2) DOESN’T COMMON GRACE NULLIFY SPECIAL GRACE?
In a concern related to the one in the previous post, some voiced concern that teaching that God is in some way gracious to all people was a slippery slope to Universalism: the teaching that all people regardless of creed and practice will be saved by God. In this regard it is informative to note Kuyper’s outline of the situation of common grace with reference to other ‘graces’ of God shown to humankind. He writes that
“Covenant grace must come to expand into particular grace, but behind covenant grace there is yet a third phenomenon expanding into covenant grace, namely, common grace. So we find three emanations of God’s grace: a grace that applies to you personally, then a grace that you have in common with all God’s saints in the covenant, but also thirdly, a grace of God that you as a human being have in common with all people. There is nothing in this that does not glorify God. Your personal salvation is entirely the fruit of sovereign grace. Your blossoming as a branch, together with all the sacred branches of the Vine, is the result of nothing except sovereign grace bestowed upon you. But now also your progress in that redemption as a human being, by virtue of your ancestry, by your birth and your entire human life, is a gift, a kindness, an outworking of the very same grace of God.” (Kuyper : 2016, 5)
Thus he delineates at the start of his project, three specific manifestations of God’s grace to humankind, each bearing the character of gracious action but containing differing potencies.
REFERENCE
Kuyper, Abraham. 2015. Common Grace (Volume 1): God’s Gifts for a Fallen World (Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology) Lexham Press.