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Description:
“A challenge to the charge that common grace affirms that unregenerated people are somewhat good.”
“A challenge to the charge that common grace affirms that unregenerated people are somewhat good.”
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Argument:
(1)
Your objection to common grace is that it “weakens or softens” Total Depravity,
so that people are said to be “partially good” in this system. Firstly, how
does CG soften TD? Secondly, I know of no adherent to Calvinistic Common Grace
who affirms that people are “partially good.” Can you name any theologians or theological
works that do teach this?
(2)
The doctrine of Total Depravity does not state that people are as monstrously
evil as possible, but that our fall has gone so deep that all of our thoughts,
feelings, etc. are filled with sin. The unbelieving and unregenerate sinfully
parent, but not all cannibalize their children. They are often suspicious of
people not like them, but few commit genocide. What keeps us from that, as you
affirm, is a restraint of sin performed by God. We don’t deserve for God to
restrain our sin, and His doing so is favourable to us, so it falls into the
category of unmerited favour, therefore grace.
(3)
It is not that, on a scale of -10 (absolute evil) to +10 (absolute good) we are
anywhere in the positives with common grace. There is no good in us until
regeneration. But, He does keep us away from -10.
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Response:
First, attributing grace to someone necessarily
attributes some goodness to the man
as the effect of grace. Grace brings about goodness, in the nature of
grace. Grace does not leave the recipient unaffected. Grace does not
produce evil. Grace works goodness in some sense or degree. Second,
the very purpose of confessing common grace by those who teach it, beginning
with Abraham Kuyper, is to explain the seeming goodness in ungodly humans—cultural and
social goodness. Third, every proponent of common grace whom I have read,
and I have read many, teaches that by virtue of this grace, the ungodly have an
ability to do good in things natural and civil, which ability is itself
goodness in them. This was the expressed teaching of the CRC in 1924 and
since by its theory of common grace (see the “Three
Points” of common grace). This was the doctrine of Abraham Kuyper, the
father of the doctrine of common grace now prevalent in the evangelical and
Reformed church world. For the evidence in Kuyper's own words, see my Christianizing
the World: Reformed Calling or Ecclesiastical Suicide?.
But no one has even questioned this.
Not only does common grace ascribe good to the
ungodly in the realm of society and culture—good in the sense that it pleases
God, even though it is not the highest and best good—but also the
theory of common grace finds in unregenerated sinners the ability to accept
salvation when it is, as they say, “offered” to them. There is therefore the
remnant of the image of God that enables them to choose for Christ. This is
quite a substantial good. The first of the “Three Points” of common grace adopted
by the CRC in 1924, and which I quote in my book on Christianizing the World, teaches a favourable attitude of God
towards all humans and a desire to save them all, which He expresses in a
well-meant offer of salvation to all. This implies that there is in the
unregenerated sinner an ability to choose for Christ, that is, a free
will. Kuyper himself taught that common grace includes that there is a
point of contact—obviously some spiritual good—in the sinner for the gospel. As I demonstrate
in my book, Kuyper also taught that common grace prevented the race from
falling into total depravity, and retained in all humans something still of the
image of God—which is a good.
Common grace necessarily is the denial of total
depravity.
I grant that total depravity does
not teach that all humans are as evil as they can be. But this has nothing
to do with our subject. There is development of sin in humans. Adolf
Hitler, who perhaps only mistreated animals in his childhood, became the killer
of millions of humans in his adulthood, as circumstances of his life gave
him the opportunity. But this development of sin is increasing
degree of wickedness. It is not the development of total evil from
some goodness. What total depravity teaches is that every unsaved human is
completely wicked, without any goodness or capability for goodness. This
wickedness then develops into various degrees of intensified wickedness in
humans. What common grace teaches is that there is a restraint of sin within
humans by the Spirit so that they are not completely wicked, but somewhat good—good so that
they can perform truly good deeds in culture and society. Psalm 51 and the
Canons of Dordt, chapters 3 and 4,
teach that unsaved humans are wholly, that is completely, wicked, without any
good at all, or ability for good. This has nothing to do with increase of
wickedness intensively.
The restraint of sin that you mention, if it is
orthodox, is God’s government of sin by external circumstances: for
example, the police and the threat of punishment, or by controlling the sinner’s
mind by His providence. It is not a gracious work making the
sinner somewhat good, or keeping him from being entirely wicked. A
married man may refrain from adultery because it is in his interest not to
risk his marriage and family, or his health. But this is not an
evidence of any goodness in him. He may even refrain because he loves his
wife, though not for God’s sake or because the seventh commandment is written
upon his heart. Goodness is the love of God, and what proceeds from the
love of God.
The increase in wickedness of the wicked varies
from one to ten. This is development of total depravity.
But all are entirely wicked, without any goodness
or propensity for goodness. See Romans 3:9ff. This is total
depravity, the Reformed confession.
“Almost all are not completely depraved, but are
somewhat good.” This is the heresy of common grace.
Blessings,
Cordially in
Christ,
Prof. Engelsma
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