DOMINION ANDCOMMON GRACE

The Biblical Basisof Progress

Gary North

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Institute for Christian EconomicsTyler, Texas

This book is dedicated to

John Frame

an uncommonly gracious man,who will no doubt conclude thatportions of this book are good,

other portions are questionable,but the topic warmnts further study.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ixINTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.2.

3.4.5.6.7.

The Favor of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...17God’s Restraining Hand vs. Total

Depravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 ‘Wheat and Tares: Historical Continuity . ...65Van Til's Version of Common Grace . . . . ...79Eschatology and Biblical Law . . . . . . . . . ..112S ustaining Common Grace. . . . . . . . . . . ...159Epistemological Self-Consciousness

and Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181Filled Vessels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...201The Inside Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

8.9.

CONCLUSION 236. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APPENDIX – Warfield’s Vision of Victory:

Lost and Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...253SCRIPTURE INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...281INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

PREFACE

And when the thousand years are expired, Satinshall be loosed out of his pison, and shall go out to

\ deceive the nutions which are in thefour quatiers of thearth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to bat- /tie: the number of whom is as the sand of tk sea. Andthg went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassedthe camp of tlw saints about, and the beloved ci~: andjre came downfrom God out of baven, and &vouredthan (Rev. 20:8-9).

/’As you probably know, Christians disagree about

the doctrine of “the last things,” called eschatology~eskaTOLogy”]. I firmly believe t$at conservativeProtestants in the United States are about to get into .the biggest theological shouting match of this ten-tury over the question of eschatology.

But there is one point that 99.9% of all Bible-believing Christians agree on: these verses in theBook of Revelation refei to the events immediatelypreceding the final judgment. No denomination or

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X DOMINION ANO COMMON GSACE

school of theological interpretation within -&e ortho-dox Christian camp argues against this.

This identification of these verses with the final

+judgment raises a key question o~interpre tion thatnon-pos :millennialists repeatedly ask post illennial-

?ists (whenever they can locate one). It 1s a reasonablequestior:

J+“ ow does the postmillennialist explain thefinal rebellion of Satan at the end of history?” ‘

The& may be a few isolated postmillennialistsI

who deny that this prophecy” refers to a r~bellion atthe end Iof history, but such a view make~ little im-pression on anyone who reads Revelation TO. Thosewho accept the plain teaching of Revelation 2,0 mustadmit that a rebellion occurs at the very e’ d of his-Ptory. In %ct, this rebellion calls down God’s fire fromheaven which ends history.

Is the whole world, going to be deceiv~d, exceptfor a handful of Christians? The language ~f Revela-tion 20:$1 is not clear enough to conclude f~r certainthat thel devil actually succeeds in deceiving all the

Pnations ~f the earth, whose inhabitants n mber asthe san~ of the sea. He will go out to do so, but he

Imay no{ be completely successful. But it i possiblethat Sa~an will successfully deceive a m~jority of

!those w: o will be living at that time. ~It s~ould also be clear that the deception is a

decepti~n of People. The battle between God andSatan id for the souls of men. Revelation 20:8-9 isnot tall&g primarily about angels. It i~ also not

PREPACE )d

describing a contest over power. There is no ques-tion about who has more power in history: Goddoes. What this descfibes is a battle primarily overethics. “Choose this day whom you will serve,$ Elijahdemanded of the people of Israel (I Kings 18).. This isthe question of life for every man and society in his-tory. The answer that men give has life-and-deathconsequences, as it had for the 850 false prophetswhom El@h ordered the people to grab, and whomhe then killed (18:40), just as they would have killedhim had God’s fire not burned up the sacrifice on thealtar Elijah built. But the fire came down to consumethe right sacrifice, and judgment then came to thefalse prophets. So it will be again at that last day,only next time the fire will consume the false proph-ets directly, overcoming and ending human judg- ‘ments in history.

