God? Of course, we get married, we form a family, and we beget children; we acquire for ourselves and our household the means of existence. But is there anything in all this that we would be able to do by ourselves if God had not given us the inclination, the notion,