Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Tallach  At present, I agree with Berkhof when he says,
[...] Along the lines of His election God reveals His love, grace, mercy, and long-suffering, leading to salvation; and in the historical realisation of His reprobation He gives expression only to His aversion, disfavour, hatred and wrath, leading to destruction. But this looks like a rationalistic oversimplification of the inner-life of God, which does not take account of His self-revelation.
Where - for instance - are God's good gifts ever called gifts of God's hatred - to anyone, elect or reprobate? If they are gifts of God's loving-kindness, that is more heaping coals of fire on the heads of those who abuse everything good, than if they were motivated by God's hatred pure and simple. It is because they (and even the elect to some extent) abuse gifts of God's goodness (and not hate) that the sin is so abominable and deserves greater damnation. |
I think the main point of dispute is this quote you said earlier:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Tallach But that still leaves the point that God acting kindly and giving good things is grace if its directed towards a sinner. It may turn out not to be grace in the end but sometimes some Reformed folks look at things only from the perspective of the ultimate purposes of God and not the proximate purposes which He has on the way to achieving His ultimate purposes. |
Your objection is basically that the non-CG view is being too simplistic, not making the distinction between God's ultimate purposes and proximate purposes. IIRC this was what Bahnsen said when the topic of common grace is brought up in
Van Til's Apologetic. He basically says that we need to keep in mind the proximate/ultimate distinction. The Gospel give to reprobates can still be seen as a mark of divine favor and graciousness, even if only proximately.
I think that distinction fails in regards to this issue, basically because of statements like this one:
"It may turn out not to be grace in the end." Considering that God ordains not only His actions but also all human reactions (and His "reactions" to the human reactions, etc.), and considering that God knows exactly for what purpose everything in the universe occurs, I think it's a bit awkward to state that "it may turn out not to be grace in the end." If God never intended for some specific gift to be used towards a reprobate's wellbeing, and if He ordained every step of the process to ensure that this intention was filled out perfectly, then it seems wrong to say that at the moment the gift was given it was still grace. We can say that
from a human perspective we can tell it's a gift from God and we ought to praise Him for it, but we can't tell
from a divine perspective if it is being used ultimately for blessing or for destruction. And seeing as the ultimate doesn't contradict the proximate, the ultimate must be seen as objective (from God's point of view) and the proximate as subjective (from the human's point of view). Consequently it is wrong to provide that distinction as if it can say anything about God's intentions or dispositions.
If God intended from all eternity to create a reprobate for destruction, then at every step of the way that is still His intention.
Again, I must say that I believe the CG position comes up because it is hard to conceive how God may legitimately show kindness and present gifts as a means towards destruction. But this is only because He is the one Being in existence who can ordain free reactions to His actions.