CGT: Common Grace Theology and the Theology of Nature

Common grace is not a category of historical Protestant theology; it is a modern innovation.

Aaron Renn recently argued that the dearth of evangelical leadership had a theological cause, the theology of common grace. The claim is striking to evangelical ears, given that “common grace” is the category contemporary evangelicals, especially Reformed ones, use to articulate their interaction beyond the bounds of Christendom. “Common grace” is the hallmark of the Reformed evangelical approach to public leadership.

Renn meant for his diagnosis to give evangelicals pause. But he also acknowledges that theology per se is not his area of expertise, encouraging someone else to articulate the problems with the theology of common grace in a theological setting. Here is my own attempt.

Common grace is not a category of historical Protestant theology; it is markedly 20th-century, deriving directly from Abraham Kuyper, father of neo-Calvinism. It is a modern innovation.

The problem with the theology of common grace is that it is opposed to a theology that gives prominence to nature, the created order. In being opposed to the theology of nature, the theology of common grace joins all the modernist and postmodernist philosophical trends against ancient realist thought (Plato and Aristotle) and the classical Christian tradition that was its heir.

Common grace is not a category of historical Protestant theology; it is a modern innovation.

I have experienced the consequences of the theology of common grace and the lack of a theology of nature in two institutional settings: Wheaton College and Westminster Seminary. Westminster Seminary was a particularly concentrated dose, as its Van Tillian rendition of common grace theology is perhaps the strongest on the market. (One could debate whether the approximately two-kingdoms Van Tillianism of Westminster or Theonomic Van Tillianism should count as the stronger concentrate.)

By design, Westminster’s theology wrote itself out of the public square; there was no common ground with unbelievers, and WTS had no access to the levers of power, anyway, unlike its younger brother school, WSC, with its connection to Senator Ben Sasse.

A friend of mine at WTS pegged what was wrong with the theology of common grace. Whenever he, a self-professed Christian Platonist, began to speak about nature or philosophy, Van Tillians uttered “common grace.” The Christian Platonist translated: “Hocus pocus!”

The Van Tillians basically think of common grace as a sort of magic. They cannot comprehend how non-Christians could ever do anything right or how any human faculties could operate according to divine design without another act of divine intervention.

Alternatively, the “hocus pocus” involves an ideological move to protect Van Tillianism from the obvious evidence against it. Not only is there common ground with unbelievers, but we’re standing on some it.

Van Tillians uttered “common grace.” My friend translated: “Hocus pocus!”

Wheaton, on the other hand, was the perfect embodiment of James Davison Hunter’s “faithful presence.” Looking back, Renn’s critique of “faithful presence” accurately describes the Wheaton I knew, preparing one to take on a high-status white-collar job in the knowledge economy without one’s Christianity being too vocal, political, or otherwise getting in the way.

Wheaton taught us Calvin College’s (sorry, “Calvin University” is cringe) progressive neo-Calvinism, which replaced Christianity with straight secular social-justice talk. Admittedly, the dispensationalist form of retreatism that they wanted to remove from our system is not something I would defend, but something I am grateful to have been delivered from.

One might think that the full-orbed Christian perspective would be the best of both worlds, nature and common grace. But Christian theology already has categories for what “common grace” attempts to do. Namely, nature and divine providence, mercy, and patience. Common grace involves divine intervention to prevent total depravity from doing its full work. In fact, creation, nature, is a divine work that is functional apart from divine judgment, which God has given, so far, in limited measure.

Common Grace Theology, or CGT (can we popularize that moniker?), says that God created things at 100%, at the fall they went immediately to 0%, then God injected common grace to bring things back to 5% or so.

The theology of nature recognizes that the created order is 100% good, and while divine judgment has brought the effects of sin and misery into that order, he has withheld his full judgment, and continued his providence. This is no autonomous nature, but neither is it an empty thing, “a vacuole for grace,” as Steven Long, a brilliant Catholic theologian, and critic of the Catholic equivalent of Van Tillianism/Barthianism puts it.

CGT also implies that God’s providence in the world is a sort of spillover of special grace. Nature has nothing to offer on its own.

Sidenote: TGC should be called out, not only for its CRT, but also for its CGT, which is the source of its CRT. (The Van Tillian to Progressive pipeline.)

