Herman-Bavinck-Common-Grace

COMMON GRACE 37
traditions are historical consequences of the fundamentally unstable
view of the relation of nature and grace in Roman Catholicism.
Of special interest today is the prescience with which Bavinck's
analysis of culture and theology at the end of the nineteenth century
anticipates developments in the twentieth. He expects the collapse of
optimistic theological liberalism, an event fully realized only after the
First World War with the advent of dialectical theologians. He notes that
the optimistic hopes of modern secular culture are contradicted by
human misery and failure. The rational gods of science and technology
have failed to answer human need. In reaction, many turn to spiritism,
theosophy, and Eastern religions. His description of the end of the
nineteenth century uncannily foreshadows the end of the twentieth. "At
the end of our century, the divinization and vilification of man and the
adoration and denigration of nature are strangely mixed together."
Bavinck's view of common grace articulates a theological worldview
that provides a basis for dealing with fundamental problems of the
twentieth century. It enables us to acknowledge the importance of creation
and human culture as good gifts of God that not only form the
arena of his redemptive activity but are themselves subject to redemption.
Bavinck contends that world flight is not a suitable Christian option.
He affirms human responsibility for culture and creation in the context
of the Creator's ultimate sovereignty and Christ's redemption of all
things. Science and scholarship, art and politics, domestic and public life
all have their basis in common grace. Such grace sustains the creation
order even while all things await renewal by God's salvific grace in
Christ.