Satan’s lure has been the same from the days of ‘the garden of Eden: to get men to covenant with himrather than God, to place themselves under his juris-diction rather than God’s jurisdiction. And let us notforget, “jurisdiction” comes, from two Latin wordsthat mean “law” (junk) and ‘saying” (diction-em).When Satan and God speak their rival laws, whoselaw will men obey? It is a battle between sovereignsand their respective laws. It is a battle for the hearts, ,minds, and souls of men. It is also a battle for theirstrength (Luke 10:27). To that extent, it is a strugglefor power, but only because biblical ethics is thesource of all long-term power.l This, too, is a centraltheme of this book.

1. Gary North, Moses and Pharuoh: Domi’nion Religbn vs. PowerRelig”on (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1985).

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Xii DOMIAON AND C(iAklON QRACE

The, BattlefieldA war will be fought at that last day-a very brief

war. W lere will- it be fought? Wha~ exactly will l?ethe battlefield? What do the-words mean, ‘dompassed ‘

the carr p of the saints about, and the bel &ed city”?LAre thex two literal pl~es in view, the c , p of the

saints und the beloved city?- Is this one p ace, with1two descriptions? Or are the words symbolic of

Chrktkns in general and the church, in g~neral?I km ow of no commentator who accepts li~erally

tthe ide that the entire population of Chhstian be-lievers \ holed up in one city, even “the bel~ved city.”There may be such an interpreter, but I have not

$come a ross him. Perhaps some dispensat&wdist in-terpret r somewhere does cling to such lit~ralism. Inrespon+e, I would ask him two questions, using basicdispens tionalist teaching concerning ~e millen-nium: k

$irst, where on earth are the millions upon

m~lion, of previously Raptured, transfo+ed, now-immortal believers who returned to earth ~ith Jesus,and wk o have been living all over the eakth for thepast one thousand years? Second, m, all the Chris-tians

9earth — Raptured sainta and @t-Rapture

conve

7

–living in Jerusalem?” I tlink taese .ques-tions d spose of the literal city view. T’he battlefieldwill be larger than Jerusalem.

Conventional premillennial interp~ters mightargue -kat the second reference could de to Jeru-salem, but that not every believer on eAh is there.It is si~ply a representative city. The same satanicattack @ll be going on elsewhere. The “c~p of the

! I

I

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PREFACE Xiii

saints” is the whole earth. This would. make more’sense.

Those who are not premillennialist usuallyargue that “the camp of the saints” and “the beloved

city” both refer symbolically to the church, and prob-ably the invisible church, meaning the totality of in-dividual Christians. An attack by Satan’s human fol-lowers comes on those who are true Christians.

One question for all interpreters arises: How willthe satanists know who is who? Christians cannot besure about the true spiritual status of members ofour own congregations at any point in time. This iswhy God requires excommunications to deal withchurch members who commit major sins, How willSatan’s human army identify clearly just who the

‘ true Christians are? Or will the attack be somewhatindiscriminate? This problem besets all interpreters.

However large the army of Satan may be, Reve-lation 20 indicates that there will be a sufficient num-

““ ber of reprobates to surround the Christians, ,mean-ing sufficient to threaten them with death. This will

/ be a confrontation primarily between rival armies ofmortals, not between armies of angels or, betweenanyone and Raptured immortals (in the premillen-nial scheme) who obviously cannot be threatened

. . with death. (The premille.nnialist really does have aproblem in explaining where al} those Raptured im-

.’ mortals will be when the war breaks out, and whatthey will be doing to defend their mortal Christianbrothers.) ‘This is clearly a description of a huge,well-organized army of evil people.

The attack is unsuccessful. Immediately, God in-tervenes, burns them up, and begins the last judg-

XfV DOMI? ION AND COMMON GRACE

ment. The resurrection of the dead takes place. Endof history. Curtain call. Boos and cheers from theheavenly host.

The Postmillennialist% ProblemThe postmillennialist argues that the k~ngdom of

God is 10 be progressively manifested on earth be-fore the day of judgment, and therefore before theRapture, which he identifies with the last j~dgment.,,Then how can these events take place? where willall @iose sinners come from? The army of fjatan willbe filled with people who have been re~ited fromthe nations of the earth, not angels.

