Common Grace – The Solution to God’s Sovereignty Over Sin and Human Responsibility

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

According to Scripture, all people since the fall of Adam and Eve are conceived in sin (Ps 51:5), born into a state of spiritual deadness (Eph 2:1), utterly hopeless in and of themselves as they are born into a state without God (Eph 2:12), “alienated and hostile in mind” (Col. 1:21), lovers of inequity (Jer 14:10; cf. Col 1:21), enemies of God (Rom. 5:10), hostile to God (Rom 8:7), completely incapable of pleasing God (Rom 8:8), “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (Eph 4:18), foolish in their thoughts (Rom 1:21), hardened in their hearts (John 12:40), and enslaved by sin (John 12:34). Given their fallen state, people are born trapped into a state where no hope for salvation exists within themselves.

Since humanity lies in a state of complete spiritual helplessness where the doom of death and the eternal sentence of hell is all that awaits, the Bible offers hope beginning with the truth that God is able to provide salvation Himself (Gen. 49:18; 1 Sam. 2:1; Ps 3:8; 21:1; 35:9; 37:39; 98:2; 149:4; Isa 43:11; 45:21–22; Jonah 2:9; Acts 4:12; Rev 19:1). As the only means of salvation, God reveals a salvation that is built solely on His grace (i.e., His saving or special grace) apart from any works (efforts) of humanity (cf. Acts 15:11; Rom. 3:20–30; 4:5; 5:1; 6:23; Gal. 2:16; 3:8–14, 24; Eph. 1:7; 2:5, 8–9; Phil. 3:9; Titus 3:5; Rev. 1:5).

The root of God’s saving grace is found in His will. Before the creation of the world, the Triune God chose to create all that is, to endow humanity with a free will, to allow Satan to tempt Eve, to send Christ, to crucify Him, to redeem the Elect (those chosen for salvation), and to judge the world (Acts 11:18; 13:48; Rom. 8:28–30; Eph. 1:4–5; Col. 3:12; 1 Thess. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1–2; 2:9). God, therefore, knew before time began that sin would enter the world.

God’s foreknowledge of evil begs the obvious concern about His potential culpability in regard to the evil which has been committed according to His divine plan which included a creation that would be marred by sin. To resolve this dilemma, a plethora of theories have been proposed. Among others, some suggest God foreknew sin would occur, but had no means to control it. This argument, however, quickly breaks down when one realizes that God could have simply abandoned his plans for creation from the start, created man without a free will, or prevented Satan from entering into the creative order.

Besides the argument of simple foreknowledge, others posit that a good and loving God had no choice but to endow humanity with a free will, and therefore, their sinful choices are not His direct responsibility. Once again, this attempt to salvage the Lord’s reputation fails because He could have not created the world to begin with, and if He did, He could have prevented Satan from poisoning it with his deceit.

Along with the aforementioned more common arguments that attempt to disassociate God from the evil perpetrated by His creatures, one rather odd argument has been submitted by Leighton Flowers, who is more focused on pushing his idea of libertarian free will and disputing Calvinists than he is in making sure that his theology checks out with sound exegesis of Scripture (with all doctrines being given their due in his systematic theology). In his view, God’s “actual eternal attribute” is His “omnipotence, and His “[s]overeignty is a temporal characteristic” whereby “God is as controlling as He chooses to be over His creation.”[i] By stripping God of His eternal sovereign will while at the same time exposing a root of open theism (see endnote) in his supposedly sound and biblical theology, Flowers unwittingly (as of course he does not see the flaw in his systematic theology) removes any overarching eternal purpose or plan from the creation narrative.[ii] Instead, he posits a world that has arisen out of powerful workings of omnipotent God who, in the absence of any constraints afforded by the existence of an eternal sovereign will, is left with no other guide but His love.

In his own words, Flowers says that “God’s very nature is love, therefore it is not even an option for Him to ‘not love His creation’.”[iii] He further contends that God’s love emanates from His power and becomes the all-encompassing, controlling aspect of His nature and His gospel to the world: “God’s inability to be unloving is not a shortcoming of God’s strength and power, but the greatest most glorifying characteristic of His eternal nature! To declare God’s universal self-sacrificial love to the entire world reveals God for what makes Him so abundantly glorifying.”[iv]

By making God’s love the predominant aspect of His Being, Flowers essentially positions God to become a bumbling fool who is left with little option other than catering to the whims of His creatures who may or may not make free will responses to His love even while such responses exist beyond His sovereignty. Despite the glaring weaknesses of his stance, which have been exposed in part in the aforementioned discussion, Flowers proceeds along his course due to what he believes to be a major weakness in the Calvinistic position which is affirming God’s sovereignty over creation including free will choices of creatures.

