Whitefield
Puritan Board Junior
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1: Prolegomena, pp. 304
The Reformers indeed assumed a revelation of God in nature. But the human mind was so darkened by sin that human beings could not rightly know and understand this revelation either. Needed, therefore, were two things: (1) that God again included in special revelation those truths which in themselves are knowable from nature; and (2) that human beings, in order to again perceive God in nature, first had to be illuminated by the Spirit of God. Objectively needed by human beings to understand the general revelation of God in nature was the special revelation of God in Holy Scripture, which accordingly, was compared by Calvin to glasses. Subjectively needed by human beings was the eye of faith to see God also in the works of his hands.