What is Natural Revelation?

[py3ak]

I get the feeling from some things people say that they think of "natural revelation" as "everything that may be known outside of Scripture" and view the field of natural revelation as the proper stomping grounds of the physical scientists. But I had always considered that natural or general revelation is God's revelation of Himself through the created order - not the facts of the created order itself. In other words, the proof of a mathematical theorem or the composition of a chemical compound is not general revelation, because it is not revelation at all, anymore than what Shakespeare meant by calling Hamlet "fat" is revelation.

So who is wrong? Is natural revelation still speaking of a revelation of God, or does it include anything that may be deduced from the facts?

 

[Prufrock]

Ruben, you seem to be spot-on. If you will permit a young Elihu to speak for a few moments, when we say "natural revelation," the important term there is "revelation." When theologians used that term, they are speaking of theology (hence the mantra about revelation being subservient to theology), and thus a body of knowledge which belongs to the field of theology - not simply "everything known outside of scripture." It is the revelation which *could* accompany a natural theology (I emphasize "could," as that is another conversation entirely, and one far more intricate).

Different sciences or arts may give treatment of the same object, but considered under different relations: thus, physics and chemistry deal with man as he is composed of physical matter, biology deals with him as he is a living organism, economics deals with him as he is a consuming creature, ethics as he is a moral decision maker, etc. As the relation of an object to God is the most fundamental thing about it, theology must provide the first word, but it does not thereby become geology or biology or economics, etc.

 

[VictorBravo]

Good questions, and I like Paul's answer too.

I do think there is a place for deductions (or maybe better said, inductions) from facts, however, especially in a perfect state. I'm thinking of Adam's observation of all the animals having male and female counterparts, and noting that he, himself, did not have such a counterpart. I think that is an example of natural revelation that provided a glimpse into the mind of God revealed in his design.

But I don't think we can press that very far after the Fall. Our observations of creation are always bent. The facts we learn demand interpretation, and we are all too ready to provide our own spin on each observation without divine revelation to correct us.

 

[Mushroom]

Wow. Three minds on this forum very dear to me and of whom I am fearfully reticent to wade among, because I possess a sorrowfully blinkering intellect hindered by an even more sorrowfully blinkering consecration, that these minds seem as rocks to my shifting sand. But I will trepiditiously put forth one thought, then run to the shadows, and that is that may not our God be observed as majestically in both the microcosm as well as the macrocosm? The unbelieving mathematician sees 2+2=4 as a simple and unimportant equation, but does it not reflect in its small way the order, unassailable logic, and constancy of the mind of the Ancient of Days? But to explain that to the unbeliever is as futile as describing the color red to one who sees only black and white?

/feeble erudition attempt off/ You guys scare me, so I gotta try to sound like I have half a mind. I apologize.

 

[py3ak]

Thank you, Paul, it's nice to have that clarity. General revelation is what (theoretically) allows for a natural theology; so while the natural theologian may make use of the findings of geologists, mathematicians, etc., those findings are not themselves a natural theology nor concerned with that data around us in that precise relation.

Vic, without the Fall it is interesting to wonder what heights natural theology might have reached; but of course since we refuse to glorify God as God and are unthankful, our foolish hearts are darkened.

Brad, yes, I think that it is not only the heavens that declare the glory of God: if we had eyes to see in every detail of history and in every fact of the world around us we would see the hand of God. My concern was to verify if that fact effectively overthrew a distinction, seemingly much ignored in our time, between general revelation and the physical sciences. I think we do ourselves no favors when we speak and think as though geologists, physicists, etc., were formally dealing with general revelation.