General Revelation and Natural Theology

9th, Defending faith

General Revelation and Natural Theology

Welcome, we are continuing on in defense of Christian faith. What we have been looking at in the last few sessions are some of the important epistemological principles. Principles of knowledge that are critical to understanding an apologetic case and defense. Through the four foundational types of epistemological premises and then through some concepts of mystery, antimony and paradox that are so often misused in our language today.

Now we shall turn our attention to a different direction. We shall take on the very important ideas that are central to our defense of Christianity. Which is called natural theology. In modern times this has come under severe attack. Where for many centuries it had been well worked through and developed and given clarity. Many theologians of our time reject the whole idea of natural theology (NT). When NT is discussed the first one you think of is Thomas Aquinas. Some people labor under the impression that the science of NT was invented by him. But when he developed these principles he was standing on the shoulders of Augustine. And he was indebted to the teaching of Apostle Paul.

Our beginning definition is: Natural Theology is a knowledge of God that is gained by nature. In addition to and distinct from the knowledge of God we receive from the authority of scripture. NT is another source for the character of God from nature itself. Now from the outset there have been different views of NT which explains the controversy of the this term.

Historically within the Christian church tradition it was seen to be based on something else. Which we call General Revelation (GR). But many times we confuse what this is as compared to NT. GR refers to something God does. NT refers to something we do. NT is the result of General Revelation. When we talk about revelation, that is general, we are distinguishing this from the word ‘special.’

General Revelation is called this for two reasons: 1) because it given by God to all human beings. The audience to GR is universal. Every one in the world received GR. Not everyone has had the benefit of hearing special revelation as it is found in the scriptures. 2) is because of it’s content. What GR reveals is the knowledge of God -- in general -- . We don’t get from GR the nature of God himself. Just basic substantive information about the existence of God.

Now one more distinction; there are two kinds of GR. 1) Mediate GR is that which God gives by some medium. From an indirect source. An example would be in Psalms when it is written that the atmosphere and space display not God but what he made. Something of the glory of its maker. Just as a great painter leave his own mark on the canvas. So the universe is a medium that proclaims something about the nature of God. 2) Immediate GR is direct and without an intervening medium. Romans 2 says that laws about God which our senses can pick up that God plants in the soul. By virtue of being human we have an internal sense of the reality of God. It is built into the mind and is not a deduction from nature. The sensus divinitus.

Now, when the discussion comes up about GR among Christians there is the question posed, “What does the Bible say about that?” If one believes the Bible is true one will also understand this other form of revelation. And we will embrace both these different forms of information. We find this in the first chapter of Romans. And it comes as a shocking and jolting manner in it’s indictment of us.

The Indictment

For Paul says that there is a reason for why the Gospel (good news) is necessary in the first place. Why with this mediate and immediate knowledge we all are found lacking as to how we measure out what is expected to the Creator. This is not about rejecting this person called Jesus that Paul is speaking to the Roman churches about. No, he is talking about the knowledge of God that they do possess. He quotes Paul in Romans starting at 1:17 and states that mankind suppresses the truth. But not just truth in general but it is a particular truth that is in view here and being suppressed. The manifest knowledge of God being clear and evident for all of human kind. Then Paul’s discussion gets worse. At verse 19 God clearly as given what is necessary for all humans to understand something about his divinity. This God doesn’t hide little clues and that only the alert and super intelligent can find and discern. Maybe we can or maybe we can’t. No, it has nothing to do with how clever we are in arriving at some great conclusions about that how God exists. Here Paul says it is so plain and so manifest that everybody sees it. And therefore, it leaves all without any excuses.

Paul is appealing to those who will try to find the excuse that if I had only known about who you were. If I had of only known you were there my life would have been different. Then I would have been loyal and obedient. But here in this dialogue Paul says that this thinking wont fly. Why, because you did know. You knew my eternal power. You knew my very deity because I showed it to you. And plainly at that. The notion you didn’t come after me is not because of ignorance, no, but because you hated me. You wouldn’t have me in your thoughts.

But there are those who will say that there is a divine revelation but that mankind is not capable of capturing its essence because we beings are shielded from its truth because of a corruptible part in us.

Natural revelation produces Natural Theology which is the central and foundational for the universal guilt of mankind.

I am always getting the question about various tribal clans and people groups which are hidden away from these ideas. Well, my answer is slightly glib. Does not having Aquinas and others make you innocent? Is that the requirement? The question should be; ‘how many innocent tribal peoples are there scattered around the various continents of the earth?’ If we are reading Paul correctly he is saying there are no innocents anywhere. All have received the revelation of the Father Creator. And everyone, every last on of us and them, have repressed that knowledge and exchanged it for a substitute lie. This results in all of us choosing the activity of idolatry rather than the worship of the only true God. So this whole world, so to speak, is under indictment and that God sends a savior into this very world to bring a life line. This GR that the Father has given places us under this indictment and this revelation is clear and plain. At least in 66 books of scripture.

So NT, in its most rudimentary sense, is that knowledge of God that every human being has as a direct result or consequence of GR. The knowledge of God we have from nature.

When Augustine talked and wrote about NT he went to Romans 1 for his definitions. Centuries later when Aquinas was developing is system of NT he went to both Romans and to Augustine’s writings and quoted him often. They said because of Romans 1 and GR there is a universal knowledge of God. Now some people think what Aquinas was really saying was that man, with the use of his unaided reason, without any assistance from Divine revelation, has the intellectual capacity to ascend into the heavens and arrive at a knowledge of God. But that is not what Aquinas taught by a long shot. Both of these leaders and writers said was that we have NT through the means of Divine revelation.

The consequences of these ideas are massive for the science of apologetics. As I hope we will see in the coming sessions.