Systematic Theology I1
Fall 2015
BIBLIOLOGY―Lesson 2: General and Specific Revelation
Opening Question:Why should we study theology?
I.General and Specific Revelation
Calvin described the mediate general revelation that God accomplishes through His createdworks:
The final goal of the blessed life, moreover, rests in the knowledge of God [cf. John 17:3]. Lest anyone, then, be excluded from access to happiness, he not only sowed in men’s minds that seed of religion of which we have spoken, but revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe. As a consequence, men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him (Institutes,I.5.1).
Interpreting General and Special Revelation
A. Introduction
― How can we know that God exists?
Philosophers have puzzled over this question for centuries.A number of “arguments” have been developed to “prove” the existence of God.The problem with all such arguments is that they are trying to use reason to prove revelation.Since our reasoning power is marred by sin, the ability of reason to demonstrate God’s existence and character is limited.
2Cor 4:4 (NIV) The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
However, so that you will know that there are such arguments, here are the main ones in summary form:
The cosmological argument:The universe is here.It must have a cause.That cause is God.
This is an argument from logic that it is more reasonable to believe in an uncaused cause than in an infinite regression of causes.Further, it is more reasonable to believe in God as the uncaused cause than in lifeless matter.
R.C. Sproul, the uncaused cause, video excerpt (4:41-7:15)
Matt Slick, Brief article on cosmological argument:
The teleological argument:The universe exhibits a complexity which requires an intelligent cause.That cause is God.
There is evidence of purpose in creation … and the existence of purpose requires a being of purpose.Illustration:a person finds a watch on the beach.Is it reasonable for that person to assume that it came into being as the result of the chaotic forces of the ocean?
Matt Slick, brief article on teleological argument:
The anthropological argument:Man’s existence, traits, and needs require a source characterized by those traits and capable of meeting those needs.That source is God.
This argument particularly focuses on man’s moral and spiritual traits.
Thinking Matters articles on the anthropological argument
Part 1
Part 2
“The Christian would also want to point out that the deepest things that matter to us as humans all lie beyond the physical and the material: morality and meaning, love and friendship, beauty and truth. All of these don't fit happily with atheism: ‘Darwinian mistakes,’ Richard Dawkins once called them. That to me is tragic.”–Andy Banister
The ontological argument:We can conceive of an idea of an infinite and perfect being.Since we can conceive of it, it must exist.
This argument was developed by Plato.He believed that the ideal is more real than the material.
God cannot be conceived not to exist- God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived- that which can conceived not to exist is not God. For one can think there exists something that cannot be thought of as not existing, and that would be greater than something which can be thought of as not existing. For if that greater than which cannot be thought can be thought of as not existing, then that greater than which cannot be thought is not that greater than that which cannot be thought. – Anselm
Video explaining Anselm’s ontological argument (0:00-7:53)
We must acknowledge the limitation of these proofs to move men to faith in God.
“It is impossible to deny that the proofs for God’s existence in general have wielded but little influence.For they stand ― especially in our times ― in the shadow of a great many ‘proofs’against the existence of God. … And in our times, in opposition to the proofs for God’s existence, a deep agnosticism elaborates the conviction of the absence of God; no longer recognizing the world as purposeful, this agnosticism abandons it to senselessness and absurdity and sees the existence of man in the world as a meaningless and purposeless jest.”
– G.C. Berkouwer, Revelation and the Bible, 17.
“God simply is. The Bible does not begin with a long set of arguments to prove the existence of God. It does not begin with a bottom-up approach, nor does it begin with some kind of adjacent analogy or the like. It just begins, ‘In the beginning, God’ (Gen.1:1). Now, if human beings are the test of everything, this makes no sense at all because then we have the right to sit back and judge whether it is likely that God exists, to evaluate the evidence and come out with a certain probability that perhaps a god of some sort or another exists. Thus we become the judges of God. But the God of the Bible is not like that. The Bible begins simply but dramatically: ‘In the beginning, God.’ He is. He is not the object whom we evaluate. He is the Creator who has made us, which changes all the dynamics.” – D.A. Carson
The Bible does not argue in these ways for the existence of God.The Bible asserts God’s existence rather than prove it and then it reveals how God is active in human history.Perhaps the most convincing proof of God is the evidence of God’s hand at work in this world.C. S. Lewis put it this way: "I believe in Christianity in the same way as I believe that the sun has risen. Not because I see it, but that by it, I see everything else."
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.”
– G.K.Chesterton
See footnotes at the bottom of this page and the next for links to more resources discussing the existence of God.[1]
B.Self-revelation of God
BUT there is a far better and more profound solution to the problem of the existence of God.Rather than reason, the best evidence for God’s existence comes from how He Himself has revealed His existence to us.This is known as the doctrine of SELF-REVELATION, that is, God has revealed Himself to us.There are at least seven ways that God has done this.Each of these seven ways can be placed in two broad categories:general revelation and specific revelation.
