Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Conservative and Liberal Purposes for Government

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Readers should keep in mind Terry Nardin’s insight that the significant divide in modern political thought is not between left and right; it is between those who see the state as an instrument for promoting particular purposes, a conservative view, and those who see it as a framework within which people can pursue their own self-chosen purposes, a liberal view.

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“The terms conservative and liberal have their traditional political theory meanings here and not their meanings in contemporary U. S. political dialogue. The conservative view rests on the assumption that any authority is based on shared beliefs. In other words, a common set of beliefs is constitutive of authority in a social order (de Tocqueville [1835] 1956; Durkheim [1915] 1965: 236-245). The influence of authority is a function of the existence of shared beliefs, values, and practices within a given social setting (Durkheim [1915] 1965: 207; Parsons 1960). The liberal view is that the lack of shared beliefs is what makes authority crucial in social relations. In this view, authority solves the inherent problem of chaos in situations with no substantive agreement between the actors. Having a person in authority solves the predicament of disagreement over what is to be done; in other words, when actors cannot agree on a course of action, they select an actor to make the decision for them (Friedman 1973: 140). This view of authority, often associated with Thomas Hobbes, is based on procedural and not substantive agreement. Any social action is part of what Terry Nardin calls a practical association, which assists not in generating shared goals but in tolerance between people (Nardin 1983: 10-14).”

Robert B. Shelledy, in Church, State, and Citizen: Christian Approaches to Political Engagement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 17, 29-30, n. 5.

Kuyper on the Purpose of Government

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A state is not an end in itself. On the contrary, the life of a state, too, is only a means to prepare for a communal life of a still higher order, a life that is already germinating and someday will be gloriously revealed in the kingdom of God.

In that kingdom there will be perfect harmony. Tensions between maximum freedom for the individual and optimal development of communal life will there be replaced by the worship and adoration of God.

To prepare for that, and to contribute to the coming of that kingdom, the state has the calling to provide already now that higher form of community life that can do what family life is not able to do: namely, to ensure a social life where human persons can deploy their latent strengths in the most untrammeled fashion possible.

Abraham Kuyper, Our Program: A Christian Political Manifesto, ed. Jordan J. Ballor, Melvin Flikkema, and Harry Van Dyke, trans. Harry Van Dyke, Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press; Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, 2015), 44.

Any form of government, however tyrannical and despotic, is still preferable to complete anarchy. And anarchy, we all know, can be created not only by a revolution with incendiary bombs and pavement stones in the palace courtyard, but just as well by a revolution with slogans and ideas aired in cabinet or parliament!

Government is quite different from administration. The deteriorated constitutional situation into which we are gradually entering increasingly encourages putting administration in the foreground and leaving genuine governance in the background, as though it represents an abuse of power or a luxury we can do without.

Abraham Kuyper, Our Program: A Christian Political Manifesto, ed. Jordan J. Ballor, Melvin Flikkema, and Harry Van Dyke, trans. Harry Van Dyke, Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press; Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, 2015), 46.

Jonathan Edwards on the Purpose of Government

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It’s helpful when answering big questions like these to look at the answers of people in other times and other places. Their answers may or may not be right, but they likely share different biases that people of our own time. It’s therefore instructive to look at these answers, to ask if they are biblical, and to ask if they reveal any blind spots we might have as creatures of our own time and place.

Over the next couple days I’ll post quotations from various persons on the question of the purpose of government.

Edwards “preached that magistrates were to ‘act as the fathers of the commonwealth with that care and concern for the public good that the father of a family has for the family, watchful against public dangers, [and] forward to improve their power to promote the public benefit’ [WJE 8:261-62]. Their first three functions of government were to secure property, protect citizens’ rights, and—toward that end—maintain order. . . . Related to these first two functions—protecting property and keeping order—government was also to ensure justice. For Edwards justice was recompense of moral deserts. The evildoer would have evil returned in proportion to his or her evil deeds. Similarly, justice would prevail when the person who loved other received the proper return of his or her love” [WJE 25:321; WJE 8:569].

. . . . . . . . . . .