In his attack on Calvinism, he asks how God can be patient with those conceived in sin and kind to those whose decisions, which are ultimately controlled by God, lead them to hell.[v] He ponders, as he considers the Calvinistic proclamation of God’s sovereignty, how God can placate people with momentary delights while preparing an eternal destiny for them without any option of escape since He Himself somehow manifests control of their free wills.[vi] In response to his probing questions, the Calvinist typically affirms God’s sovereignty (see Scripture references in paragraph 3) alongside human responsibility for their free will choices.

In the Bible, people are called upon to respond to the gospel by repenting of sin (Matt 3:2; 4:17; Mark 6:12; Luke 5:32; 13:3, 5; 15:7, 10; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; 26:20; 2 Peter 3:9) and placing their faith in Christ (Mark 1:15; Luke 8:12; John 1:12; 3:15–18; 4:39, 53; 5:24; 6:29, 35, 40, 47; 7:38; 9:35–38; 11:25–26; Acts 16:31; Rom 1:16; 10:9–10; 1 Cor 1:21; Gal 3:22; Eph 1:13; 1 Tim 1:16; 1 John 3:23; 5:1, 13). Each person’s response to the gospel is shown to be his/her responsibility to do both, and should they fail to respond in repentance and faith, God in His Word condemns them to eternal damnation (Matt 11:20–21; 12:41; John 3:36; 12:36–40; 2 Thess 2:12; Jude 5; Rev 9:20–21; 16:9, 11).

Holding to such clear biblical affirmation of both God’s sovereignty and humanity’s freedom of will, the Calvinists seem to have themselves at the mercy of their critics who, along with Flowers, accuse them of both making God responsible for the evil of His creatures and unjustly condemning His creatures to hell for making choices that were beyond their full control due to the constraints of God’s character. In response, Calvinists typically take what is known as the compatibilist position whereby God is fully sovereign and humanity is fully responsible for their choices. For compatibilists, all people make free will choices to sin because they are by nature sinners who are born trapped in a state of sinfulness due to Adam’s original sin. Such is their hopeless state that they are utterly incapable of choosing to repent and believe in response to the gospel apart from God choosing to impart to them (in a regenerating manner) His gifts of repentance and faith. In support of this view, they appeal to the aforementioned Scriptures that support God’s sovereignty and human responsibility along with passages that demonstrate that both repentance and faith are gifts of God (Acts 11:18; Eph 2:8-9; 2 Tim 2:25). Under the compatibilists’ framework, those whom God neglects to give these saving gifts are ultimately condemned due to their sins (arising from their free will decisions) because God chose not to graciously act personally and salvifically on their behalf and instead left them to the consequences of their evil decisions.

In response to the position of those espousing compatibilism, Flowers accuses them of positing the absurdity of a God who sovereignly brings about sin “in order to glorify Himself, and yet He does so without sinning.”[vii] In his rejection of what he at times calls the hard or meticulous determinism (see endnote) of compatibilistic Calvinists, he proudly declares, “No consistent Calvinist has ever provided an answer to this question.”[viii]

Despite professing to be a former Calvinist and positing himself as being able to offer a well-developed critique of Calvinistic theology due in part to his experience as an insider, in his book entitled The Potter’s Promise, Flowers seems to lack basic knowledge of what is known as common grace among Calvinists.[ix] So common is this teaching on common grace among Calvinists that even whole sermons have been dedicated to it. One prominent and contemporary Calvinist (who Flowers frequently quotes at other times), who gave just such a sermon,[x] defines common grace as “a term theologians use to describe the goodness of God to all mankind universally. Common grace restrains sin and the effects of sin on the human race. Common grace is what keeps humanity from descending into the morass of evil that we would see if the full expression of our fallen nature were allowed to have free reign.”[xi]

To explain the issue related to how humans can bear full responsibility for their sin even while God remains sovereignly in control over their decisions, Calvinists like MacArthur see God as taking a restraining role in regard to sin as opposed to an active role. In this view, humanity and God’s creation could have been plunged fully into the utmost depths of sinful depravity the moment Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, but instead of allowing this to occur, God applied His common grace to humanity and His creation so they would be divinely enabled and prevented from descending any further into depravity than God Himself allowed for. In other words, God is not proactive in humanity’s sinful choices and therefore not sovereignly responsible. Rather, He retains His sovereign control by proactively acting against sin and in favor of righteousness by graciously preventing humanity from becoming as sinful as they otherwise would be apart from His efforts.

