Unlimiting Grace

Most people have heard about grace in connection with Christian thought.

Grace, as it is generally understood, has to do with God’s goodness and care freely directed towards humanity.

In other words, grace has to do with everything God does for us humans without our having to ask for it.

Grace is what God gives to us in the form of a gift.

Grace is what God gives us not because we deserve it, or because we have earned it.

Grace is simply God’s undeserved, unearned gift to us.

If we have to earn it, then it’s not grace.

If we have to deserve it, then it’s not grace either.

Grace, by definition, is what comes to us freely from the hand of God before we earn it or deserve it.

Now for as huge a thing as grace is, grace is often seen as being limited in some way.

We can use the analogy of a parent and their children in order to picture the different concepts of grace in Christian theology.

In Calvinist theology God is like a parent who, in an act of grace, chooses some of their children and decides to do all that is necessary for them, bearing with them through thick and thin, so that they may be lifted up and saved.

In Arminian theology God is like a parent, who in an act of grace, lifts all of their children up so that some of them might reach out and be saved by grabbing hold of the salvation which had previously been out of their grasp.

In these ways, in both Calvinist and Arminian theologies, grace is limited.

According to the Calvinists God gives all grace to some.

According to the Arminians God gives some grace to all.

But from the viewpoint of both, God’s grace is limited in one way or another.

According to both of these theologies there is no salvation for anyone without grace, but there is also not enough grace for salvation for everyone.

What I want to propose is a theology of grace in which the power of grace to save is unlimited.

The understanding of God’s grace I propose is not “all grace for some” as in Calvinism, or “some grace for all” as in Arminianism, but “all grace for all.”

This theology I propose draws from what I see as the best of Calvinist and Arminian thought, but then moves beyond both Calvinist and Arminian theology to a theology in which the fullness of God’s grace is applied to every person.