Divine Generosity: The Scope of Salvation in Reformed Theology by Richard J.Mouw, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024. ix + 133 pp. $19.99 (paperback). ISBN: 978‐0‐8028‐8390‐2

Reformed theologian and philosopher, Richard J. Mouw, has written a thoughtful and engaging book about the scope of salvation. How many will be ‘saved in the end’? Mouw rejects universalism—that all persons will be saved. But here, he presents perspectives that ‘we can reject universalism while still taking an expansive view of how many will be saved in the end’ (8). Mouw says he has been reflecting on ‘two big topics that have come to dominate my own theological agenda over the years: the character of the Calvinist God, and questions regarding the scope of God's gracious purposes’ (11). Mouw adheres to Reformed perspectives on ‘common grace’—the ‘teaching that there are manifestations of a positive, but nonsaving, attitude of God toward the nonelect, whereby God enlists the talents and virtue of unredeemed people to promote his purposes in the world, in preparation for the coming of the fullness of the kingdom’ (13). Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck developed views along these lines. Drawing on insights of B.B. Warfield and Geerhardus Vos, Mouw points out that they saw that there are ‘nonsalvific displays of God's love’—seen especially in Jesus and in divine compassion in the Old Testament—a ‘form of love for the nonelect’ (23, 22). Mouw sees these two Calvinists' perspectives as ‘a gift of theological lucidity that challenges many stereotypes of Calvinist thought—and in a manner that speaks profoundly to some present-day theological concerns’ (34). Nineteenth-century developments in the Presbyterian Church (USA) over whether the article in the Westminster Confession on the salvific status of dying infants are also relevant, says Mouw. The ‘old Princeton’ theologians, plus W.G.T. Shedd, joined those who advocated ‘a confessional revision that makes it clear that God saves all children who die before they are capable of understanding the claims of the gospel’ (35). The result (1903) was that the church left the Confession as it stood. But it wrote a ‘Declaratory Statement’, which gave ‘the expansive interpretation’ that ‘all dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit’ (36). Philip Schaff noted that, ‘The Confession nowhere speaks of reprobate infants’ (40). Mouw says ‘even more significant’ was that the Westminster Confession Statement went on to affirm that ‘the Spirit … worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth’, including in the lives of ‘all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word’ (40–41). Shedd emphasized this point to see ‘this work of the Holy Spirit operating in the lives of some adult persons who do not have access to the proclamation of the Word’ (44). In 1918, Warfield published a booklet titled Are They Few That Be Saved?, conveying his view that ‘the immensely greater part of the human race’ will ultimately be saved (45). To Mouw, despite varying nuances, these nineteenth-century orthodox Calvinists ‘clearly shared a common desire to advocate for a Calvinism guided by a spirit of salvific generosity’ (45). These views were not, says Mouw, merely the desire for ‘simply accommodating their Calvinism to modern “nonjudgmental” sentiments in religious matters’. Instead, these theologians were ‘working together to promote a celebration of divine generosity that they found in the Westminster Confession itself, and they committed themselves to correcting what they saw as widespread misunderstandings to the spirit of the Calvinism as embodied in that Confession’ (45). In short, ‘Warfield and his colleagues wanted a declaration of salvific generosity that was fully on display in Jesus - the One who, when he returned to his heavenly Throne, sent into the world a Spirit “who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth”’ (46). Mouw takes us through more interesting theological reflections. He draws on theologians—such as John Owen and Jonathan Edwards; Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck; Karl Barth and Suzanne McDonald. He also draws on personal experiences with the result being that Mouw has found that ‘the salvation of a vast number of human beings is not unthinkable from a Calvinist perspective’ (104). These questions and musings are not solely ‘a matter of theological speculation’ (105). Mouw is clear that ‘the speculation has urgent implications for how we Christians think about the eternal destinies of people we love’. Indeed, ‘we need to find very practical ways for holding in our own persons the hope and fears of unbelievers’ (105). ‘Where do I end up with all of this?’ Mouw asks in his epilogue. He confesses he would have ‘been content with a more modest perspective than what I discovered’ (120). Mouw was surprised by views from B.B. Warfield and W.G.T. Shedd. He is impressed by ‘Warfield's extensive critique of the “few there be” understanding of the number of the elect’. But Mouw was ‘not prepared, though, for Warfield's enthusiastic declaration for an expansive view that far exceeded what I had been hoping for: his affirmation that it will be revealed in the end time that the saving work of Christ “shall embrace the immensely greater part of the human race”’ (121). Warfield wanted to make clear that this was a ‘perspective that he shares with other Calvinist notable’—including Charles Hodge, the Southern Presbyterian Robert L. Dabney and W.G.T. Shedd. Warfield noted Shedd said that ‘two errors, therefore, are to be avoided: First, that all men are saved; secondly, that only a few men are saved’ (122). But, said Warfield, ‘when the whole course of the Gospel shall be complete, and shall be surveyed from beginning to end, it will be found that God's elect, or church is “a great multitude which no man can number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues”, and that their voice is as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, “Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”—Rev. 7:9, 19:6’ (122). Mouw affirms that: ‘At its heart Calvinism is a theology of surprises’ (124). He concludes: ‘This experience of surprise in our deep places prepares us to be open to see God's mercies reaching into the deep places of others - and even to more cosmic surprises. God so loved the world - the kosmos, the creation that in the beginning God declared to be good - that he sent the Son into our midst so that the whole creation could be saved and renewed through his redemptive mission. Then the risen and ascended Lord sent his Spirit to call an elect people into being, to bring divine blessings to all the nations of the earth. What the final nature and scope of those blessings will be brings the promise that great surprises are yet to come, by the power of the Spirit, who “worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth”’ (125).