A fourth responsibility of government for Edwards was national defense. Military force was justified when the ‘rights and privileges’ of a people were threatened or when the ‘preservation of the community or public society requires it.’ If ‘injurious and bloody enemies’ molest and endanger a society it is the duty of government to defend that society by the use of force [WJE 25:133; sermon on Neh. 4:14, WJEO 64].

The next two functions of government referred not to preventable evils but to positive goods—promoting a common morality and a minimum level of material prosperity. The fifth function was to ‘make good laws against immorality,’ for a people that fail in morality would eventually fail in every other way. Rulers therefore were not to ‘countenance vice and wickedness’ by failing to enact legislation against it or enforcing what had been legislated. Sixth, governments were to help the poor. Edwards believed that the state—in his case, a town committee in Northampton—had a responsibility to assist those who were destitute for reasons other than their own laziness or prodigality. The state was also obliged to help the children of the lazy and prodigal. Governmental involvement was necessary because private charity (here Edwards had in mind the charity of churches) was unreliable: ‘In this corrupt world [private charity] is an uncertain thing; and therefore the wisdom of legislators did not think fit to leave those that are so reduced upon such a precarious foundation for subsistence.’ Because of the natural selfishness of all human beings, including the regenerate, it is therefore incumbent upon the Christian to support the state’s efforts to help the destitute [Sermon on Prov. 14:34, WJEO 44; WJE 17:403.]

The seventh and final item in Edwards’s job description for the magistrate was religious. The good ruler was expected to give friendly but distanced support to true religion. During a revival, the magistrate should call a day of prayer or thanksgiving. But he should not try to do much more than that. . . . . In his private notebooks, Edwards reminded himself that the civil authorities were to have ‘nothing to do with matters ecclesiastical, with those things that relate to conscience and eternal salvation or with any matters religious as religious.’ In other words, he would not allow any magistrate to tell his parishioners what church to attend or tell him what to preach .

McClymond & McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 515-17.

The Creation Blessing and the Origin of Governments

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If the Creation Blessing of Genesis 1:26-28 is the foundational text for a biblical theology of government, as argued earlier, then how does one move from the dominion that all mankind is blessed with to a government in which some men rule over others?

Interestingly, this is a matter that engaged political theorists such as Robert Filmer and John Locke. Filmer argued that all governmental authority is patriarchal. Adam was the first ruler because he was the the first father. He sees further evidence that patriarchs were rulers in the fact that Abraham and Esau oversaw armies, that Abraham entered into treaties with kings, and that Judah had the power to sentence Tamar to death. When God established a king in Israel, he did so on a dynastic principle (All of these arguments are found in the first chapter of Filmer’s Patriarcha). The upshot of Filmer’s argument was support for monarchy and opposition to increasing republican and democratic elements.

Locke rejected Filmer’s argument in his First Treatise of Government. Greg Forster summarizes Locke’s counter-proposal:

Locke argues that in God’s design of human nature, the relevant point for this question is that the capacity to have dominion over—to use and destroy—other things, meaning especially the capacities of intellect and will, are present in the entire human species. The need to exercise dominion—the need for food, clothing, etc.—is also diffused throughout the species. Every human being is therefore constructed by God to be an Exerciser of dominion. This implies that no human being is made to be an object of dominion. By nature, then, the human race is in a state of freedom and equality.

Greg Forster, Starting with Locke, loc. 1440.

And the rule of everybody over everybody is not government. Forster again summarizes Locke’s way of thinking:

So someone must have authority to enforce the natural law, since it is God’s law and cannot be void. Yet no particular person has a specific mandate to such authority, either from nature or revelation.

Locke takes these premises and makes a bold deduction. If someone must have authority to enforce the natural law, yet no particular person has a specific mandate for it, it must follow that—at least by nature—everyone has that authority equally.

Greg Forster, Starting With Locke, loc. 1448.

From this starting point Locke reaches government by consent of the governed. Since all have equal authority, government must have that authority by the consent of all over whom it rules.

Both of these theories have significant problems. For instance, how would Filmer account for the authority of kings who could not trace their geneology back to the line of kings that flowed from Adam or Noah?

