What Does Herman Bavinck Mean by Common Grace?

How Common Grace Opens Up a Rich World of Arts, Science, and Philosophy

Herman Bavinck argued for a doctrine called common grace to explain why so many good, true, and beautiful things exist in our world despite the reality of sin. In his essay on “Common Grace,” Bavinck asserts, “The entirety of the rich life of nature and society exists thanks to God’s common grace.” Then he asks, “But why should he continue to preserve such a sinful world by a special action of his grace?”^[1] 

Those within the Reformed tradition can understand the tension. Theologically, the doctrine of original sin and total depravity point to humanity’s sinful and depraved condition. Yet undoubtedly great acts of courage, of kindness, of art, of science, and of philosophy exist. Man went to the moon. China built the Great Wall. The Latin poets still amaze.

Bavinck understood this. He aimed to avoid the world-weary nihilism among some Christians and pie-in-the-sky spiritualism of others. For Bavinck, the doctrine of common grace meant that regular life is a revelation of God’s grace that restrains evil and promotes the goodness of the created order.

Jessica Joustra (then Driesenga) explains: “Common grace is an aspect of God's all-encompassing providence, through which God maintains human life, culture, and all of creation; it maintains the goodness of creation in spite of human depravity. Common grace is the source of all human accomplishment and virtuous deeds.”^[2]

For this reason, philosophy, science, and art can exist as forms of God’s common grace, even among unbelievers. And so if we ask the questions such as what does Christianity have to do with science or what does faith have to do with philosophy, the answer is: God’s gracious revelation in creation and Christ.

And this union of God’s revelation of grace in both creation and salvation, nature and grace, means that politics, arts, philosophy, and all the regular aspects of life fall under God’s gracious care. And further, and this is key for Bavinck, the grace of Christ restores and establishes the goodness of the natural order of things.

To understand Bavinck’s doctrine of common and grace how it justifies Christianity study and appreciation of philosophy, science, and arts, we need to begin with his view of revelation.

Revelation

The doctrine of common grace ties tightly to God’s revelation. As Bavinck notes, “All revelation … is an act of God’s grace” (The Wonderful Works of God, 45). Revelation thus is a form of grace.

That said, Bavinck distinguishes between and general and special revelation. For salvation, “general revelation is inadequate” (Wonderful, 45). Special revelation, by contrast, brings saving revelation to mankind in the person and work of Christ. 

Bavinck also adds, “The special revelation of God, consequently, is necessary also for a right understanding of his general revelation in nature and history, and in heart and conscience” (Wonderful, 46).

Yet Bavinck rejects an extreme binary between supernatural and natural revelation. He can say, “Creation is revelation, a very special absolutely supernatural, marvelous revelation.” And given that creation reveals a personal God, we should expert further revelation like the Incarnation (Wonderful, 47).

The key distinctions between special and generation revelation centre on special revelation’s manner, content, and purpose (47). Both revelations agree with each other, but special revelation’s manner often takes a verbal, or speaking form; it can also be a revealing or a making known of God in some specific way (Heb 1:1; Wonderful, 47). In particular special revelation gives explicit revelation of God in contrast to general revelation which leaves it up to us to discern God’s ways  (.e.g., Isa 28:26; so Wonderful, 49). .

The content involves things like the Incarnation—it focuses son “the person and work of Christ” and “the Scriptures, the Word of God” (Wondeful, 50).

The purpose of special revelation is to giving saving knowledge to sinners that can also interpret general revelation.

Practically, special revelation purges or purifies general revelation from human error. When that happens, “the light of Scriptures” shows us “that general revelation has a rich significance for the whole of human life” (Wonderful, 46). Yet it remains insufficient for achieving “the proper end of man” (Wonderful, 46).

Essay on “Common Grace”

In his essay entitled “Common Grace,” Bavinck provides a biblical-theological argument for the meaning of revelation and its relationship to common and special grace.

In the first place, Bavinck sees revelation as persistent throughout all history in both creation and in Scripture. BeforeAdam and Eve sinned, God revealed himself to the world, and he had a relationship with humanity under a covenant of works. This covenant of works was not characterized by grace, since without sin, neither common nor special grace was needed.

But after the Fall, God still reveals himself to the world but that revelation changes in its character. As Bavinck explains in “Common Grace,” because humans sinned and deserved death, revelation now comes “as a revelation of grace” (40).

Revelation for Bavinck is a comprehensive term for how God reveals himself at all times in everything. And this revelation can thus be divided into (1) common grace and (2) special grace (40). Common grace explains why God gave Cain a mark instead of punishing him for murdering his brother Abel; and common grace explains why Cain founds a city full of the arts and beauty (40). Special grace, for example, names God’s special covenant of grace with Abraham and Israel’s offspring (41).

Bavinck develops his biblical theology with more detail, but he aims to show how God’s revelation amounts to his specific works of common grace to all people and special grace to some people.