We need to consider several possible as~umptions.“ that mat be coloring the exegesis of eithel postmil-

lenniali~ts or the questioners. I

1.! Does a theology of the extension ofGod’~ kingdom on earth require that almosteverybne on earth in the era dose to thpt iin~day de a born-again believer in Christ?

2.! Can born-again believers fall fi-orn graceand ken rebel? In short, can Satan gain re-crui~ from the born-again invisible ‘ch~rch?

3.1 Can unbelievers seein to be sain& in thecampl of the saints, almost as spies who. successf-ully invade an enemy military camp? I

4.! How can unbelievers possess ‘.s~ muchpowe$ after generations of Christian dominion?

1 IThe ~ answer to the first two questio~s

Postmillennialism does not require that ~1is “noonor even

PREFACE XV

most people be converts to Christ at that last day.(Prior to the last day, postmillennialism holds, therewill be large numbers of converts, and the civiliza-tion of the world will generally reflect God’s bibli-

tally revealed law-order.) People at that last dayneed only be externally obedient to the terms of thecovenant, meaning biblical law. This book attemptsto explain how this externally faithfid living mightoperate.

The question of whether saints can fdl fromgrace is not a specifically eschatologieal issue, but Iknow of no postmillennial commentator who be-lieves that men can fall from special (soul-saving)grace. Obviously, if regenerate men can lose theirsalvation, then there is no big problem for the post-millennialist in explaining the final rebellion at thelast day. This book is dealing with a harder problem.

The answer to the third question is yes.” Thecamp of the saints can and will be tiled with peoplewho have the outward signs of faith but not the in-ward marks. In fact, this is the only way out of theexegetical dilemma for the postmillennialist.

If the answer to question number one is “no, noteveryone needs to be a saint,” then this raises a fifthquestion:

Tfow can a world f@ of reprobates be con-sidered a mfiifestation of the kingdom of Godon earth?” .

The answers to the fourth and fifth questions areclosely related to eaeh other. Answering these two

.

XVi OOk INION ANO COMMON 6ibE

questions is what thk book is all about. ~e correctanswers come when we gain a correct understanding

Aof the much-neglected doctrine of comm, n grace. ”The reader should understand in a ante that

?this book is not intended to present the exegetical”~.case fo ~ postmillennid.lism. I no more try o build thecase for postmillennialism here than Van Til tries tobuild tie czpe for amillennialism in Common Grace andthe Gos~el. 1 simply assume it, and then get cm withthe business at hand. This is an exercise in apologet-ics, not systematic. David Chilton’s Parakise Restoredand D@ of V%zgeance have presented t~e case for

i‘postm” Iennialism better than I could o~ any othertheolo ian ever has. @y critic who thi ~ ks that he

?will sc@e cosmic Brownie points by saying, “But

INorth Idoesn’t prove his eschatology” sho ld get onwith k$ business at hand, namely, writing a defmi-

1tive c itique of Chilton’s eschatolo~ bboks. Thatprojec will keep him busy for a few yerud. (Further-more, Lnless he is very, very bright, and very, verygifted Istylistically, it will also end’ his dareer as acritic ~hen he finally gets it into print, t~~e can get itinto p~int.) [

I

‘1 “

l’”

INTRODUCTION

Another parable put he forth unto thm~ saying,The kingdom of haven is likened unto a man whichsowed good seed in hisje!d. But while men slept, hfienemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, andwent his way. But when the b!aa2 wqs sprung up, andbrought forth fiit, then appeared the tares also; So theservants of the householh came and said unto, him,Si~ didst thou not sow good seed in thyjeld? Fromwhence then bath it tares? He said unto them, Anenemy bath done this. The servants said unto him, .Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he “said, Nay; lest whileye gather up the tares, ye root upalso the wheat with them. Let both grow together untilthe havest: and in the tin of hamest I will say to the

reaptns, Gather ye together jrst the tares, and bindthem in bundles to bum them: but gather the what intomy barn (Mutt. 13:24-30).

