Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

historical study of Dr. H. Kuiper on Calvin on Common Grace, 11 he even distinguished
three kinds of common grace, namely, universal common grace, general common grace,
and covenant common grace. The Arminians departed from the doctrine of the
Reformation on this point. According to them God gives sufficient (common) grace to
all men, and thereby enables them to repent and believe. If the human will concurs or
co-operates with the Holy Spirit and man actually repents and believes, God confers on
man the further grace of evangelical obedience and the grace of perseverance. Thus the
work of the grace of God is made to depend on the consent of the will of man. There is
no such thing as irresistible grace. Says Smeaton in the work already quoted: “It was
held that every one could obey or resist; that the cause of conversion was not the Holy
Spirit so much as the human will concurring or co-operating; and that this was the
immediate cause of conversion.” 12 Amyraldus of the School of Saumur did not really
improve on the Arminian position by his assumption, in connection with the general
decree of God, that the sinner, while devoid of the moral ability, yet has the natural
ability to believe, an unfortunate distinction, which was also carried over into New
England by Edwards, Bellamy and Fuller. Pajon, a disciple of Amyraldus, denied the
necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the internal illumination of sinners, in order
to their saving conversion. The only thing which he regarded as necessary was that the
understanding, which has in itself a sufficiency of clear ideas, should be struck by the
light of external revelation. Bishop Warburton in his work on The Doctrine of Grace, or the
Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit knows of no saving grace in the accepted sense of
the word, but limits the word “grace” to the extraordinary operations of the Spirit in the
apostolic age. And Junckheim in his important work denied the supernatural character
of God’s work in the conversion of the sinner, and affirmed that the moral power of the
word effected all. The Methodist Revival in England and the Great Awakening in our
own country brought with them a restoration of the doctrine of saving grace, though in
some cases tinged more or less with Arminianism. For Schleiermacher the problem of
the guilt of sin was practically non-existent, since he denied the objective existence of
guilt. And consequently he knows little or nothing of the saving grace of God. Says
Mackintosh: “This central Biblical truth (of divine mercy to sinners) Schleiermacher for
the most part passes by in silence, or mentions only in a perfunctory fashion that shows
how little he understands it.” 13 The doctrine of divine grace is also necessarily obscured
in the theology of Albrecht Ritschl. And it may be said to be characteristic of the whole
11 pp. 179 ff.
12 p. 357.
13 Types of Modern Theology, p. 96.
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