In recent decades, there has been a tendency for neo-Calvinists to misapply Abraham Kuyper’s vision of common grace. They twist common grace into the slogan “grace is everywhere.” But this claim sucks the life out of common grace by making it a blanket approval for any and all works from non-Christians. In looking for grace everywhere, these thinkers go bobbing for apples in toilets. But that is not Kuyper’s vision.

In Kuyper’s work, Common Grace describes the work that God does in restraining unregenerate men from doing evil continually and instead enables them to do limited good in the world. This teaching comes from key passages in the Bible: God sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45), fathers who are evil know how to give good gifts to their children (Matt 7:11), and more. John Calvin teaches this truth in connection with man’s fallen nature. He teaches that unregenerate Man is not absolutely evil in all actions and in fact often does real positive good in the world, including in scholarly works. Calvin writes: “But if the Lord has willed that we are helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance.” (pg. 275, Institutes of Christian Religion)

To set the record straight, Abraham Kuyper understood and promoted the clear biblical teaching that there is an antithesis in the world. That is, the world is divided into good and evil and we must be vigilant to guard the good and reject the evil. This starts in our own hearts and so we must be on our guard.

Kuyper in his own time was aware of and fought against the idea that there is some grace to be found in even in errors. He specifically notes that some will claim: “there is a grain of truth in every error, and we must give that error some time for its germ of truth to sprout and develop.” (pg. 62) He rejects that claim calling it a “veiled pantheism.”

Kuyper points Christians back to Satan’s lie in the garden which was the claim that man could be God. This claim tried to mingle something that God had divided: man’s creaturely nature and God’s divine nature. Satan tried to blend good and evil claiming that it will lead to something better. But a good juice steak covered in a thin layer of dung is still nasty.

Kuyper, in particular, warned about the danger of trying to mix the biblical doctrine of creation with Darwin’s evolution. He rightly recognized in his own time that the theory of Darwin was antithetical to the Bible. There is no middle ground for Christianity and Evolution. The world was made by our heavenly father who guides everything by his sovereign grace. This world is not a jumbled mess of evolving matter. Kuyper explicitly teaches, “Thus you recognize that the cosmos, instead of being a heap of stones, loosely thrown together, on the contrary presents to our mind a monumental building erected in a severely consistent style.” (pg. 114)

Recognizing the antithesis between good and evil is key in understanding the spiritual battle of our day. If we muddle this up, then we will be confused about who is fighting on which and where we need to be to join the fight.

Kuyper says it this way: “As soon as principles gain ground that are contrary to your deepest convictions, then resistance is your duty and acquiescence a sin. Then, at the price of the finest peace, you must attack those principles, stigmatizing them before the eyes of friend and foe alike with all the ardor of your faith.” (Modernism: A Fata Morgana in the Christian Domain, 89.)