Can General Revelation be understood apart from Special Revelation? Can there be a conflict between the two? Which is superior? Does General Revelation reveal things concerning God which are not taught in Scripture? What benefit can we derive from General Revelation? Some of these questions are discussed in the significant article that follows; others are suggested by it. The last two of the above questions will be answered, the Lord willing, in a succeeding article by the same writer.
God has revealed himself in nature and in Scripture. For that reason we speak of the general revelation of God, which is everywhere present, throughout the universe, and we speak of the special revelation of God, which is the Bible. This twofold revelation suggests questions. Certainly God does not duplicate himself uselessly in these two revelations. What, then, does God reveal in his general revelation and what in his special revelation? Moreover, God is consistent with himself. He does not reveal himself differently in these two revelations—there is no conflict. How, then, are God’s general and special revelations related? These and similar questions may be said to be perennial, occurring over and over again. Attempts to describe the contents of and the relation between the two revelations of God are made constantly.
GOD THE SOURCE AND INTERPRETER OF BOTH
The only proper approach to these questions is by a whole-hearted acknowledgment that God himself is the only authoritative and reliable interpreter of his revelations. He is both the source and the interpreter of these revelations. This acknowledgment should be made seriously and in full awareness of its implications. It must not be reduced to a cliche—a trite expression which has lost its impact upon man. We must realize that man, though wonderfully made and gifted, is nevertheless not qualified to interpret God’s acts. No matter how humiliating it may be, for the proper approach to the questions put, man must disqualify himself as the primary and authoritative interpreter of God’s acts.
DIVINE INTERPRETATION BEFORE AND AFTER MAN’S FALL
Moreover, we must guard against the persistent danger of ascribing the necessity of divine interpretation exclusively to the destruction and depravity produced by sin. Of course, we readily admit that sin has intensified the necessity of divine interpretation as well as its scope, but God interpreted his own acts and products even before sin occurred. In Genesis 1 and 2 God adds his words to his works. He not only gives an appraisal of his works (1:31), but he likewise instructs man as to the task he must perform. God tells man what he must do with the products of his hands. Hence even in the state of rectitude God’s acts and his products were not self-interpretative. True, the situation changed with man’s fall. If it was necessary for God to interpret and to instruct before the fall, this certainly became much more necessary after the fall. For through sin man became corrupt. Not only did man’s knowledge become inadequate and false, requiring correction and re-education, but man himself became corrupt in his inner being so that “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). God’s works, all his works, whether in nature or in the realm of grace, always demand his words—his interpretation. Whenever man ignores or denies the word and interpretation of God he goes astray, creates misconceptions, and lapses into paganism.
CLOSE CONNECTION AND INTERDEPENDENCE
However, since the work of God’s grace is restorative in character, it is related to his work in nature. That is to say, God’s special revelation is adapted to and, in a sense, integrated into his general revelation. God’s special revelation presupposes his work of creation and providence and as well the fall of man with all its dire results. For that reason a proper understanding of the first three chapters of the Bible (Genesis 1–3) is absolutely essential to the proper understanding and evaluation of all the rest of the Bible. If these chapters are ignored or misinterpreted the entire Bible will—sooner or later—be misunderstood. God’s general revelation will be misinterpreted without the proper and sufficient acknowledgement of God’s special revelation; and God’s special revelation has no point of reference without his general revelation and the fall of man.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC POSITION
Roman Catholic theology (Thomism) has always proposed a simple solution to the problems produced by the twofold revelation of God. It holds that reason unaided by God’s special revelation and unaided by the special work of God’s Spirit, can prove from nature that the true and living God exists. However, special revelation, according to this theology, serves the purpose of confirming that reasoning and of imparting to man the knowledge of certain mysteries, as of the Trinity and of salvation. (Cf. The Baltimore Catechism – which is a text for Roman Catholic secondary schools and colleges – questions I, 5, 34.) Hence the Roman Church holds that special revelation merely supplements and completes general revelation. General revelation takes us one part of the way, special revelation leads to the end of the same way. This doctrine was confirmed by the Vatican Council in 1870 and accounts for the large and important place Roman Catholicism assigns in its curricula to natural theology.
BARTH’S DENIAL OF GENERAL REVELATION
Reformed scholars and theology have ever refused to subscribe to this Roman Catholic view—the juxtaposition of general and special revelation; that is, placing them side by side. Karl Barth also opposes it. However, not for the same reasons which Reformed scholars had. Barth denies the existence of a general revelation of God and insists upon the one and only revelation of God in Christ Jesus. He, therefore, also sets himself against the Reformed view. According to Dr. G. C. Berkouwer, Barth criticizes the Second Article of the Belgic Confession very severely. Berkouwer states, “Earth discovers in this confession a dangerous invasion of natural theology, through which the church is always seduced—sooner or later—not to be fully satisfied with the only revelation in the word of God, with the revelation in Jesus Christ” (Algemeene Openbaring, pp. 220, 221).
