Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 05:1 (Nov 1942)
Article: Common Grace
Author: John J. Murray

WTJ 5:1 (Nov 1942) p. 1

Common Grace

John Murray

THE subject of common grace is not only of particular but also of very urgent interest to the person who accepts the witness of Scripture regarding the total depravity of human nature by reason of sin. For if we appreciate the implications of total depravity, then we are faced with a series of very insistent questions. How is it that men who still lie under the wrath and curse of God and are heirs of hell enjoy so many good gifts at the hand of God? How is it that men who are not savingly renewed by the Spirit of God nevertheless exhibit so many qualities, gifts and accomplishments that promote the preservation, temporal happiness, cultural progress, social and economic improvement of themselves and of others? How is it that races and peoples that have been apparently untouched by the redemptive and regenerative influences of the gospel contribute so much to what we call human civilisation? To put the question most comprehensively: how is it that this sin-cursed world enjoys so much favour and kindness at the hand of its holy and ever-blessed Creator?

Elementary acquaintance with the history and literature of this world will convince us that even the heathen have their noble examples of what, to human norms of judgment at least, may be called courage, heroism, honesty, justice, fidelity, and even mercy. Common grace concerns itself with the reason and meaning of this “rich stream of natural life” which existed before Christianity made its appearance and even now continues to flow “underneath and side by side with the Christian religion”.1

In this field of inquiry no name deserves more credit than

WTJ 5:1 (Nov 1942) p. 2

that of the renowned reformer, John Calvin.2 No one was more deeply persuaded of the complete depravation of human nature by sin and of the consequent inability of unaided human nature to bring forth anything good, and so he explained the existence of good outside the sphere of God’s special and saving grace by the presence of a grace that is common to all yet enjoyed by some in special degree. “The most certain and easy solution of this question, however, is, that those virtues are not the common properties of nature, but the peculiar graces of God, which he dispenses in great variety, and in a certain degree to men that are otherwise profane.”3 The elect alone are sanctified by the Spirit; they alone are healed of sin; they alone are created anew. But all creatures by the energy of the same Spirit are replenished, actuated and quickened “according to the property of each species which he has given it...