Hi all,
I'm new on this website, but I'd appreciate a discussion on this topic to bring up further ideas of study.
I'm trying to get a better understanding of how the common grace of God and the special grace of God, 'overlap' and inter-work somewhat, for an assignment I'm doing on the same topic, in studying for a diploma of theology I'm completing. Its important to me that I feel like I have exhausted all aspects of this topic.
So far I have defined special grace as follows:
special grace is (A) the, ‘decision in eternity’, or the decision God has made in eternity to elect the Christian to become His child. God who inhabits eternity, has decided to elect a group of people and to give them eternal life (praise God I am amongst this number), coupled with (B) the changes in a person destined to be a Christian, which are solely attributable to the Holy Spirit which occur both before and after the instantaneous moment of conversion, which cannot be attributed to the Common Grace of God, which lead them to accept Christ by faith.
We know Special grace is irresistible / Common grace is not. Special Grace works to renew the nature of man to make him able to accept Christ.
An example of Common grace I would think is a Christian acting as the salt of the Earth. The drunken father after becoming converted, being kind to his kids and being a blessing to them is the common grace of God; perhaps how the common grace interrelates with special grace is where the converted father now takes his children to Sunday school which leads to his son coming to Christ and being saved. I'm not delving into the other aspects of Common grace (science / music / beauty of this world etc) as I'm specifically interested in how it interrelates with Special grace.
Does anyone else have any other ideas or possible examples please of how the 2 could interrelate? Ive got Louis Berkof as my main text. It seems like study of this subject naturally leads to a consideration of the flaws of Peliganism and the various heresies which fall under that umbrella.
Thanks to anyone / everyone in advance! I'd really appreciate anyone's feedback or ideas.
I'm new on this website, but I'd appreciate a discussion on this topic to bring up further ideas of study.
I'm trying to get a better understanding of how the common grace of God and the special grace of God, 'overlap' and inter-work somewhat, for an assignment I'm doing on the same topic, in studying for a diploma of theology I'm completing. Its important to me that I feel like I have exhausted all aspects of this topic.
So far I have defined special grace as follows:
special grace is (A) the, ‘decision in eternity’, or the decision God has made in eternity to elect the Christian to become His child. God who inhabits eternity, has decided to elect a group of people and to give them eternal life (praise God I am amongst this number), coupled with (B) the changes in a person destined to be a Christian, which are solely attributable to the Holy Spirit which occur both before and after the instantaneous moment of conversion, which cannot be attributed to the Common Grace of God, which lead them to accept Christ by faith.
We know Special grace is irresistible / Common grace is not. Special Grace works to renew the nature of man to make him able to accept Christ.
An example of Common grace I would think is a Christian acting as the salt of the Earth. The drunken father after becoming converted, being kind to his kids and being a blessing to them is the common grace of God; perhaps how the common grace interrelates with special grace is where the converted father now takes his children to Sunday school which leads to his son coming to Christ and being saved. I'm not delving into the other aspects of Common grace (science / music / beauty of this world etc) as I'm specifically interested in how it interrelates with Special grace.
Does anyone else have any other ideas or possible examples please of how the 2 could interrelate? Ive got Louis Berkof as my main text. It seems like study of this subject naturally leads to a consideration of the flaws of Peliganism and the various heresies which fall under that umbrella.
Thanks to anyone / everyone in advance! I'd really appreciate anyone's feedback or ideas.