“All existence is good, and God loves all that is good”

COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:

“God loves all that exists because existence itself is good and God loves all that is good.”

In response, first, if the argument holds, God loves Satan and his host of demons, and will love them eternally in hell.  For they exist, and they will exist forever.  This implies that the love of God for a creature is without saving effect, is impotent.  For despite the love of God for them, Satan and his host are not saved, but rather perish in misery.  No doubt, this will not trouble those who make this argument.  For they suppose that God’s love for many humans fails to save them.

Second, this argument, namely, that God loves all who exist, simply because they exist, is explicitly denied by Jesus.  On one occasion, he said that it would have been good for Judas that he had never been born or existed (Matt. 26:24; Mark 14:21).  This word of Jesus denies that mere existence is good.  For Judas, non-existence had been good.  Implied clearly is that existence in the case of Judas was bad, that is, bad for Judas, who existed.  The explanation is that as a reprobate ungodly and impenitent man, and as the traitor, he was the object of the punitive wrath of God.  This is bad for a man, though he exists.

The argument ignores sin (sinful existence); the justice of God (punishing impenitent sin with awful wrath); and the necessity of the redemption of the cross (only the cross of Christ makes rational, moral existence good).  To make mere existence the object of the love of God is in reality a denial of the cross.

(Prof. David J. Engelsma, 24/08/2020)