{"id":9177,"date":"2022-05-24T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/schaeffersghost\/?p=9177"},"modified":"2022-05-23T11:07:18","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T17:07:18","slug":"common-grace-3-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/schaeffersghost\/2022\/05\/common-grace-3-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Grace, 3.4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper\u2019s Common\u00a0Grace<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Repeating his provocative conclusion from the previous text, Kuyper reminds us at the outset that \u201cgovernment is instituted\u00a0because of sin<\/em>.\u201d (27) This is taught in the (Belgic<\/a>) Confession. But, we might ask, isn\u2019t this teaching just in response to Anabaptist controversy? The Confession specifically teaches counter to the Anabaptists, so maybe we shouldn\u2019t over generalize?<\/p>\n

In response to his hypotheticals, Kuyper tells us that we need to see the Confession in its Reformation\/political setting, with worldly powers pulling against each other. Rome replied with the claim that the Reformation was revolutionary and anarchic, and ultimately resulted in the French Revolution. And so, the defenders of Roman Catholocism argue, Rome is necessary for order in the world. After all, look at the chaos in Germany! [Kuyper is bringing together several arguments here\u2013obviously Roman Catholic writers in the time of the Reformation weren\u2019t writing about 19th Century Germany, and Roman Catholic writers in the 19th century weren\u2019t writing a whole lot about the Reformation\u2019s political chaos. Instead, Kuyper is drawing on both straims of Roman Catholic thought.]<\/p>\n

Revolution has a usual pattern\u2013abused authority leads to withdrawal into anarchy in order to prepare for a new authority, which results in a backlash from the old authority\u2013even to the point of tyranny and persecution. Certainly there was much of this pattern in the Reformation, where we see three groups of people who left Rome:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The sycophants: Those who joined the Reformation because they liked chaos and revolution for the sake of chaos and revolution.<\/li>\n
  2. The pious: those who believed in the Gospel and decried social upheaval.<\/li>\n
  3. The fanatics: these separated this world and heaven, and then tried to create heaven on earth now. This collapsed Christ\u2019s two comings into one as they tried to build heaven on earth. These were largely the Anabaptists, who derailed the Reformation and spawned persecution.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Calvin and his heirs are clear that paradise cannot be built here other than by Christ\u2019s return, and that while we wait God has given us government to return sin and enforce law. The Reformation was \u201cto reform the church\u201d and \u201cto maintain the social and political order as well.\u201d (33)<\/p>\n

    Anarchy and revolution are of course around today [turn of the 20th century], they are just not as religious in nature. \u201cSociology, economics, and political arguments\u201d tend to drive it instead of false theology. Both past and present deny that \u201cGod, because of sin, has instituted government.\u201d (Not, of course, that they\u2019re completely devoid of religious arguments\u2013certainly there are claims that Jesus was a socialist, fascist, capitalist, etc etc etc.)<\/p>\n

    So we must cling tightly to the truth of the confession, police our own theological borders (since others will blame us for the fanatics), and preach the true doctrine of common grace that likewise decries the abuse of power and self-aggrandizement of leaders.<\/p>\n

    Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the\u00a0City of Man Podcast<\/a> an Amazon Associate (which is linked in this blog), and an Associate Profess<\/em>or of Political Science at\u00a0Southwest Baptist University<\/a>\u00a0in Bolivar, MO<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Kuyper on maintaining the boundaries of our view of the state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1469,"featured_media":9085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,6,115],"tags":[942,1128],"class_list":["post-9177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-christian","category-classics","category-philosophy","tag-abraham-kuyper","tag-common-grace"],"yoast_head":"\nCommon Grace, 3.4<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kuyper on maintaining the boundaries of our view of the state\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/schaeffersghost\/2022\/05\/common-grace-3-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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