SEPARATION OF THE TWO BY HOOYKAAS AND LEVER
But though none of us, I assume, subscribe consciously to the Roman view nor to the Barthian idea. yet all are not agreed as to the precise relation of the one to the other. Dr. R. Hooykaas states, for instance, in the Free University Quarterly (Nov. 1950), “Christian faith acknowledges two independent sources of revelation: Scripture and nature…‘christian’ scientists are apt to approach the ideal [which] the panegyrists (eulogizers -Ed.) of a neutral science often deny by their deeds: a free science, free, because its background is eternal Truth” (italics mine, N.J.M.). If we should take the adjective “independent” at its face value, we must conclude that Hooykaas considers the two revelations of God as two separate compartments, not related nor integrated and each the object of separate and independent investigation. Yet he speaks of “eternal Truth,” and one wonders just where he obtains the knowledge of that Truth, in general or in special revelation.
A similar “Thomistic” tendency towards bifurcation (dividing into two branches–Ed.) is found in the work of Dr. J. Lever entitled Creatie en Evolutie. In the first chapter of this book Lever assigns, though with qualifying and restricting terms, separate domains to the Bible and to science. He states, “…that the Bible tells us often only that something occurs, but not how it occurs. The manner in which belongs at times to the domain of science. The Bible supplies us with high points, science can at times discover the lines between them” (p. 15). In stating this, Dr. Lever not only generalizes, he also seeks to establish a basic hermeneutical principle, which is to control exegesis -the interpretation of the Bible. However, the division which his proposition makes appears to be artificial and forced, and it ignores the fact that general and special revelation are in a sense dependent upon each other and integrated. Does the Bible often only state that something occurred without at the same time supplying at least some information in regard to the manner in which it occurred? Genesis 1–3 certainly supply information in regard to the manner in which God worked. But it is not difficult to see that Dr. Lever needs this hermeneutical proposition to make room in the Bible for his evolutionary theories.
I have cited these examples to show that there is no unanimity among present-day scholars in regard to the relation between general and special revelation; and also as evidence of the fact that these revelations are regarded by some as two books, having independent existence and demanding different approaches.
WHAT DOES THE BELGIC CONFESSION SAY?
Now, Reformed Confessional Standards. such as the Westminster and Belgic Confessions of Faith, express them· selves very briefly in regard to the subject at hand. They do acknowledge the existence of a twofold revelation of God. but they do not enlarge on the exact character of general revelation. We confine ourselves to the Belgic Confession and note that the little it says concerning both revelations seems. at first blush. to give comfort to those who maintain that there are two independent sources for the knowledge of God. Moreover. when one reads the second article of the Confession it may even seem that it yields to the Roman Catholic doctrine, described above, and that in it we find a remnant of that doctrine. The second article states, “We know Him [i.e. God. confessed in the first article] by two means.” The article thereupon describes God’s general revelation as the first of the two means. and then states that God. “…makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy and divine Word…” The use of that comparison might create the impression that the Confession intends to say that the only true and living God makes himself vaguely and insufficiently known through general revelation, but “more clearly and fully” in his special revelation, so that the latter supplements and complements the former. This would, of course, be in line with Roman Catholicism. However, we know that the Reformers (Calvin, for instance) opposed that Roman doctrine and it would therefore be passing strange if such a notion would have been incorporated and through the years. retained in the Confession. Hence the comparison made in the second article between general and special revelation challenges our attention and calls for an explanation.
For the proper understanding of this comparison at least two facts must be home in mind. First. that this article with its comparison is part of a confession of faith and therefore that believers in God and his Word are employing this language; second. that the comparison refers to the revelation of God and not to the believer’s knowledge of that revelation.
