Common Grace is both a theological doctrine within the reformed tradition and the title of a truly monumental book discussing the doctrine by the theologian and statesmen Abraham Kuyper. It is grace from God that is common to all of mankind distinct from both the special grace by which God redeems, sanctifies, and glorifies his people as well as the gift of creation itself.

Kuyper puts it this way, “Common grace issues from God, and from God come all the means that we humans must apply to oppose sin and its consequences in curse and misery.”

But it is God himself who leads us to find the means and instructs us how to use them. And it is precisely the latter that is forgotten. The human inventor of the electric light and electric motor is extolled, but God, who led Edison to discover it, is passed over.

Today, Acton’s Dan Hugger talks with Jordan Ballor, senior research fellow and director of publishing at the Acton Institute and General Editor of the twelve volume Abraham Kuyper: Collected Works in Public Theology, about Kuyper’s exploration of the doctrine in his monumental work Common Grace. 

The third and final volume of this work, jointly published by Lexham Press and the Acton Institute, has recently been published in English translation.

Jordan J. Ballor, PhD at Acton Institute

Common Grace: God's Gifts for a Fallen World, Volume 3

The Abraham Kuyper Collection

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