Christian Case-Making
in a Modern World
Apologetics 101
God's Revelation to Us
Most religions have a focus on experiencing the divine or becoming one with God. Human beings have an inherent spirituality and we have sometimes been labeled homo religiosus. We all are drawn to questions of life’s ultimate meaning and purpose, even those professing atheism. Why are there so many different religions and spiritual practices? It may be because most religions are based on people trying to reach or appease their gods. Religions have evolved as practitioners try new and different ways to experience the divine. It is not surprising that we have floundered on our own efforts.
However, there is one major religion that makes a far different claim. Christianity claims that there is only one true God, and that this God desired a relationship with His creation. Christianity claims that it is not up to us to figure out who God is and what He wants from us, but rather God has directly revealed Himself to us in two different ways, via General and Special Revelation.
Dual Revelation
This dual revelation can be represented as two books by the same author, the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture. A good analogy is this: Science is to the Facts of Nature as Theology is to the Words of the Bible. Since they have the same author, when properly understood and interpreted, they cannot contradict each other. All Truth is God's Truth!
We should expect harmony between truths found in Nature and Scripture, since the Author can’t contradict Himself. Nor can He lie or deceive. He did not accommodate false information being communicated through his inspired human authors, nor did He create the universe with a false history or misleading evidence. We must assume that any revelation that is from God must be consistent and complementary.
Historically, Christians have recognized that God has revealed Himself to us in two volumes:
General Revelation (God’s World) - Science is the interpretation of the facts of nature
Special Revelation (God’s Word) - Theology is the interpretation of the words of the Bible
The Belgic Confession of 1561 states it this way:
We know him by two means:
First by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God. …
Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for his glory and for the salvation of his own.
The 19th century theologian, Charles Spurgeon, also had this to say in a commentary on Psalm 19:
In his earliest days the psalmist, while keeping his father’s flock, had devoted himself to the study of God’s two great books—nature and Scripture; and he had so thoroughly entered into the spirit of these two only volumes in his library that he was able with a devout criticism to compare and contrast them, magnifying the excellency of the Author as seen in both. How foolish and wicked are those who instead of accepting the two sacred tomes, and delighting to behold the same divine hand in each, spend all their wits in endeavouring to find discrepancies and contradictions. We may rest assured that the true “Vestiges of Creation” will never contradict Genesis, nor will a correct “Cosmos” be found at variance with the narrative of Moses. He is wisest who reads both the world-book, and the Word-book as two volumes of the same work, and feels concerning them, “My Father wrote them both.”'
General Revelation
General Revelation is available to all men through the created world. The apostle Paul stated that this is one way that God reveals knowledge, through human experience, history, creation, and our inbuilt conscience as beings created in the image of God. In other words, all people naturally know something about God's existence, His power, His character, and His nature.
OT statements about General Revelation:
Psalm 19:1-4 – Creation speaks reliably of God
Job 12:7-10 – Job says the animals and the earth can teach and inform us
Psalm 8:1-4 – God’s glory can be seen in the moon, stars, and heavens
Psalm 50:6– The heavens proclaim His righteousness
Psalm 97:6– … and all the peoples see His glory
NT statements about Revelation in nature:
Romans 1:18-21 – God has made clear to everyone His divine power and qualities such that we are without excuse
Acts 14:15-17 – God provides a witness through His provision for creation
Acts 17:24-31 – The unknown God of Athens is the God of creation, revealed through providence in human history so that we would seek Him
Romans 10:16-18 – Nature’s voice and words go out to the ends of the world (quote from Psalm 19:4)
General Revelation in Us
We are all created with an inner sense of God. Calvin called this Sensus Divinitatis. We all have a "hole" that we try to fill with something. We either fill it with God or with something else. The Fall causes us to deny or suppress this.
Special Revelation
Special Revelation was given directly to men of God and ultimately through His Son, Jesus. Special Revelation communicates direct, clear information about the nature of God and His expectations on us. Jesus was the ultimate revelation, as the God who became man and lived among us. He taught us how to live, he gave his life for us, and he proved his authority by rising from the dead.
Together the OT and NT documents are the sole authoritative sources of Special Revelation from God, which was given by God alone through divinely inspired men of God, and by Jesus himself.
Biblical statements about Special Revelation:
Psalm 19:7-11 – The Law of the Lord is perfect
Heb. 1:1-3 – Spoke through the prophets and His Son
John 1:14,18 – The Word became flesh and revealed God to us
Eph. 3:5 – Revealed by the Holy Spirit
Prov. 30:5 – All His Words are True
2 Tim. 3:16 – Scripture is inspired (“God-breathed”)
What if they appear to disagree?
Do we have Dual or Dueling Revelation? Not all truths are easy to discover or understand. Thus we can misunderstand or misinterpret either of the two books. Various information from one book can help us understand the correct meaning of other parts. We need to use sound principles of interpretation, and clearly distinguish between what it says (facts) and how we understand it.
Clearly Genesis (and scripture as a whole) was not intended to be a scientific textbook, but it also stands as one of two books of Revelation from God, and as such communicates actual historical events, not simply made up stories of creation. Since God is the author of both, they cannot contradict each other. We can improperly understand one or both, but we should expect a moderate concordance between them. True humility is required of the theologian, the scientist, and the rest of humanity, as we are all fallible.
Because both revelations come from the Creator God, there can be no inherent conflict between truths found in each. However, we need to be humble enough to realize that, as human beings, we can misinterpret one or both, and stubbornly "force" a seeming conflict or contradiction. Also, it is possible that we simply don't yet fully understand portions well enough to be dogmatic about certain particulars.
Theological Implications
If we hold that all truths belong to God, then we can be reassured that nothing we discover will ultimately disprove, change, or pervert God's revelation to us. We don't have to fear studying any realm of discovery, whether it is philosophy, world religions, cosmology, human nature, genetics, or anything else.
Specialization and polarization in the sciences has greatly hurt our educational system. It used to be that theologians studied various scientific disciplines, and scientists studied theology and philosophy. Even within their fields, there is often too much siloing and lack of interaction with other work and discoveries. Dialog between disciplines has often helped to resolve difficulties in understanding. That is how the perceived "war" between science and religion was brought about. Instead of talking and dialoguing, we chose conflict.
How does this concept affect the principle of sola Scriptura? Properly understand, this concept does not actually say that the scriptures are the ONLY source of truth, which would be self-contradictory. However, scripture is the preeminent authority, since it is specific, propositional revelation from God. But just as scripture can correct misunderstandings of the natural world, so can the facts of nature inform incorrect interpretations of scripture. They are complementary and each has their value.
Takeaways
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