Forster points out one of the large problems for Locke:

This theory of consent is subject to a number of problems; the most important of these is the problem of establishing that people do in fact consent. Consent theory implies—and Locke explicitly affirms—that people are not born as members of the community. Because people are by nature free and equal, they are free and equal when they are born. Only when they give their consent do they become members of the community, and thus obligated to obey its authority (see T II. 119, 176). …

Locke, like most consent theorists, argues that any adult who chooses to remain in a country and live there rather than leave it has consented—implicitly or ‘tacitly,’ even if not explicitly—to be ruled by its laws. . . . Only explicit consent can make a person a member of society, but this implicit or tacit consent is all that is needed to legitimately enforce the law. ….

The theory of tacit consent is subject to a number of objections. Is it reasonable to expect people to undertake the burden of leaving the country as the price of not giving their consent? And where will they go without having to face the same problem elsewhere?

Locke considers these questions, but only briefly and without much attention to the objections.

Greg Forster, Starting with Locke, loc 1533-1556.

It seems to me that there is little problem in affirming an authority structure in a world in which all humans are given the blessing of dominion over the earth. We see this with Adam and Eve in the first family. Yet how the first governmental structure of authority emerged is not specified by Scripture.

I think the silence of Scripture on this point is intentional. If Scripture told us how the first government formed, we would want to test the legitimacy of all subsequent governments on whether or not they were formed in the same way. But that is not what God would have us to do. God wants his people to submit to the existing authorities because “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom. 13:1).

Government: A Divine Creation among Mankind

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On Tuesday I indicated that I think 1 Peter 2:13 teaches that God established government, like marriage, into the structures of the creation. Today I’d like to justify that claim.

1 Peter 2:13 is translated in several different ways:

ESV: Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution . . .

Achtemeier (Hermeneia): Be subject to every human creature because of the Lord . . .

RSV mg.: Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every institution ordained for men . . .

I favor the translation:

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every [divine] creation among mankind.

In the context it is clear that the creation in view is government.

Institution, Creature, or Creation?

It is common for translations to translate κτίσις in this verse as “institution.” But against this translation Achtemeier notes this “meaning is nowhere to be found in Greek literature” (1 Peter, Hermeneia, 182). He comments, “The closest one can come to such a meaning [human institution] is to point to the regular use of κτίσις in secualr Greek to mean ‘founding a city’ (e.g., Selwyn, 172; Goppelt, 182) but that is hardly the meaning here” (ibid., 183, n. 40). Elliot adds to this critique: “The rendition of ktisis as ‘institution’ (RSV, NRSV, NEB, Selwyn) is inappropriate, for the abstraction ‘institution’ is a modern rather than an ancient concept” (1 Peter, AB, 489).

Both Achtemeier and Elliot favor the translation “Be subject to every human creature.” But Grudem provides a cogent response to this translation: “The context (vv. 13b-14, 18-20, 3:1-6) makes it clear, however, that it is not every human being in the world to whom we are to be subject (a meaning that the verb hypotasso could not bear in any case, since it refers to subjection to an authority)” (1 Peter, TNTC, 118; note: Grudem favors the translation “institution”). It doesn’t make sense to begin a command to submit to the governing authorities with a command to submit to all humans.

Hort says, “Put briefly, the main question is this,—does ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις mean here a κτίσις by men or a κτίσις by God among men?” Hort rejects “a κτίσις by men” in favor of “a κτίσις by God among men.” He writes, “But the former of the two interpretations, though thus prima facie natural, cannot without straining be reconciled with the context. Wide as is the use of κτίσις, to speak of the supreme ruler or subordinate rulers, or their office or function, as a κτίσις on the part of men is without example or analogy in Greek usage. . . . Moreover, human authorship, put forward without qualification as here, and yet more emphasised by the addition of πάσῃ, is not likely to have been laid down by an apostle as a sufficient reason for subjection: he could not but remember for how many evil customs human authorship was responsible. If however we take κτίσις as implying Divine authorship, as in every other place where κτίζω or any of its derivatives occurs in the O.T. or N.T. (or in the Apocrypha, 1 Esd. iv. 53 excepted), all these difficulties vanish. The effect of ἀνθρωπίνῃ is accordingly to limit the κτίσεις spoken of to such elements of God’s universal κτίσις as are characteristically human. . . . Here then we have an adequate explanation of St Peter’s meaning. Biblical associations defined the founding spoken of to be the founding of the commonwealth of mankind by God Himself, and the Greek usage suggested that the founding implied a plan of which mankind were to be organised. By an ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις then St Peter means a fundamental institution of human society. Before Christ came into the world, mankind already possessed a social order of which the chief elements were the state, the household, and the family; and here St Peter declares that they were not to be slighted or rejected because they were found among heathen. On the contrary, they had a divine origin, and they were distinctively human: without them man would sink into savagery. It was needful to say this after the previous verses, which might seem by contrast to condemn heathen society absolutely” (F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter, I.1-II.17 [London: Macmillan, 1898], 139-40).