This passage deals with the kingdom of God. Itraises one of the most important issues in human

I

F2 DDMINI A N D COMMC)il GRACE

@ough 1, the issue of “continuity vs. discontinuity?1The discontinuity in this passage is the final

judgment. Will the owner of the field (God) allow(the sbants (angels) to tear out the tares evil men)

Pbefore -he harvest date (the end of time) The an-swer is no. The owner insists: that the tares be leftalone until both wheat and tares have full; matured,and the harvest day has ceme.

God’s plan for history involves both ~ontinuityand discontinuity. His continuity is His ~ace. TheLord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow toanger, Wd of great mercy” (Ps. 145,:8). ~he phraseslow to &nger is crucial. Eventually, .He b ‘rigs judg-

7.ment, but only after time passes. But ,Jud=fgenteventu@ly comes to the wicked: “The Lo@ preserv-eth all ~em that love him: but all the”wic$ed will hedestrofl (Ps. 145:20). God announced thd followingto Mos~s, after Moses had completed ~is task ofcarvingl the ten comm&dments into two ~tones:

~P@d the Lord passed by before hi~, and

pro+imed, The Lord God, mercifpl ~d gra-cious, Iongsuffering, and abundant in goodness

, and ~ruth, keeping mercy for thoisa~ds, for-~vi+g iniquity and transgression and sin, andthat ill by no means clear the guilty; Ivisiting

rthe ii iquity of the fathers upon the +ildren,and tipon the children’s children, unto ~e thirdand to the fourth generation (Ex. 34:5+7).

TM Lord suffers long; in this case, three or fourgenera+ons. This is exactly what God~ had told

INTRODUCTION 3

‘ Abraham concerning the conquest of the PromisedLand: “Buy in the fourth generation they shall comehither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is notyet full” (Gen. 15:16). In the fourth generation after ,they became subservient to Egypt, the Israelites ~would return. Moses’ generation was the fourth afterJacob came down to Egypt (Levi, Kohath, Amrarn,Moses: Ex. 6:16, 18, 20). They came to the edge ofthe land, but drew back in fear; Joshua’s generationconquered it.

Why the delay in judging the Amorites? Theiriniquity was not yet full. God gave them time to fill itup. He gave them continui~. Then, in Joshua’s day,

he gave them discontinuity. Judgment came at last.So it is with the history of man. God extends time

to all men; then, at the final day (or at the death of”each person), judgment comes. Judgment day con-firms eternal life to the regenerate, and the second -death (Rev. 20:14) to the unregenerate. Continuity isbroken by discontinuity.

Common GraceIf you want a four-word summary of this book,

here it is: common grace is continuity. It is also a preludeto judgment.

The concept of common grace is seldom discussedoutside of Calvinistic circles, although all Christiantheologies must eventually come to grips with theissues underlying the debate over common grace.The phrase was employed by colonial American -Puritans. I came across it on several occasions whenI was doing research on the coldnia.1 Puritans’ eco-

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4. 00MINbN AND COMMON GRACEII

nomic idoctrines and economic experim~nts. Theconcept goes back at least to John Calvin>sl writings. 1

Befr& venturing into the forest of -’theologicaldebate,! let me state what I believe is the rheaning ofthe wo~d “grace.” The Bible uses the ideal in several

lbways, Hut the central meaning of grace is ~ is: a giftgiven t~ God’s creatures on the basis, fi~st, of Hisfavor to His Son, Jesus Christ, the incarnation of thesecond ~ person of “the Trinity, and secorid, on thebasis of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. Grace ‘isnot strictly unmerited, for Christ merits Every gift,but in terms of the merit of the creation ~merit de-served :by a creature because pf its me+ creature- .hood–~here is none. In short, when we sqeak of anyaspect #f the creation, other than the inc~nate JesusChrist,~ grace is defined as an wvnen”tecf g@ Theessenc~ of grace is conveyed in James 1:17: “Everygood g ft and every perfect gift is from ~bove, andcometh down horn the Father of lights, wl~h ~horn isno var” bleness, neither shadow of turning.