INTERPRETATION BY POLMAN AND BERKOUWER
Dr. A. D. R. Polman, who has recently written a four-volume commentary on the Belgie Confession, supplies us with the significant information that Guido de fires, the primary composer of the Confession. in his first draft, did not simply write, “We know Him…” but, “We confess to know Him…” (Onze Nederlondsche Geloofsbelijdenis, Vol. I, p. 158). The subjects who are speaking and confessing in this article and the comparison found in it are believers. They, therefore, occupy the position of faith in God and in his Word and from that vantage point they view both general and special revelation, declaring that God is known by faith in the Bible from general revelation, but “more clearly and fully” from special revelation. Hence the believers, here confessing, do not mean to assert that without faith in God’s special revelation he can be known from general revelation. That, of course. would be the Roman view. The Confession upholds the Reformed view. Dr, Polman admits that the choice of terminology is not a happy one. but at the same time he insists that no one may explain the comparison used in the second article as if it implies that nature and history would be clear to us WIthout the use of the spectacles of Scripture (Vol. I, p. 173). Dr. G. C. Berkouwer discusses the second article and the comparison made in it in his work on De Algemeene Openbaring (General Revelation) and states that in the article, “the confessor does not speak of that which he could attain or has attained by the natural light of his reason in order to add to that the knowledge through the Word as a ‘complement.’ But he speaks of the knowledge of God as an indivisible magnitude.” He further states that the works of God’s hands “…can only be truly seen and known through the revelation of the Word” (p. 233). Again, Berkouwer states that article 2. “…does not in the least imply that there would already be present a sufficient and true knowledge from the first means [nature], which must only be somewhat filled-in and completed by the second means [Scripture]. That surely has not been the intent of article 2…” (p. 232). It has been suggested that de Bres, in writing the second article. has followed the example of no one less than Calvin. However, while it is true that Calvin employs comparisons in this connection. yet he always employs them only with reference to believers. He even uses the well-known figure of spectacles in regard to it—Scripture being the spectacles through which Nature must be viewed (cf. Institutes, Bk. I. Ch. VI, Sec. I and II).
Moreover, the comparison found in the second article does not refer to our knowledge of God. but to the revelation of God. The question is not primarily. Where has the believer obtained his knowledge of God. but rather, Where has God revealed himself. where has God made himself known. In answer to that question the article states that God made himself known to the believer through nature, but “more clearly and fully” through Scripture. A Roman Catholic would say: unaided reason learns to know the true and living God through nature, and supernatural faith learns to know him through Scripture—unaided reason reacts to nature, supernatural faith to Scripture. But we confess in the second article that faith is required in the one case as well as in the other. (Cf. Polman, op. cit.. pp. 158. 159; Berkouwer, op, cit.. p. 232.)
Though it seems that some authors begin to deviate from this position, yet Reformed scholars have unanimously subscribed to it and do subscribe to it still.
THE VIEW OF ABRAHAM KUYPER
Abraham Kuyper does that in several of his works. He discusses these matters at length in his Encyclopaedie der Heilige Godgeleerdheid. Vol. II. He insists that the twofold revelation of God is integrated and that the one can· not be understood without the other, but states likewise. “It is aside from the truth when one regards the fact that the Reformed Confessions mention nature and Scripture separately as an indication of our source of knowledge, as if juxtaposition or coordination were intended” (p. 324). Again Kuyper states, “It is therefore indeed only through the cognitio specialis (special knowledge – Ed.) that cognitio natuarlis (natural knowledge – Ed.) becomes usable” (p. 327). In his first volume of De Gemeene Gratie Kuyper states, “He who has been trained according to Scripture possesses his philosophy, understands the history of the world and has a solid and correct view of the great events occurring in the world…Christ and his cross constitute the center…But just on account of that it is so exceedingly important that Christians adhere to the principle of Scripture and an immeasurable damage to the church of God is produced when the narratives of Genesis 1–5 are declared not to be authentic” (p. 102).
BAVINCK’S POSITION
Dr. H. Bavinck writes about the approach of the dogmatician to this problem and states, “he takes his position in Christian faith, in special revelation and also observes from that point of view nature and history. And now he discovers there traces of the same God, whom he has learned to know in Christ as his Father. Precisely as a Christian, through faith, he observes the revelation of God in nature much better and more clearly than he was able to detect this formerly…Subjectively the knowledge of God from nature is with the believer posterior [subsequent or later] to [the knowledge from] Scripture” (Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, Vol. I, pp. 333, 334).
STATEMENT BY POLMAN
Dr. Polman writes, “N0 one knows anymore [after the fall of man] who God is and what he is. Their senseless heart was darkened. For that reason God sent a second revelation through his Word, in which he gives a pure description of his first revelation and in which he at the same time reveals himself as the Redeemer in Christ” (op. cit., p. 155).
STANDPOINT OF BERKOUWER
Dr. G. C. Berkouwer is very explicit. He states, “It is clear that the Christian Church, in speaking of general revelation, never intended to assert that true knowledge of God is possible through the natural light of reason.” And again, “More and more the fact is clear that the general revelation of God does not stand next to the special revelation, but that special revelation opens our eyes to the greatness of God’s works…” (Revelation and the Bible, pp. 15 and 19; see also his De Algemeene Openbaring, pp. 235–238).
CONCLUSION
It should be plain that those who deviate from the accepted Reformed position and seek to place the two revelations of God next to each other, independently, owe us an explanation. Mere statements are not convincing.