I think Hort is on the right track, though he does use the word “institution.” Yet, if what is really in view is an institution created by God, then the normal sense of “creation” would hold here and the meaning of the passage would would be similar to the one the Hort proposes. 

Best also comments along the same lines: “When the word and its cognate forms appear in the LXX they almost always denote something created by God, e.g., man (Dt. 4:32), the universe (Gen. 14:19,22), agriculture (Sir. 7:15; 40:1), wisdom (Sir. 1:4); see w. Foerster, T.D.N.T., III, pp. 1023-8. Sir. 39:30 says that God created ‘the sword that punishes the ungodly with destruction’ (cf. 40:9f.), and this is very similar to the conception of 1 Pet. 2:14. The principle objection to this view is the adjective ‘human’ attached to ‘institution’; it suggests that man creates the state, but it can be taken as in the RSVmg in the sense that God (not mentioned but understood) creates in the sphere of human affairs; thus civil authority may be considered as instituted by God. This is similar to Paul’s teaching in Rom. 13:1-7, and to that of the OT (Isa. 5:25-30; 45:1) which became more explicit in Judaism (Dan. 2:21,37f.; 4:17,32; Wisd. 6:3). . . . Consequently the state is viewed as deriving from God’s appointment” (1 Peter, NCB, 113).

If Hort and Best are right, then government is a structure of the created order created by God himself. This is a strange way of thinking because here we are not talking about a particular government or even anything physical. But it is not a unique concept in Scripture. As Al Wolters notes, “There are a few places in Scripture where the basic confession of God’s creational sovereignty is specifically applied to such non-physical realities. According to Paul, marriage is among the things ‘which God created to be received with thanksgiving.’ It is therefore a demonic heresy to forbid marriage, ‘for everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected’ (1 Tim. 4:3-4)” (Creation Regained, 2nd ed., 24).

 

Top Ten Books Read in 2015

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Block, Daniel I. For the Glory of God: Recovering a Biblical Theology of Worship. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014.

This is a warm, biblically grounded study of worship that does an excellent job of moving from exegesis and biblical theology to contemporary application. I read the work slowly on Lord’s days, and I found it to be an excellent companion on those days.

Caro. Robert The Years of Lyndon Johnson. 4 volumes. Knopf, 1982, 1991, 2002, 2012.

These books, massive as they are (and still awaiting the concluding volume) were hard to put down. Caro is a superb writer, and I feel better informed after reading them not only about LBJ but also about life in Texas leading up to his time, the workings of the Senate, and much more. It may seem overkill to take a hundred pages to the present the biography LBJ’s rival in the election to the Senate or to tell the story of his mentor once he arrived. But these seeming diversions are often some of the best parts of these books.

Bull, Josiah, ed. Letters of John Newton. 1869; Reprinted, Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth 2007.

I’ve long preferred reading biographies to reading diaries or letters. Biographies have a narrative thread that letters and diaries lack. However, reading John Newton’s letters are different. Newton was a master letter writer, and his letters are full of wise pastoral counsel. These are letters worth reading slowly and meditating on.

Though I’ve not yet finished it, Tony Reinke’s book, Newton on the Christian Life, is one of the best books I began to read in 2015. Reinke has distilled Newton’s wisdom as found throughout his letters and organized it into a work that will challenge you in your walk with God and inspire you to read more Newton.

Edwards, Jonathan. “Dissertation II: The Nature of True Virtue.” In Ethical Writings. Edited by Paul Ramsey. Works of Jonathan Edwards. Volume 8. Edited by John E Smith. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

This, as might be expected, was one of the more difficult works that I read this year. I found Edwards’s arguments that there is no true virtue without love toward God compelling. I was not convinced by his argument that greater amounts of love are due to those with greater degrees of being (God, as Being in general, being the most deserving of love). This argument, it seems, could be run in an pantheistic direction. In addition, Scripture does not seem to tie our moral obligation to being. These disagreements aside, this is an enjoyable and beneficial work to think your way through.

Myers, Ken. All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.

This is one of the most incisive books about culture that I’ve read. Myers asks his readers to move beyond the question of what is permissible to the question of what is good and wise. Watching television is permissible. Watching several shows every night, night after night is neither good nor wise. This is true even apart from the content of the shows. While content is not unimportant, Myers is concerned to sensitize Christians to the sensibilities of pop culture, which tend to be sensibilities at odds with those of Christianity: novelty over tradition, immediacy as opposed to patience, diversion rather than meditation, celebrity rather than community, youth rather than respect for the wisdom of the aged, “authenticity” as opposed to controlling passions and developing virtue. I found myself challenged to think carefully about my cultural activities and the sensibilities they cultivate.

Köstenberger, Andreas J. A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters. Biblical Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.

This is a great introduction to John’s Gospel and Letters. Readers encounter introductory matters, such as authorship, learn about the literary structure of these books, and have their themes unpacked in a winsome combination of depth and brevity.

Principe, Lawrence M. The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Oxford’s “Very Short Introduction” series is generally excellent. The authors are experts in their fields, and most do an admirable job of truly introducing readers to a diverse array of subjects. Principe’s work is one of the best I’ve read in the series so far. Principe not only explains the factors contributing to the Scientific Revolution, but he also treats the people who came before it with respect. He demonstrates that the thinkers prior to the Scientific Revolution were not unintelligent, nor were their theories irrational. They made good sense of the world in the intellectual framework of the time. What is more, their view of the world may still have something to teach those of us who live on the other side of the scientific revolution.

Oliphint, K. Scott. God With Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God. Crossway, 2011.

I really appreciate the way that Oliphint wrestled with thick theological issues in this book while firmly rejecting attempts to trim Bible statements to better fit theological conclusions. Yet he does not reject the legitimacy of theological reasoning but instead works toward a legitimate theological solution. This work strikes me as a model for careful, biblically-rooted systematic theology.

Witmer, Timothy Z. The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church.  Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010.

If Oliphint shows what biblically-rooted systematic theology looks like, then Witmer shows what biblically and theologically-rooted practical theology looks like. Anyone who serves as a pastor or elder would benefit from this book.

Stanglin, Keith D. and Thomas H. McCall. Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

This is probably the best book on Arminius’s life and thought in print. I believe I have a better understanding of what Arminius did and did not think as a result of reading this work. The authors do an excellent job of explaining his theology in a readable and sympathetic manner without sacrificing scholarly accuracy.

Why Our Savior Must be Both God and Man

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Another principal part of our reconciliation with God was, that man, who had lost himself by his disobedience, should, by way of remedy, oppose to it obedience, satisfy the justice of God, and pay the penalty of sin. Therefore, our Lord came forth very man, adopted the person of Adam, and assumed his name, that he might in his stead obey the Father; that he might present our flesh as the price of satisfaction to the just judgment of God, and in the same flesh pay the penalty which we had incurred. Finally, since as God only he could not suffer, and as man only could not overcome death, he united the human nature with the divine, that he might subject the weakness of the one to death as an expiation of sin, and by the power of the other, maintaining a struggle with death, might gain us the victory.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.12.3.

Misuse of Common Grace

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Common grace is a theological concept that has often been abused. Cornelius Van Til, who defended the concept against thinkers who wished to deny it entirely, warns against this abuse:

When men dream dreams of a paradise regained by means of common grace, they only manifest the ‘strong delusion’ that falls as punishment of God upon those that abuse his natural revelation.

Cornelius Van Til, “Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word, 271.

Functions of Common Grace

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Sinclair Ferguson provides a helpful summary of John Murray’s view of the functions of common grace. I’ve highlighted the various functions that he enumerates.

Common grace is marked by both negative and positive features. It restrains human depravity and its effects. . . . In common grace God also restrains his own wrath. His longsuffering (1 Pet 3:20) and forbearance (Acts 17:30) are expressions of this. Further, God restrains the influence of the evil that entered the world through sin. The disintegration of life is contained: crops grow even in the midst of the thorns and thistles of the divine curse (Gen 3:17). Nature may well be “red in tooth and claw,” but God has graciously placed the fear of man on the animal world to restrain its destructive tendency.

Positively, God has ordained good in the beauty and abundance of creation and among even unregenerate men. Admittedly the Lord blessed the Egyptians for Joseph’s sake (Gen 39:5); but he did bless them! He bestows good gifts on men (Matt 5:44–45). . . . Furthermore, through common grace “Good is attributed to unregenerate men” (ibid.). Admittedly there is paradox in such a statement, but Murray appeals to The Westminster Confession of Faith (16.7) for confirmation of his exposition. . . .

Again, civil government provides peace and order for men. Strife and unrest are inevitable in a sinful world. That there should be any peace is an evidence of common grace.

What, then, is the function of common grace? It is the precondition for special grace, and ultimately the context in which the salvation and glorification of the elect will take place. Common grace provides both the sphere and the materials in and on which special grace operates.

Sinclair Ferguson, “The Whole Counsel of God: Fifty Years of Theological Studies,” WTJ 50, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 271-72.

One of the intriguing functions, mentioned by Ferguson at the end of his quotation, is the service common grace provides as the precondition for special grace. Abraham Kuyper expands on this function:

Without common grace the elect would not have been born . . . . Had Adam and Eve died on the day they sinned, Seth would not have been born from them, nor Enoch from Seth, and no widely ramified race of peoples and nations would ever have originated on earth. On that basis alone all special grace assumes common grace. But there is more. Even if you assumed that their temporal death had been postponed so that the human race could have made a start, but that for the rest sin in all its horror had broken out unhindered, you would still be nowhere. For then life on earth would immediately have turned into a hell and under such hellish conditions the church of God would not have had a place to strike root anywhere. . . . From whatever angle we one looks at this issue, then special grace presupposes common grace. Without the latter the former cannot function.

Abraham Kuyper, “Common Grace,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 169.

Biblical Support for Common Grace

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The concept of common grace can be inferred from a number of Scripture texts.

At the end of Genesis 3, God pronounces judgment on the serpent, Eve, and Adam for their sin. The judgment for Adam and Eve was a curse that affected the blessing of Genesis 1:26-28. Yet the curse did not remove the blessing entirely. A great deal of that blessing remains for all human, svaed or lost. In addition, the penalty of death was not enacted on the outer man immediately. Instead it was delayed by many years.

This same pattern is seen in the Noahic Covenant. Precisely because man is sinful from his infancy (Gen. 8:20), God institutes a covenant that binds him to not destroy earth with a Flood ever again and to preserve regular days and seasons until the end. Apart from the covenant, God would have been just to send one Flood after another upon sinful humanity. This the Noahic covenant is gracious. Since it is made with all of creation, it is also common.

God waited to bring the judgment of the Flood upon the earth to give sinners time to repent (1 Peter 3:20), and after the Flood God deferred judgment on sinners, also giving them a chance to repent (Acts 17:30).

Isaiah 28:23-29 teaches that by God’s common grace both the saved and lost can develop the intellectual and practical skills to succeed at their vocations. God enables people to understand the world as he created in it and to succeed in living in it.

Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:44-45 that the Father shows love toward his enemies (grace) by giving sunshine and rain to both the righteous and the unrighteous alike (common).

Paul also points to the rains and the provision of food as the goodness of God shown to pagan people (Acts 14:17). In addition Paul indicates that this goodness was a witness to God himself (suppressed according to Romans 1).