?Spei# gruce is the phrase used by the@ogians todescrib~ the gift of eternal salvation. Paul writes:“For b~ grace are ye saved ,through faitd; and thatnot of ~ourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works,lest a’ man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-!

rwrites: “But God commendeth his love tothat, ~hile we were yet sinners, Christ t(Rem. 15:8). God selects those on whom 1mercy fRom.. 9:18). He has chosen these ~

,,

L Joy Calvin, Institutes of the Chrz&n ReGi&nII, Chaqter II, sections 13-17; 11:111:3; III:XIV:2

). He alsomrd us, inied for us”e will haveeople to be

(1559), Book

INTRODUCTION 5

recipients of His gift of eternal salvation, and Hechose them before the foundation of the world (Eph.1:4-6).

But there is another kind of grace, and it is mis-understood. Common grace is equally a ,gift of God toHis creatures, but it is distinguished from specialgrace in a number of crucial ways. The key versethat describes two kinds of grace is I Timothy 4:10:“For therefore we both Iabour and suffer reproach,because we trust in the living God, who is the Sav-

,, iour of all men, specially of those that believe.” Thisverse unquestionably states that Jesus Christ is theSavior of all men, meaning all people. Yet the Bible doesnot teach %.miversalism,” meaning the ethical re-demption of all men. There are saved and lostthroughout eternity (Rev. 20:14). So what does thisverse mean? It means simply that Christ died for allmen, giving unmerited gifts to all men in time and on

earth. Some people go to eternal destruction, andothers are resurrected to live with Christ eternally.But all men have at least the unmerited gift of life, atleast for ,a time. There are therefore two kinds of sal-vation: special (eternal) and temporal (earthly).

A debate has gone on for close to a century with-in Calvinistic circles concerning the nature and real-ity of common grace. I hope that this little book willcontribute some accepbbleanswers to the people ofGod, though I have little hope of convincing those

who have been involved in this debate for 60 years.~ Because of the confusion associated with the term

“common grace,n let me offer James Jordan’s de- \

scription of it. Common grace is the equivalent of

I

6 DOMINKN AND COMMON QRACS

the crumbs that fd from tie master’s table that thedogs eat This is how the Canaanite woman described

ther req est of healing by Jesus, and Jesus healed herdaughtel because of her understanding ~ ftith(Matt. 5:27-28).2 The prime loaf, however, is re-

!lserved f r those who respond in faith to t+e gospel,and wh then persevere in this faith to the end oftheir e9y lives (Matt. 13:8, 23). -~-.

.

I

I Ir Background of the Debate 1~ 1$24, the Cfistim Refow~ Church debated

the subject of common grace, and the deci$on of theSynod led to a major division withii the rahks of thedenomination which has yet to be healed~ The de-bate was of considerable interest to Dutch alv~istsFon both sides of the Atlantic, although aditional

YAmerican Calvinists were hardly aware of the issue,dand Ar@nian churches were (and are ~til) com-

pletely +naware of it. Herman Hoeksema~ who wasperhapsl the most brilliant systematic the~logian inAmeric~ in this century, left the Christian ReformedChurch I to form the Protestant Reformed Church.He and ‘his followers were convinced that! contrary

+to the d cision of the CRC, there is no SUC+ thing ascommo* grace. !

The ~doctrine of common grace, as for+dated in(

2. Do+ in Israel were not highly loved animals, ~so the anal-1

ogy with common grace is blblkally legitimate. “And ye shall beholy men ~unto me neither shall ye eat any flesh @t is tom ofbeasts in e field ye shall cast it to the dog%” (Ex. 22:31). If weassume 2,at God loves pagans the way that moderd people lovetheir do%, then the analogy will not fit.

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INTRODUCTIW 7

the disputed Wwee points” of the Christian Re-formed Church in 1924, asserts the following:

1. Concerning tbfavorable attitude of God to-ward mankind in general and not only toward the elect,the Synod declares that according to Scriptureand the Confession it is certain that, besides thesaving grace of God bestowed only upon thosechosen to eternal life, there is also a certainfavor or grace of God manifested to His crea-tures in general. . . .?