“…[God] can be known only through his own revelation of himself: "Through God alone can God be known…God has graciously accommodated himself to our feeble and sinful minds by speaking to us in a personal revelation, and so we must remember that the person himself is greater than the revelation.” – I. Howard Marshall
Tim Challies, short article, God’s revelation
Richard Pratt Jr, extensive article, Relying on Revelation
Lecture on the same:
― General revelation is God’s communication of Himself to all persons and in all places.
― Specific revelation is God’s particular communication of Himself to man through the incarnation of the Living Word and through the inscripturation of the written word.
General revelation and specific revelation are not in contradiction to each other.God communicates Himself in a unified way through both forms of revelation.A positive view of God’s general revelation does not lead us to attack God’s specific revelation.God’s general revelation does not even cast a shadow upon God’s specific revelation.However, the modern interpretation of general revelation often does lead to an attack upon God’s specific revelation.
It is vital that we understand these two sources of God’s revelation as unequal in value.General revelation rests UNDER specific revelation and not alongside of it.Special revelation opens our eyes to God’s greatness in general revelation so that we sing with the psalmist:Psa. 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
The general revelation of God is given by God to point us to the God who reveals Himself more fully in Christ and the Word.Jesus is God revealed in the flesh.(1 Tim 3:16; John 1:14).
God has revealed Himself:
1.In the Material and Animal Creation(general revelation)
Psalm 19: 1-4The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
Note:this revelation is uninterrupted and universally available.It is common ground for believers and unbelievers.This revelation is communicated in every language.There never is a time when this revelation is not available to any person or when this revelation falls silent.
Romans 1: 19-20Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Key Idea in this verse:No excuses for not acknowledging God.The scripture points to a strong connection between general revelation and the guilt of man in closing his eyes against God.This verse also reveals that no man is freed from accountability to God’s revelation of Himself.General revelation brings guilt to a man’s soul, but it needs the specific revelation to bring salvation to a man’s soul.The wonder of God in Creation must lead man to the wonder of God in the Cross.
“Man is not situated in a silent, purposeless, and senseless world in which no voice addresses him.Much rather, over against nihilism it must be asserted that human life bears an answering character.Although man is not conscious of it, his whole life is a reply, even to the deepest aspects of his religion.This religion is not an automatic instinct rising out of the depths of the human heart, but rather, constitutes the depraved answer to the revelation of God.”G.C. Berkouwer, Revelation and the Bible, 16.
Questions:What can we know about God from creation?Who can know about God from creation?What limitations are there in what we can know about God from creation?
VIDEO:Louie Giglio(9 minutes)
“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.” – Einstein
Note:General revelation is to be used in harmony with special revelation in evangelism.
Man cannot gain a “true” knowledge of God apart from the revelation of God in Jesus.(John 14:6)While man is surrounded by the light of God’s creation, the depraved nature of man pollutes the light of nature so that we do not rejoice in it.General revelation is inadequate in itself to bring salvation.
“The existence of divergent concepts of God, of moral ideals, and above all of schemes of salvation show the power of sin in the mind of man; but they also show the inherent inadequacy of general revelation.It is not because of sin alone that man fails to get God’s message.”– Gordon H. Clark, Revelation and the Bible, 32.
(see also:Job 12:7-9; Acts 14:17; and, for limitations, see: Isaiah 45:7; Romans 8:20)
2.In the Nature and Constitution of Man(general revelation)
Genesis 1: 26-27Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Acts 17: 28-29'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone — an image made by man's design and skill.
Note:Man is not freed from God, but is involved with Him.This is grace from God preserving us against total self-destruction.
Rom. 2:14-16 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Note:Man explains conscience in many ways.Paul does not explain conscience so much as acknowledge it and its influence on everyone’s life.
Questions:What can we know about God from this?Who can know about God from this?What limitations are there in what we can know about God from this?
(see also Isaiah 29:16; Ecclesiastes 3:11; and for limitations see John 3:19-20; Psalm 50:21
The moral and spiritual qualities of man point to a moral Creator who can be known.
3.In the Primitive and Direct Revelation to Men(specific revelation)
Genesis 6: 13So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
Genesis 12:1-4The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.
Questions:What can we know about God from this?Who can we know about God from this?What limitations are there in what we can know about God from this?
(see also Genesis 9:1, 8; Jeremiah 1:4; Jonah 1:1; and for limitations see: Hebrews 1:1)
4.In the Miraculous and Providential Works of God(specific revelation)
Definitions:
A miracle is a direct and immediate intervention of God into the physical world to publicly demonstrate His power.
Providence is the indirect and mediate employment by God of natural laws and events to accomplish His will.
Deuteronomy 4: 33-35Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other.
John 10: 38But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."
1 Corinthians 10: 7-11Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry." We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did― and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did ― and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did ― and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
Questions:What can we know about God from this?Who can know about God from this?What limitations are there in what we can know about God from this?
(see also for miracles: Exodus 5:1-2; 7:5, 17; 9:14; 10:2; Numbers 14:11; Deuteronomy 7:8-9; Joshua 4:23-24; for providence see, Isaiah 45:1-6; Ezekiel 11:9-10; and for limitations see John 12:28; Acts 14:11-13)
5.In the Experience and Life of God’s People(general and specific revelation)
Objective:Something of God can be learned through observing the lives of Christians.
1 Peter 2:9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.