Guide Number: 1941.E

Common Grace

Cornelius Van Til

The Presbyterian And Reformed Publishing Company

Philadelphia

1947

Copyright 1947 by Cornelius Van Til

Contents

Preface

1. The Christian Philosophy of History

1. Paradox

2. The Limiting Concept

2. Abraham Kuyper’s Doctrine of Common Grace

3. The Latest Debate About Common Grace

1. Recent Developments

2. Some Suggestions for the Future

A. The Danger Of Abstract Thinking

B. The Positive Line Of Concrete Thinking

Preface

At the beginning of the century Dr. Abraham Kuyper published his great three volume work on Common Grace. It was his ambition to press the catholic claims of Christianity upon its cultured despisers. It is, he argued, not in Roman Catholicism nor even in Protestant Evangelicalism but only in the Reformed Faith that Christianity really comes to its own. Only the Reformed Faith presents the full breadth as well as the full depth of the Christian message. In particular it is only in terms of the Reformed Faith that a really coherent Christian view of the ordinances of nature and of the course of history can be set forth.

More recently Kuyper’s views on common grace have been attacked, defended, and restated in the interest of solving for our day the problem of the relation of Christianity to general culture. The small volume herewith offered to the public seeks primarily to present the salient features of the Reformed conception of common grace on the basis of these materials. In doing so it has at the same time an apologetical aim. It seeks to suggest, as far as it is possible to do so in short compass, that the Reformed Faith, in setting forth most faithfully the Scriptural doctrines of free grace, at the same time provides the only solid foundation for the general ordinances of creation. Nature and grace alike come to their own in the Reformed Faith and nowhere else.

The material of this book first appeared as a series of three articles in the Westminster Theological Journal. The author herewith expresses his thanks for the permission granted him by the editors of this journal to reprint these articles in the present form.

Cornelius Van Til

January, 1947

Chapter 1:
The Christian Philosophy of History

The question of where he may find a point of contact with the world for the message that he brings is a matter of grave concern to every Christian minister and teacher. The doctrine of common grace seeks, in some measure at least, to supply this answer. But to give the answer desired the concept of common grace must be set in its proper theological context. In discussing the problem, the present paper accordingly deals with (1) the Christian philosophy of history of which the common grace doctrine is a part, (2) the most comprehensive modern statement of this problem, (3) the salient features of the recent debate on the subject, and (4) some suggestions for further study.

The common grace1 problem may quite properly be considered as being a part or aspect of the problem of the ...