The debate over creation and evolution now underway in the Christian Reformed Church was unleashed by the controversy over the writings and teachings of Professors Howard Van Till, Davis Young and Clarence Menninga of Calvin College. In the background of that debate stands the doctrine of general revelation. It is my conviction that this doctrine is often misunderstood in a way that leaves us vulnerable in the face of evolutionism. Therefore I propose to take a fresh look at it. In doing so, I will first step outside our Reformed circles to listen to what an outsider has to say.
General Revelation: Its Limits
The doctrine of general revelation gets praised much more than it gets explained. Prof. Bruce Demarest, a conservative Baptist who teaches theology at Denver Seminary, is one of the very few theologians who has dared to write a full-length book on this topic. (His book is entitled General Revelation: Historical Views and Contemporary Issues and was published by Zondervan in 1982.) More recently he has addressed this theme again in a book entitled Integrative Theology, which he has co-authored with his colleague Prof. Gordon R. Lewis. (Volume I of this work was published by Zondervan in 1987.) In both books Demarest supports what I call an expansive (probably also expensive) understanding of general revelation: there is quite a bit that can be known about God apart from special revelation, he maintains. He also comments on the Reformed understanding of general revelation, in the following words: “Most Dutch Reformed theologians postulate the reality of general revelation and a knowledge of God implanted within the sinner’s moral and psychological constitution. But because sin has blinded the mind, natural human beings attain no knowledge of God by reflection on the indicia of the space-time universe. Abraham Kuyper argues that sin has bolted shut the door to general knowledge of God; only those who approach nature and history with regenerate eyes and minds find the cosmos to be a legible book” (p. 65).
Demarest could just as well have quoted Herman Bavinck here. In his discussion ofgeneral revelation in the Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, Bavinck observes: “The Reformers did accept a revelation of God in nature. But because of sin, man was so darkened in his understanding that he could not come to a proper knowledge and understanding of this revelation. Thus two things were necessary. The first was that God had to take those truths which in themselves were available through nature and include them in His special revelation. The second was that man would first have to be enlightened by God’s Spirit if he was to perceive God in nature again. In order to understand the general revelation of God in nature, special revelation in Scripture was objectively necessary. (Calvin had compared this special revelation to a pair of spectacles.) And on the subjective side, man needed the eye of faith if he was to be able to see God in the works of his hand” (Vol. I, 1928 printing, p. 175). Thus the Reformers did not allow for an independent natural theology (p. 275). (By “natural theology” I mean a body of knowledge about God which has been gleaned from givens other than special revelation.)
Yet Bavinck found it necessary to criticize John Calvin on this point, for in Calvin we still find a distinction or contrast between natural and supernatural revelation. (Bavinck points to Institutes 2.2.12–13.) The independence which this distinction allowed for reason and science had some unfortunate consequences: “Reason thereby received some authority of its own alongside faith. It appeared that reason did not always have to be led by faith but could be free and independent, even if only in a small, neutral (onverschillig) territory.” Once reason had established an independent foothold, it began to expand its territory, says Bavinck. “First in civil (burgerlijk) matters, then in science, in philosophy, and ultimately also in theology, it rose up alongside faith and even came to stand over against faith” (p. 176).
I promised you a fresh look at general revelation. We need that fresh look because there is, at the moment, confusion in our ranks-confusion about the relation of the doctrine of general revelation to the Van Till controversy.
You are probably expecting me to say that Van Till uses an expansive conception of general revelation to defend scientific conclusions which to most of us seem to conflict with the creeds. But that’s not quite what is going on. The picture is somewhat murkier than most of us have so far discerned. To get clarity, we must first distinguish between Van Till’s own position (which seems largely to be shared by his two Calvin College colleagues mentioned earlier) and the official defense of Van Till by denominational leaders and agencies.
Two Contradictory Views: Science Reveals God or Science Does Not Reveal God.
Another way to get at the confusion is to recognize that there are at least two markedly different views of the relation between science and faith at work in the debate. One is Van Till’s own view, which is that science is religiously neutral. The other is a view held by prominent defenders of Van Till.
Some of those defenders (including Dr. Anthony Diekema, President of Calvin College) work from what I would call the natural theology approach to science. This way of thinking and talking is popular among people involved in Christian education because it provides a quick and simple rationale for Christians to do science: we investigate nature (and its lawfulness) to find out what God is like.
Picking up a single metaphor used in Article 2 of the Belgic Confession, Diekema and others {including various ministers I have talked with) defend Van Till by declaring that free, unfettered study of nature within a scientific framework will yield knowledge of God. See, for example, the letter of March 25, 1988, which President Diekema and Rev. Charles De Ridder (President of the Calvin Board of Trustees) sent out to many Calvin alumni and supporters. The three professors, we read “accept the challenge of learning more about our God from the revelation of himself through his creation.” When you read the Banner’s report on the Van Till decision at this summer’s synod, the heading was “Creation: That ‘Elegant Book.’” The limitations on general revelation that we noted earlier as characteristic of Reformed thinking were nowhere to be seen. Science functions on its own as natural theology. In other words, science can be regarded as theology that is based on the study of nature (rather than on Scripture). Kuyper and Bavinck would be surprised to hear this.