2. Concerning the restraint of sin in the lfe oftk indivtiual and of sochy, the Synod declaresthat according to Scripture and the Confessionthere is such a restraint of sin. . . .4

3. Concerning theperjornzance of so-called eiuic ‘righteousness by the unregenerate, the Synod de-clares that according to Scripture and the Con-fession the unregenerate, although incapable ofany saving good (Canons ofDort, III, IV:3), canperform such civic good. . ..5

These principles can seine as a starting point fora discussion of common grace.

3. R. B. Kuiper, To Be or Not to Be Rejormd: Whither the Chris-tzkn Refd Church? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan,1959), p. 105. Van TII’s version was taken from Tk Banner (June1, 1939), and differs slightly in the wording. I have decided to useKuiper’s summary. Van TI1, C6mmon Grace, in Common Grace amtthe Gospel (Nutley, New Jersey: Presbyterian& Reformed, 1972),p p . 1 9 - 2 0 .

4. Za%?n.. . 5. Ibti., pp. 105-6.

8 DOMINION AND COMMOWGRACE

The serious Christian eventually will be facedwith @ problem of explaining the goo$ once hefaces the biblical doctrine of evil. James 1:~7 irAofius that all good gifts are fmm God. The s~e point ismade in Deuteronomy 8:18. It is clear that the unre-generate are the beneficiaries of God’s g-ii%!. None ofthe paricipanta to the debate denies the ekistence ofthe gif . What is denied by the Protestant Reformed

1critics i that these gifts imply the@of of ~d as fhr asthe unregenerate are concerned. They categorically’deny the first point of the origin+ three points.

1

For the moment, let us reffi from using theword grace. Ititead, let us hit ourselves t the word.@. The existence of gifts from God raises a wholeseries of questions:

I 1 ,,.

Does a gift from God imply His fa~or?Does an unregenerate man pos~ess the

power to do good? IIfoes the existence of good behavio~ on the

part ~f the unbeliever deny the doctrin~ of totaldepr@ity? I

~oes history reveal a progressive se~arationbetd~en saved and lost?

Iwould such a separation necessaril~ lead to

the t~iumph of the unregenerate? .,,1

~‘ Ih there a common ground intellectually be-twee~ Christians and non-Christians?

@n Christians and non-Christians ~cooper-ate +ccessfully in certain areas? ~

‘ 1

INTRODUCTION 9

Do God’s gifts increase or decrease overtime?Will the cultural mandate (dominion cove-

nant) of Genesis 1:28 be fulfilled?

This little book is my attempt to provide prelimi-nary answers to these questions.

Challenging Van TilThis book is basically ‘a refutation of Prof. Cor-

nelius Van Til’s book, Common Gpce and Ihe Gospel, acompilation of his essays on common grace. It iswithout question the worst book he ever wrote. It isalso one of the most confusing books he ever wrote,given the relative simplicity of the topic. It was notas though he was trying to aqalyze and refute the ar-cane mental meanderings of some dead Germantheologian. It is possible to write a clear book oncommon grace.

It is not that Van Til’s book is not filled withmany important insights into many philosophicaland theological problems. The trouble is, these in-sights are found in any of a dozen other of his books.The vast bulk of these insights really did not belongin Common Grace and the Gospel. If he had removedthem, he would have s-pared us all a lot of time andtrouble, not to mention a lot of extra paper-and itpossibly would have spared us several of his mis-takes. But probably not. Van Til has referred tohimself as a stubborn Dutchman.G He clings to his

6. William White, Jr., Mn Til: Dej%%r’ofh Fuz”th (Nashville,Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1979), p. 89.

10 DOMIN!ON AND COMMON GRACE I

favorite mistakes with the same ferven~ that he ,clings t hk favorite truths.? I

Thi$ raises a much-neglected point. Vdn Til is anenigma ~to those of us who studied under h~m or whohave st@ggled through his books. His books arealways ~filled with brilliant insights, but ~ it is verydificultl to remember where any single insight ap-peared.’ They are scattered like loose ~diarnondsthroughout his writings, but they never seem to fit inany particular slot. Any given insight might just aswell be in any of his books — or all of them. (In fact,it may Be in all of them.) They & not syst.~maticallyplaced brilliant insights. They are just brdliant. Hemakes ood use from them, too; he repeats the same

\1ones in many of his books. “No use thr~wing this

away

1

er only one time; it’s almost like n~w. I’ll useit again!” The man is clearly Dutch.

