Herman-Bavinck-Common-Grace

COMMON GRACE 57
nature and grace is not possible. But the Reformation saw this relation
differently, and sought the essence of special revelation not in the
mystery, but in grace. The gospel of the Cross, the good news of God's
grace in Christ, that is the mystery which is beyond the grasp of the
natural man and comprehended only by the spiritual man.
According to the Reformation, that which is supra naturam [above
nature] is not the metaphysical doctrine of Trinity, incarnation, and
atonement per se but the content of all this—namely, grace. Not as if the
Reformers wished to banish metaphysics from theology—the separation
of the two proposed by Ritschl is practically speaking not even feasible.
But the metaphysical doctrine taken in itself or for its own sake does not
yet constitute the content or object of our Christian faith.
Not only Luther and Melanchthon but Calvin too considered it idle
speculation to inquire quid sit Deus [what God is]; for us the only point
of importance is to know "how he is, and what pertains to his nature." 6
The person of Christ, the fullness of his grace and truth, is what is new
and peculiar to Christianity. The salvation of the church has no other
ground than the person of Christ. These matters are, in the proper sense
of the words, supra naturam and supra rationem [above reason] with
respect to the natural, unspiritual man. What the heathen did not and
could not know was the "assurance of the divine benevolence towards
us"; 7 no human understanding could grasp "who the true God is and
how he wishes to be toward us." 8 It scandalized the Jews that Jesus
received sinners and tax collectors. That God should forgive sinners
freely, by grace, was foolishness to the Greeks and Romans, who saw
virtue precisely as their own achievement.
Roman Catholicism posits the essence of Christianity in its revelation
of truths that man could never have discovered on his own. Thus the
dogmas of Trinity, incarnation, and atonement in particular had to be
accepted even at the very least fide implicita [by implicit faith] in order to
partake of the heavenly bliss. But the Reformed theologians attempted
to show that all these supernatural truths were in essence known to
Adam before the fall, that they were part of the content of the image of
God, and consequently were "natural" in that they belonged to the being
of man. They said that the Trinity was already known to the first man;
the Son was mediator also before the fall, albeit not of atonement, but of
"Qualis sit et quid eius naturae conveniat."
"Divinae erga nos benevolentiae certitudo."
"Quis sit verus Deus qualisve erga nos esse velit."