You cannot operate in the public square with this theology. The Van Tillians treated everything non-Christians got right as stolen goods. Christianity is the source of all good. But that is contrary to Christian doctrine. Grace restores nature.

There are so many versions of the same privatization of Christianity: Dispensational premillenialism, socially progressive neo-Calvinism, dogmatic, insular neo-Calvinism, theonomic Van Tillianism, the harmless Christian acquiesence to liberalism of “faithful presence.” One starts to realize how much social conditions and political structure shape theology - “regime theologians,” one might say.

This is the irony of Van Tillianism: for all its arrogance and confidence, it writes itself out of any influence in the public square. If you don’t say anything that can be seen to be true apart from special revelation, you simply relieve yourself of the duty of talking to non-Christians, or presenting Christianity as true.

Common Grace Theology says that God created things at 100%, at the fall they went immediately to 0%, then God injected common grace to bring things back to 5% or so.

When Christianity is a set of glasses you use to look at the world, it seems like your Christianity is not based in how things are. There is an acquiescence to standpoint epistemology, postmodernism, or Rawlsian liberalism.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer identifies a lack of a theology of nature as a cause of the depreciation of the “penultimate things.” Christians want to jump straight to the “ultimate things.” I’ll go to public school so I can evangelize and get people into heaven. I’ll meet my neighbor so I can tell him the gospel.

What about just being a good neighbor? In the sense of mowing one’s grass, interacting politely, and so on? What if these penultimate things are not just instrumental to giving gospel opportunities?

What if penultimate things best serve as a preparatio evangelium when accorded their own autonomy and importance?

Consider Paul’s words to Timothy about the importance of civil order:

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4, ESV)¹

To summarize, we should desire conditions of basic peace and order and not hostility to Christianity. These things are just good for humanity, in this age. People are in the best position to consider Christianity under these conditions.

The New Testament exhortation to good works can be heard in this way. This is not “lifestyle-evangelism” to the exclusion of verbal proclamation. It is good works and secular activity as intrinsically good as part of the created order, even as it is passing away. The sacred as secular.

Here’s a few questions: What if the cultivation of secular expertise is one of the best things Christians can do for the world?

What if the promotion of conditions of discourse that are not hostile to Christianity is crucial for evangelical witness? I think of the non-mainstream discourse in which Christians have a place alongside atheists and agnostics.²

Emil Brunner is the other theologian who states this flawlessly. The activities of this life have their own principles; they are “autonomous.” (Whooo! Scary!)

Making each secular thing Christian is the wrong strategy. (Unless it’s still good qua autonomous standards, like Keith Green, the Newsboys, and Veggietales, to name a few.)

Christian influence upon the public square is nothing for which we need to apologize. Christian influence will not be specifically Christian in each and every case, though. But it will not be in accord with liberal or progressive norms, nor pagan, Nietzschean ones.

What if we all became common good, Christian conservatives? And civically-minded before nationally-minded? Your local community is full of people who understand the autonomous principles of one field of human activity or another and who are making the world a better place. Those are called “good works,” and Christians are called to them. “Good” is not an exclusively Christian term. It is an objective term built into nature…unless you want to join the Humeans and postmodernists. (Van Tillians always side with the worst of modern, anti-Christian philosophy! Why?)

Aaron Renn is a good example of this. He possesses secular expertise, has a voice in the secular world, and his words to Christians are particularly based, not theology-specific. Yet when he comments briefly on theology, he hits the nail on the head!

Epistemologically, I call this form of theology Christian empiricism. We need more of it. Less of Christian coherentism, which is what worldview thinking and CGT is. Christianity isn’t just true if you’re a Christian. Christianity is true because Christ came into the world, stood on the ground that is common to us all, and was crucified publicly by the authorities of the world’s largest empire. Evangelism is simply the keeping alive of this public record.

Three cheers for the theology of nature.

1.  Keep reading vv. 5-7 with the objectivity of Christian truth and our relationship with “Gentile outsiders” in mind. Paul certainly seems to be supporting this trajectory of thought. Considering v. 4, one wonders if Amyraldianism has some theological connection to a more publicly-minded Reformed Christianity. On that, see Michael Lynch’s writings.

2. Why the evangelical opposition to Jordan Peterson?