His most effective critical arguments ~ound thesame i$ every book. Randomly pick up a coverless

Van Td book, and start readin~ you +y not besure f~m the development of the ar~~ents justwhat ~e book is about, or who it is Intended torefute. ~is books all w“md up talking abouf the samethree dbzen themes. (Or is it four dozen?] Just keepreading~ You will probably find his favon~e Greeks:Plato, Who struggled unsuccessfully to reconcile Par-menide~ and Heraclitus. But only rarely wfil you finda footm$e to one of their primary source documents.’

7. ‘l%e~ remarkable thing is that Van TI1 knows!h~ primary

1’source m terial better than most philosophers. Ad a graduatestudent q Princeton University, he studied unde~ the famousand rlgorpus classical scholar-philosopher, A. A. Bowman. He

\,INTRODUCTION 11

Kant’s name will be there, too, but only in a four-page string of quotations from a book written in 1916or 1932 by a scholar you have never heard of. (Nodirect citations fmm Kant? Hardly ever. Phenomen-al!) He will refer to a Bible verse occasionally, butthe rarest diamond of all is a page of detailed Bibleexposition.B You will learn about univocal and equi-vocal reasoning. Continuity will be challenging dis-continuity. Rationalism will be doing endless battlewith irrationalism. The one will be smothering themany, whenever the many aren’t overwhelming theone. (These last four conflicts are, if I understand “him correctly, all variations of essentially the sameintellectual problem.)

Watch for his analogies. Rationalism and irra-tionalism will be taking in each other’s washing for aliving. There will be a chain of being lying aroundsomewhere, probably right next to the infinitely longcord that the beads with no holes are supposed todecorate. Some child will be trying to slap herfather’s face while sitting on his lap, and someoneout ~n the garage will be sharpening a buzz saw thatis set at the wrong angle. Warning if you don’twatch your step, you could trip over the full-bucketproblem. And so it goes, book after book.

and his two fellow students (inclutlng another of my teachers,Philip Wheelwright) would be assigned a passage in Plato or

Aristotle in the original Greek. They would then go into the sem-inar to discuss what they had read.

8. An exception is the first hzilf of The &d ~Ho@ (Phillips-burg, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1978). Thesechapters are sermons. But there is not much exegesis even here.

12 DO&lON AND COMMON GRACEI

What memorable analogies! But w~ere dld Iread the one about the ladder of water rising out ofthe water to the water above? Which ba~ argumentof which philosopher did that one wash away?

W~t we need is a 5-inch laser disk $ooked to aSony :.. scratch that . . . a Philips (I+tch) laserdisk p~ayer with a microchip, with all of ~is works onthe di$k, plus a computer program that’ will search

J every ~phrase and pull the one we w~t onto thescreen! in three seconds. The technology exists; themarke~ for his works doesn’t. Sad. i

I

Puzzlik.g IF. ~~. Hayek says that great schol~rly minds

come in two types. There are system-bui~ders whosemindsl encompass huge amounts of seemingly dis-parat~ information and then pull them i$to a coher-ent whole. There are also those who Hayek callspuzzl~rs. These men take the great sys~ems, breakthem into scattered sections, and start ~ointing outthe p~oblems with every single part, often from apersp~ctive that few people have tho&ht of andfewer bet can follow.g

1

V n Til is a classic puzzler. In (non-brute) fact,he bu” t his epistemology quite frankly in terms of hisview t at all man’s attempts to build tot~ly cornpre-hensi~e, systems are doomed to failutie, that allhum+ thought is the exercise of puzzling. God is in-

1

9. F~ A. Hayek, “Two Types of Mind? Encou~ (Sept. 1975);reprint~d in Hayek, MO Studies in .Philosoph~ Po[ft&s, Economicsand the Ikfis60?y oj I&as (Chicago: University of ~hkago Press,1978), +h. 4. !

