Three hallmarks of Grace.

"Drie keursteenen van genade alzoo.  De ééne gehell personlijk, de witte keursteen, waarop een naam gegraveerd staat, die allen Gode en unzelven bekend is.  Dat is de gansch particuliere genade.  De tweede een keursteen van Verbondsgenade, een zalig goed u gemeen met al Gods kinderen. En de derde een keursteen van algemeene menchelijke genade, u omdat gij kind des menschen zijt toegekomen, en u, niet alleen met al God kinderen, maar met alle kinderen der menschen gemeen."  A. Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie I  (Kampen: J. H. Kok, n.d.) p.8

Calvinists and Neo-Calvinists are big on Grace, and I am puzzled by this passage.  So as a follow up of Yesterday’s post I should like to comment on what I find of interest here.

There seems to be three types (hallmarks, markers) of grace bestowed on humans from the Deity, and we ought to be familiar at least with the particular grace.  I experienced this one well, by being delivered from the throes of Cancer, and being allowed to again be with family and friends, whom I love and hold dear.  That grace cannot be denied and we all seem to have experienced it sometime in our lives.  Of course some don’t think about it, but if one meditates on the blessings received, one is bound to come up with some particular grace received. 

The second and third Kuyper mentions are difficult to distinguish, perhaps it is the wording, but the difference is obviously subtle, perhaps very subtle.  The second of course is the common grace we receive in community with our fellow human beings as children of God.  The third, however, comes not as merely common to all children of God, but as children of the common Humanity.  Here yesterday’s post and my friend’s insight are quite à propos.  Clearly as communities of God’s children we receive grace beyond measure and beyond what we often deserve.  That’s the thing about grace, we get it when we do not deserve it - it is an undeserved gift. But the third comes not from any experience of community, but from the insight that “we are all human”.  Humanity is here again the watchword of what the Christ and His message is about. 

In a sense, this grace comes as the grace of the Christ who by being that paradigm of Humanity we are given to follow Him as that paradigm, to love Him and cherish our humanness we have in Him.  To believe in the Christ is in some sense to believe in the paradigm of Humanity - perhaps to believe in Humanity itself.  My Neo-Calvinist friends may think I am turning Kuyper on his ear, but I think not. There is a categorical difference between this notion of Humanism and what has come to be known as “Secular Humanism”. From Justin Martyr to the Reformers, Humanism has played a role in explicating the Christian message. Discussing her insight with her, I discovered my friend’s thinking that the insight is clearly obvious, but often little talked about or realized, perhaps because it is so obvious.  Perhaps it is like the glasses on my face, they’re obviously there, but I do not see them, I look past (through) them and miss the fact that they are there.  The insight may likewise be so obvious that we look past (through) it and miss the fact of it all, right there in front of our mind’s eye.  Yes, our human faults are there, but much more, our human positives are also there in our humanness - our common heritage of rational beings, capable of choices, capable of love, capable of failure, and yes, with all our character flaws.  But those flaws of character are not the end or the defining characteristic of us, they are rather the initium of a learning experience and struggle to overcome our flaws and perfect ourselves.  This is our choice to overcome our faults and perfect our being in Christ, the paradigm of Humanity – to elevate ourselves in (with) God’s grace freely given.

It may be thought that I am advocating a form of Christian Humanism.  Yes I am, I remind the reader that the so called Northern Renaissance was tied to the Reformation and it was the Humanism of that Renaissance that gave birth to the Reformation.  So ought I advocate a form of Humanism?  Yes indeed, I ought and so ought every Christian with any thought to the meaning of Grace and the nature of Christ as “son of Man” (ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου).