Although I would consider myself a “spiritual person,” I am admittedly one of those who have an allergic reaction when people try to “spiritualize” everything – particularly every good thing – by attributing it to God’s good grace.
You know, stuff like:
“God helped my team to win the game.”
“By God’s grace, my candidate or party won the election.”
“God just gave me the greatest parking place.”
…and so on.
I just find it a little difficult to comprehend why God would take special time aside to open up that parking place when there are millions of people dying every day from starvation, disease, natural disasters, etc.
And I know I’m not the only person who thinks this way. One of my Facebook friends recently updated his status with:
“…thinks we should stop confusing good luck with God's grace. God isn't the reason you found that awesome parking space.”
Normally, I guess I’d rank among the 15 other people who “Liked” his status. I certainly know where he’s coming from, and I think that he is touching on valid point. However, I’ve been pondering this subject for a couple weeks now, and my view on this was challenged – yes, in the parking lot!
I was going to a coffee shop the other day, and was a little concerned about whether or not I’d get a parking spot since it was a busy time of day, and it doesn’t have the greatest parking space available. I’m new to this particular coffee shop, and wasn’t sure where to park if there were no spaces. Sure enough, when I pulled into the parking lot, all the spots were taken.
Fortunately, someone was pulling out of a spot just as I was pulling in. I pulled into my spot, and despite myself, I was washed over in a sense of thankfulness. I wasn’t sure what to do with that. While I seriously doubt that God took special energy to provide me this parking place, I couldn’t help but to want to thank God for it nevertheless. So I did.
My friend’s Facebook status prompted me to think about this some more. Something about it didn’t seem to be right about the statement, and it kind of bothered me that so many people seemed to be jumping on board, making smug comments criticizing people who “confuse good luck with God’s grace” in this way. And yet, to an extent, I agree with them.
How do I make sense of that? How can God be responsible for things like this (and thus worthy of receiving my thanks), yet without taking special effort aside to make this particular good thing happen?
Grace: Common vs. Special
I think that this might be best explained through the helpful distinction theologians (especially in the Reformed tradition) have made between “common” and “special” grace.
“Common grace” can be explained as the grace of God that extends to everyone, indiscriminately. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus exhorts his followers to be like God who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:25). You might say that common grace is that grace of God that was imbued and inherent within the framework of Creation itself.
In contrast, “special grace” is a way of describing those particular times when God seems to do something “special," when God graces his Creation in a way that goes above and beyond the norm (i.e. “common grace”). The best example of this in Christian theology is the special gift of God given to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
I think this distinction between “special” and “common” grace is an extremely helpful way to resolve many tensions that we face when trying to explain how God interacts with Creation.
So if I were to refine the theological precision of my friend’s Facebook status, it might read something like:
“…thinks we should stop confusing good luck with God's special grace; God didn’t interrupt the natural order of things just so that you could find that awesome parking space.”
I think that’s probably what he was trying to say anyway. I appreciate that he is prodding his friends to reconsider the way they understand God’s interactions in their daily lives.
And yet, there is something in me that thinks it would be wrong to tell everyone that they are ignorant for thanking God for that awesome parking place (or whatever). Seems that there at least some sense in which, as the song from Godspell (and James 1:17) teaches us:
“All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above;”
I’d say, yes.
“So thank the Lord, thank the Lord, for all his love…”
Photo by Russell Heiman, used under Creative Commons license.
