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Richard Tallach · #**180** (**permalink**) 07-06-2009, 10:17 AM

Dear Ben,

First, after I made a distinction between the two meanings of grace used in arguments for common grace -- i.e., between (1) gifts irrespective of divine intentions and (2) divine intentions of well-being -- you repeated to me that the Bible verses speak of grace as if it is helpful to your argument. Please realize that I am not averse to the actual use of the words "common grace"; I am averse rather to the concept that is usually contained under the label of "common grace." Therefore pointing to verses that mention the word "grace" in some sort for reprobates does not assist your position very well, unless you can show that these verses are showing a divine intention for the well-being of reprobates -- a divine intention for something that will not actually occur. In other words, if you can show only that the "graces" spoken of in Scripture towards reprobate are in the category of (1) above and not (2), then you are not proving your doctrine of common grace.

You haven't yet explained why the Bible uses the term grace about these gifts to the reprobate if they're not gracious in any sense. God doesn't ultimately desire the well-being of the reprobate, but He does proximately for his own good reasons desire their temporal well-being. To flatten things out by saying because of the decree that in time God has nothing but hatred for the reprobate, would make God seem to be less gracious than He is. It would also be misleading to say that in time God has nothing but love for the elect.

Second, identifying an unqualified nuance that exists in God's treatment towards the elect does not assist your proof of common grace. What is necessary is that you show specifically how the nuance involved in God's relationship with the elect allows the concept of common grace. This involves defining and qualifying God's relationship with the elect, not just stating that a nuance exists with the elect; therefore your specific nuance of common grace exists with the reprobate. You have to define and qualify the nuances of God's relationships with the elect and reprobate and show how the relationships are logically connected.

I would have to do further study on this and Common Grace generally. But I don't see that in Scripture, God's relationship with the elect and with the reprobate is purely defined by the decrees to reprobate or elect. God has ultimate purposes for these groups, but he also has multiple proximate purposes in what He does.

Third, if I may not plead for logical consistency, then the analogy of faith that undergirds the entirety of the Reformed faith is gone. There may be some things that are weird to understand, but there are never contradictions in God. Therefore unless you can counter the charge that the concept of common grace is an absolute contradiction, you cannot plead paradox.

You can plead for logical consistency, but where there is a conflict we sometimes have to leave things hanging in our tiny minds. I do not believe that there is any contradiction in God, just that your solution to the apparent conflict is reductionist, simplistic and flattens the data of Scripture. You're basically saying that because you can't understand how references to grace in connection with the non-elect could be really gracious - in the sense that God desires their well-being in some sense (not savingly) - that therefore you will redefine them as hatred on God's part. Why is it important? It makes God seem less gracious than He might be for a start. If you ask me to resolve how God can intend the temporal good of the reprobate and therefore be gracious to them, I don't pretend to have a full answer to that. Who said we would understand God to perfection? Maybe we'll understand better in glory?
I'm not going to jump at a solution when I don't think its the full story.

Fourth, it is certainly true that the Gospel offer is "well-meant" by the preacher (if that is what you are saying), but that is not what the doctrine of the "well-meant offer" is dealing with. That doctrine teaches specifically that God Himself desires for reprobates to repent, which I repudiate. This offer and the view of common grace you are espousing are intertwined if not identical.

Certainly the work of God in the hearts of the reprobate can be mysterious - e.g. the passages in Hebrews - in that He wrestles with some and brings them to conviction and other spiritual experiences, but then leaves them.
But we must never say that He intended to convert them, otherwise they would have been converted.

Fifth, certainly it is the case that reprobates are the ones who turn God's gift unto their own destruction, but you must also realize that God ordains all the reprobates' reactions. It seems that to be consistent with your view that God really desires reprobates' good, but then they twist it to another purpose, is to allow a free-willist view of God. On the contrary, I believe that the correct view is that God's intentions are carried out not only in His actions, but in everything that occurs by His decree, including reprobate reactions. Therefore the fact that reprobates are the ones who turn God's gifts unto their destruction does not imply that the view of common grace you are espousing is true.

Yes. But God does no violence to the reprobate to force them to sin. Therefore their wicked use of grace is their own fault and responsibilty, not God's. Everything is ordained by God for the elect and reprobate. Does it follow that God has nothing but love for the elect and hatred for the reprobate? Nothing-buttery can flatten important points.

I'll bow out of this now. You've obviously read up a lot more on this subject and theology generally, than I have. I'll study it further. We don't see eye to eye, but greater men than us have disagreed about this topic.

Richard.