Common grace

Sun on the evil and the good

Jesus grounded his command to love enemies in the character of God, who "causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). "The LORD is good to all; His compassion rests on all He has made" (Psalm 145:9). Paul told the crowd at Lystra:

Yet He has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness: He gives you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.

Acts 14:17

Theologians call this kindness common grace: common because everyone shares it, grace because no one deserves it. After the flood God promised that seedtime and harvest, day and night, would not cease while the earth endures (Genesis 8:22), and he wrote the work of the law even on the hearts of Gentiles who never had it (Romans 2:14-15). Common grace is usually described in three ways. God gives good gifts such as food, health and beauty to all; he restrains sin through conscience, law and government, so that human evil does not run its full course; and he gives unbelievers real gifts of skill, learning and art. "Every good and perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17).

Common grace does not forgive sin or give new birth, and in that it differs from the saving or special grace given in Christ. But it is not aimless: God's kindness "leads you to repentance" (Romans 2:4), and by preserving the world he keeps a time and a place for the gospel. It sits close to general revelation: general revelation is God making himself known through creation, common grace his upholding and blessing of it.

The Reformed teaching

The doctrine was worked out chiefly in the Reformed tradition. John Calvin taught that the brilliance of pagan lawyers, philosophers and physicians comes from the Spirit of God, the only fountain of truth, and must not be despised; and that God restrains, as with a bridle, the wickedness of many whom he does not inwardly renew Calvin, Institutes 2.2–3. The Canons of Dort say of fallen humanity:

There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the differences between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment.

Canons of Dort, III/IV.4

The same article adds at once that this light cannot bring anyone to a saving knowledge of God. Around 1900 the Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper developed the doctrine at length: God not only holds back sin but lets culture and learning grow Kuyper, Common Grace. Herman Bavinck stressed that grace does not abolish nature but restores it Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. On this ground Christians can thank God for an unbelieving doctor's skill and serve him in every sphere of life (see the lesson Vocation: every sphere of life).

Where the traditions differ

Other traditions agree that God is good to all but frame it differently. John Wesley said that what is often called natural conscience is more properly prevenient grace Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation. Wesleyans therefore see God's awakening and restraining work in every person as prevenient grace, given to all in order to lead them to salvation, whereas Reformed theology distinguishes common grace from the grace that saves. Catholic theology treats the question mainly under nature and grace, holding with Thomas Aquinas that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, and that human reason can know the natural law.

The Reformed have also argued among themselves. In the twentieth century some Reformed theologians in North America rejected the doctrine, holding that God's good gifts to those he has not chosen are providence, not grace, and the dispute divided a church. Those who teach common grace point to God being "kind to the ungrateful and wicked" (Luke 6:35). Both sides agree that these gifts save no one and that every good thing comes from God.