People who use the natural theology approach to science like to tell us that God wrote two books-the Bible and nature. (And since nature is not composed of language and therefore is not readable in any literal sense, it turns out in practice that God’s second book is science, which is a body of writings about nature.) If science is indeed a second book which God has sent our way, we certainly have no reason to fear it.
Where did President Diekema and company ever get such an idea? Well, to begin with, such talk has floated around in Christian circles for generations. Many a science teacher or professor begins his course in Christian high school or college with some half-hearted remark about how the study of nature makes God known to us. More pointedly, I would argue that Diekema probably got that impression from Van Till himself, for Van Till gave his controversial book the following title: The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling Us About Creation.
Such a title would lead the reader to expect that the book takes the six creation days very seriously and wishes to make much of Genesis 1:14–19, where we read about the creation of “two great lights” on a “fourth day.” When we get into the book, however, it turns out that its author is not interested in detailed exegesis at all; the theological sections of the book are devoted instead to encouraging readers not to look to Genesis for details and specifics. What we find in Genesis is “pictorial, figurative, anthropomorphic language” (see The Fourth Day, pp. 59–60; see also his discussion of Genesis 1:14–19 on pp. 88–89). For the most part, Van Till is telling us what not to think and conclude from Genesis. “The stories serve as ‘packaging’ that contains the message-content conveyed by the vehicle of primeval history” (p. 82). We must distinguish “between the story elements and the message being conveyed by the story” (p. 92). Moreover, the creation week is a literary device (see pp. 84–85 and 90–92). If it is indeed a literary device, why emphasize “the fourth day” and use it as the title of the book?
And then there is the subtitle: “What the Bible and the heavens are telling us about creation.” Now, this certainly sounds like the sort of expansive general revelation talk that I have long feared. But the view of science which the book vigorously defends indicates that Van Till is not essentially a general revelation and natural theology thinker at all. In other words, Van Till talks a different line than his general revelation defenders—hence the confusion.
This becomes especially clear from his latest book Science Held Hostage (published by InterVarsity Press in 1988), which he has coauthored with Professors Clarence Menninga and Davis Young. The neutrality of science was already defended by Van Till in The Fourth Day; in the new book the three professors stick to this line. We read: “The scientific community seeks to gain knowledge in a manner that honors the religious diversity of its membership . . . . when working within the restricted domain of natural science, scientists are able to function as a community united in the search for authentic knowledge concerning the inherent intelligibility of the physical world. The results of professional natural science belong to everyone . . .” (p. 42).
What we see in Van Till himself, then, is the view that science, properly understood is religiously neutral. It is not about God but limits itself strictly to physical reality. He writes: “When operating within its proper domain, science does not compete with philosophical or religious considerations, because, unlike philosophy or religion, natural science is limited to the study of the corporeal world alone” (The Fourth Day, p. 107). The natural sciences “. . . choose to restrict their attention to the physical realm alone” (Science Held Hostage, p. 12). Thus the heavens, as physical reality, can tell us nothing about God as Creator. Van Till is not true to his own title!
A strictly Vantillian defense of Van Till would, then, take a rather different form from the defense which President Diekema offers. And here, so that I do Diekema no injustice, I should note in passing that his defense of Van Till flows from a proper concern for academic freedom: after all, Calvin College is not just a denominational agency but also a distinguished institution of higher learning with a reputation to protect. I believe Diekema’s reasoning (which, it appears, has been endorsed by the Board of Trustees) goes something like this. Just as the interpreter of Scripture enjoys a certain freedom of exegesis in listening to what God is telling us about Himself in Scripture (and perhaps understanding and applying it in a novel way), the interpreter of the “book of nature” enjoys a freedom of exegesis in construing what God is telling us about Himself via this second medium of His self-disclosure. Thus, in the Banner’s report on Van Till at synod, we find a delegate talking about exegeting monkey bones! (See page 9 of the June 1:7 issue.) This delegate should have been handed a copy of Van Till’s book and told that monkey bones, as bits of physical reality, give us no knowledge of non-physical processes, such as creation.
The Diekema defense, according to which Van Till must be allowed some freedom of‘ exegesis in interpreting the “book of nature” does enjoy some plausibility–provided that the expansive conception of general revelation is correct. But this is precisely what I wish to contest.
An abridged version of a speech presented at a meeting of the Reformed Fellowship held in Grandville, Michigan, on September 29, 1988. Dr. Plantinga is a Professor of Philosophy at Redeemer College at Ancaster (near Hamilton), Ontario.