To support the concept of common grace, the Calvinists find ample evidence from Scripture. To begin with, after confronting Adam and Even in regard to their sin and then cursing them, the creation, and the devil, God clothed them before sending them into a life of suffering which in and of itself is a means of common grace (Gen 3:20-24; Lam 3:22). When David became angry and desired revenge against Nabal, God restrained him (1 Sam 25:14, 26). David even acknowledges God’s common grace by saying these words concerning his intended actions toward Nabal: “the Lord God of Israel lives…has restrained me from harming…Nabal” (1 Sam 25:34).[xii]

Beyond these narrative-based depictions of God’s common grace, Paul teaches that God has endowed humanity with a conscience that resists evil by affirming God’s counsel on right and wrong (Rom 2:15). Furthermore, He sovereignly appoints the governments that oversee human society (Rom 13:1–5). Along with His provision of a conscience and governmental controls, God graciously provides many kindnesses to both the redeemed and unredeemed (Matt 5:45).

Just as God restrains evil, He also has the capacity to release it by judicially hardening the hearts of those who continually give themselves over to sin. This hardening occurs as God allows them to pursue the sin that they love. In other words, they are hardened because they harden themselves by choosing to sin and God neglects to further prevent the hardening from occurring to whatever degree He wishes by simply no longer affording to them the same degree of common grace (Ex 4:21; Josh 11:20; Is 63:17). As the Psalmist declares, God “gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, [t]o walk in their own devices” (Ps 81:11-12). Likewise, Paul writes, “God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Rom 1:28).

In conclusion, the Scriptures clearly reveal that God is sovereignly in control even while humanity remains personally accountable to Him for their sin. Despite His sovereignty, His honor can in no way be impugned because He maintains His control over sinful humanity not by meticulously controlling their decisions (sinful or otherwise) but by controlling the degree to which He chooses to impart common grace on their behalf. Despite contentions by those who prefer to leave the safety of the Calvinistic and biblically founded argument known as compatibilism, this system still offers the best solution to explain how a perfectly good God could sovereignly predetermine a world where free will beings would choose to sin and yet at the same time be free of direct responsibility for the free will choices of those beings.

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[i]Leighton C. Flowers, The Potter’s Promise: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Soteriology (Coppell, TX: Trinity, 2017), 37. Amazingly and even sadly, this author represents the supposedly conservative Southern Baptists of Texas Convention as the Director of Apologetics and Youth Evangelism for Texas Baptists (at least at the time of publication of this work).

[ii]Also known as openness theology and free will theism, open theism attempts to harmonize the foreknowledge of God with the free will of humanity. In this view, God is presented as incapable of knowing the future because such knowledge would work against a truly free will. This system, thus, protects God from accusations of wrongdoing based on the free will decisions of His creatures. Nevertheless, it impugns His sovereign will.

[iii]Flowers, The Potter’s Promise, 26.

[iv]Ibid., 26-27.

[v]Ibid., 21.

[vi]Ibid.

[vii]Ibid., 54.

[viii]Ibid., 54, 62. Hard or meticulous determinism refers to the idea that God determines all things in His creation including even the sinful decisions ultimately made by humanity. This position directly connects God to the sin of His creatures. As stated earlier in this article, Flowers prefers to afford humanity what is sometimes called a libertarian free will where humanity is not so inhibited by sin (whether it be Adam’s or their own) that they are by default prevented from responding freely of their own volition to the gospel via repentance and faith. Under his system, repentance and faith are free volitional acts of humanity and not divinely imparted gifts to those chosen by God (i.e., the Elect). Those who by the fault of their own choice reject the gospel, according to Flowers, are justly judicially hardened by God in response to their free will decision to respond negatively to His gracious offer.

[ix]Ibid., 1.

[x]John Macarthur, Divine Compassion in Common Grace, Grace to You (October 13, 2002), available at: https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-117/divine-compassion-in-common-grace.

[xi]John Macarthur, “The Universal Grace of God,” Grace to You, available at https://www.gty.org/library/Questions/QA194/The-Universal-Grace-of-God.

[xii]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.