It is on this basis that Bavinck can say: “There is thus a rich revelation of God even among the heathen—not only in nature but also in their heart and conscience, in their life and history, among their statesmen and artists, their philosophers and reformers” (41).

So everyone has access to revelation, whether that is creation, traditions about the past where God dealt with humanity, or the like. They key difference is not revelation, argues Bavinck, but grace. For non-Christians do not know special grace (gratia specialis).

Grace  

The revelation of grace that comes to all people can described as a covenant of grace (foedus gratiae). Before the Fall, God made a covenant of works with humanity (foedus operum). Now, with Abraham, that covenant like his God’s revelation is characterized by grace.

Even if God reveals himself to Abraham specially, “This revelation, however, attaches to previous history and to the revelation of God already in existence” (40–41). Here, Bavinck wants to keep together the revelation of God as an organic whole. Likewise, the revelation of common and special grace then also has an organic unity.

The goal of this special of revelation of grace is always Christ, however. And once Christ comes, the special grace that originally went to Abraham and Israel once again becomes accessible to all men. So common and special grace organically unite in Christ’s revelation. “The two, special and common grace, separated for ages, once again combine” (44).

Both the common grace of life, of art, and or philosophy and the special grace of Christ overlap in their universal scope. Both remain valid for all people, Christians included.

This will be key to Bavinck for his justification and emphasis on the ordinary life as meaningful to God—or why arts, sciences, and philosophy fall under God’s grace and worthy of pursuit by the faithful.

The Goodness of the Ordinary

Bavinck contrasts his view common grace with other Christian communions and movements. He rejects both a spirituality that directs humans to live some elevated life that ignores the here-and-now and forms of faith that reject the goodness of ordinary life (“Common Grace,” 44–55).

For example, Bavinck suggests that a number of Christian communions were influenced by anabaptism. Practically, this led, he claims, to "the rejection of art, scholarship, science, culture, and all the goods of earthly life, and the spurning of the vocation that rests upon us in family, business, and the state—all these are fruits not of healthy Reformation but of the unsound Anabaptist tradition" (“Common grace,” 54).

But this rejection does not balance God’s revelation of grace or intent for the world. Instead of dualisms between theology and philosophy or church and state, Bavinck argues for an organic unity between them (56, 57).

Implications

A number of practical implications follow from Bavinck’s view of common grace.

First, a strong division between the natural world and the supernatural world does not exist, but they are united through grace (“Common grace,” 57).

Second, no natural theology exists (“Common Grace,” 58) because Adam and others knew about the Trinity and the Son because Adam communed with God (57–8). Post-fall revelation does not give new truths. The newness of revelation is that it comes in grace (58). Knowledge becomes “soteriologically changed” (58). This means that faith now becomes Christ-centered and regards salvation (58).

Third, since God modified revelation due to the Fall, then this salvific revelation is temporary and only exists because of sin and until sin is finally dealt with (59). At this time, “The original order will be restored” (59). Yet with more: “Christ gives more than sin stole” (59). So there is a return to the beginning and an elevation that happens when the revelation of salvation comes to its end. And “Dualism will cease” (59).

Fourth, God’s common grace means that God maintains our natural loves, restrains our sin, and grants blessings in “the arts and sciences” (60). We also have “a sense of worship and virtue” (60). In other words, “The entirely of the rich life of nature and society exists thanks to common grace” (60).

Fifth, since Christ’s special grace is now universal like common grace is, then “Christ has also a message for home and society, for art and science.” After all, “this grace (of the Gospel) does not cancel nature but establishes and restores it” (62). For this reason, there is an organic unity between the grace of the Gospel and the ordinary life.

Consider how Bavinck talks about the Gospel and ordinary life here:

“The ordinary man who honorably fulfills his daily calling before God hardly seems to count anymore; he does nothing, or so it is thought, for the kingdom of God. A student who studies hard and spends his time in a Christian manner may be good, but a person who dedicates a great part of his time to evangelism is better and more worthy. In the view of many today, to be a real Christian requires something extra, something out of the ordinary, some supernatural deed” (62).

He continues a bit later, saying: “What we need in these momentous times is not in the first place something extraordinary but the faithful fulfilling of the various earthly vocations to which the Lord calls his people” (63). All of this is part of the “Reformation of the natural” (63).

Sixth, Calvinism’s Reformation of the natural still flows from grace, and thus “the arts and sciences” … “can be sanctified by the word and Spirit of Christ,” claims Bavinck (64).

Conclusion

And all of this leads to the initial question I asked: how does faith and philosophy relate to one another? How does theology and science correlate? How do all these supposed binaries fit into the Christian life?

For Bavinck, there is an organic unity because grace in Christ unites both common and special grace. Certainly, distinctions still exist, but we can live our lives as Paul had envisioned in 1 Thessalonians 4 because of common grace:

But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one (1 Thess 4:10–12).

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^[1] “Common Grace,” CTJ 24.1 (1989), 60.

^[2] “Whose Common Grace? Exploring the Implications of Common Grace on an Analysis of the Effects of Globalization,” 219