I

INTRODUCTION 13

finite; man is finite. Man’s mind will never compre-hend (surround, encircle) God. Man’s mind willtherefore never encompass any aspect of the crea-tion, for every atom is related’ to God, and thisbrings God back into the picture. The atom, too, isincomprehensible by man’s finite mind. But Godcomprehends Himself and His creation, so we mustgo to God’s Word to begin locating the proper ways topuzzle through any problem. As the person whokeeps turning a blade of grass over and over, getting . . .

,more knowledge of it each time, but never seeing bothsides at once, so is man’s ability to observe and think.

Van Til takes any system you hand him, and hebreaks it down into its component parts, turning thepieces over and over in his mind, finding out what itis and how it works. The problem is, “he never putsthe pieces back toge~er. He just leaves them scat-tered around on the floor. “Next!n

On the floor, in pieces, they all look pretty muchalkke. Go ahead. Pick up that scrap of Barthianism.The one over there. No, no–the other one. (Molly

‘ oth.) Doesn’t it resemble a fragment from Kant? Oris it more like Heraclitus? Or could it really be adirect descendent of Plato?

One thing you will recognize for sure: it’s hu- .manism.l”

The Wrong QuestionsVan Til has only a finite number of questions to

ask about each system, and some are his special

10. Van TI1, Chrzkiwzity and Barthiankm (Philadelphia Presby-terian & Reformed, 1962).

\

I14 OOMI$ION AND COMMON GRACE Ifavorites. These are the ones he usuall~ asks. Of

course, he has lots more in reserve. The trouble is,he sorretimes asks less appropriate questions, justbecause he likes his favorites so much. Co 1 mon GraceTand the Go@d suffers from this flaw. Othef questionsshould pave been asked, but he is determmed to askthe qu+stions he wants to ask, and othe~ just willnot do.~ Even better ones. I

In ~is book, I try to ask better questions.Wh~ attack Van Tll? Because he is the best. If

sope $eological nonentity had written CommonGrace a+d the Gospel, it would not matter~ if anyonereplied Ito him. But it matters with Van T!. He is theman who has reconstructed Christian ph~osophy inour tim~, by far the most important Chrisdan philos-opher of all time. His dissecting and pu+zling havecut apart all the alternative systems. He hb knockedall the Humpty Dumpties off their respective walls.But wl@ he goes in to try to put a c.+ of biblicaleggs in ~their place, he sometimes slips in Me goo.

He ~imply slipped up (or fell down) wi~ CommonGnwe a~ the Gospel. I

So, ~ what is wrong with his book o+ commongrace? First, it is cluttered up with extraneous mate-

rial. T$e book is filled with questions ~oncerningPlatonjk reasoning, Roman Catholic apologetics,and o~er specialized philosophical topics~ But thesetopics

t

e not the heart of the debate ove~ commongrace. s with everything else Van Til writes ‘about,he can 1 use them to illustrate philosophi~al topics,but in ~this case, this overemphasis on philosophymisleads the reader. It steers him away fr~m the key

,

INTRODUCTION 15

issue. This is my second (and major) criticism.What the common grace debate is about, above

all, is histwy. The issue of common ~ace asks: Whatis the history of the saved and the lost in God’sscheme of things? Where are men headed, and. why?We find the answer right wheke Van Til always sayswe must search for every philosophical answer: inethics.

In short, common grace is about eschatoZogy. Andit is here that Van Til’s stubborn Dutchmanship isrock-hard. He will not budge. He is an amillennial-ist. Worse: he is an undeclared amillennialist. Hebuilds his whole theory of common grace in terms ofhis hidden eschatology, probably never realizing theextent to which his seemingly philosophical exposi-tion is in fact structured by his assumptions concern:ing eschatology.

So forget about Plato. Forget about St. ThomasAquinas. Forget about univocal vs. equivocal rea-soning. Keep your eye on his prophetic &rt. If it iswrong, then the whole book is wrong.

And just to get my position straight right fromthe beginning, let me say this: his prophecy chart iswrong.