Common Grace, 1.55

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

Continuing to discuss John 1, we see three things about common grace int hat passage:

1. “The Word” is revealed in our consciousness. That is, in our seeing the “spiritually observable world” we find that the “eye, light, and world” all go together. (484)
2. Darkness has fallen over this world.
3. The Light of the world still shines.

These points apply to the whole world, and are not limited to Israel. Nor are these principles of common grace either new or a recovery of a failed principle. Instead they are a continuance of something which has been going on as long as creation (at least with regard to points 1 and 3, 2 of course only begins with the Fall).

We ought not put John 1 in tension with Romans 1. Rather, we should look at the two passages as merely different perspectives. John begins with the Trinity and discusses the Second Person, while Paul begins with the Father’s relationship with fallen men. Kuyper thinks a good parallel here is that of the difference between a mother’s love for her infant and that same mother’s love for a rebellious adult child. The love is in some ways the same, but must be approached from two different perspectives.

And yet, in Paul’s writings, ungodliness and idolatry appear to expand and spread. Doesn’t that seem to be at odds with the doctrine of common grace? Kuyper’s answer is a clear ‘no.’ If it weren’t for common grace, ungodliness and idolatry would spread so fast as to create a virtual hell on earth. Instead, the spread of rebellion against God is slow and restrained because of the reality of common grace. We fight the Light, but the Light is always there: “Common grace is present, but we have rejected it.” (489) This is true morally, but it is especially true religiously and spiritually as we embrace idolatry.

Kuyper wants to spend time on these points, because

1. Idolatry proves common grace by demonstrating our human need to worship. Animals and the damned do not worship anything.
2. The need to worship is not a human invention, it is God’s work in our hearts.

Paul shows us that the worst sinner both knows and resists God. God, despite this resistance, is ‘still manifest’ 1) in the sinner and 2) in the world. Common grace preserves and highlights this Divine manifestation (if we can use a loaded word like that). To say it another way, common grace maintains an insufficient (for the purposes of salvation) knowledge of God in sinners. This knowledge expresses itself in the form of idolatry.

None of these doctrines of common grace are new in Paul. They are rather part of the ongoing revelation of God in the created world (Romans 1:20), despite the effects of the Fall.

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