1 What can we learn about God from nature?
2 What is the role of the Holy Spirit when we receive revelation?
3 Does the Holy Spirit always enlighten the mind of one who honestly seeks knowledge (a broadened, prevenient grace)?
4 How does the revelation of God in the natural world interact with direct or special revelation?
I want to suggest some answers, though I would hardly suggest these are firm conclusions.
Learning from Nature
The things somebody makes definitely reflect something about that person. We can see this most clearly in art, but if you look at a person's work product, you will see something of their nature. At the same time, you will not learn everything about that person through the things they have made.
Supposing I write a computer program to do something fairly simple and straightforward, but it is something that many people want to do. Let's say that I do a really good job so quite a number of people use the program, and regard it as effective. They could conclude some things about me from looking at the program. First, I do know how to program a computer. (Note that in real life I haven't produced any substantial commercial successes!) Second, I was able to produce a program that accomplished something they wanted to accomplish. They could imagine from those observations that I'm a careful person who does good craftsmanship. (It would be hard, of course, for them to be certain that this single instance hadn't exhausted my capabilities.)
But they could also make some more questionable assumptions. They might assume that I was dedicated to the task performed by that particular program and thus had gone to an extraordinary effort to make sure people would be able to do that one thing. They might imagine me as a committed crusader, spending hours daily trying to carry out my crusade. Of course all that would ignore the possibility that I am a mercenary who desires lots of money and credit for my skills.
When we deal with the creation, we're in a similar position with God. We can look at the way the universe functions and we can see certain things about what is necessary to live in the universe. We can try to imagine the attributes of God that are reflected in his natural universe. These would include the law of cause and effect, and the apparent desire for creatures that have a range of freedom of action. Simple application of the law of cause and effect could make moral creatures of us, though we might choose rather different value systems.
But if God has a greater purpose for this world, this universe, and for our individual lives, the universe itself is not going to inform us. For that we would need special revelation if we are to know at all.
The Holy Spirit and Revelation
It's easy to talk generally about the Holy Spirit and his involvement in revelation. We know that the Holy Spirit teaches us (John 14:26). The question is just what is that role? I will discuss this more later, but right now I simply want to suggest that the Holy Spirit is in the business of helping people pursue truth. There is no knowledge that is a prerequisite to having the Holy Spirit work in your life.
I combine the teaching role of the Holy Spirit with the basic freedom apparent in the universe to suggest that the Holy Spirit enlightens everyone to whatever extent they are willing to receive. Obviously this places me in direct opposition to the Calvinist position on predestination, yet it seems to combine the evident freedom of the universe and the experience of God quite nicely.
This same freedom suggests that God's Holy Spirit enlightens everyone, and not just a select few. Fairness would call for that. We have no way of being certain that God intends to be fair—just would be a more Biblical term—but the Bible does seem to suggest that he is. It seems difficult to me to combine fairness and partiality.
Combining General and Special Revelation
The role of each type of revelation seems obvious to me, provided that we simply look at how each functions. We look at nature and observe its facts. Facts of the physical world and explaining how they fit together are the province of scientific observation. We have repeated demonstrations of the effectiveness of this process in functioning technology, such as the computer and word processor I'm using to produce this book.
On the other hand, the why is not so clear from such observations. We can fit quite a number of different motivations and moral systems into the physical nature of the universe and the way in which our lives function in it. What is true? Here is where special revelation comes in.
There are two fairly obvious ways in which one can be misled, both of which result from applying the wrong type of revelation to the problem. Using special revelation to gain information about the physical world has resulted in young earth creationism, the doctrine that the earth (and the universe) is a mere 6,000 years old, and was created in six literal days. An overwhelming mass of scientific evidence stands against this conclusion. Everything we can learn from the natural world contradicts it, yet advocates hang onto it simply because they believe it is what the Bible teaches. The special revelation, in this case, trumps the revelation of the physical world in an area in which it should not.
The reverse case is Social Darwinism. Here simply because we observe that those most fit to fill an environmental niche will survive, while those less suited fail, we decide that in society this is what ought to be. In this case observations from science are abused to produce a moral conclusion.
Direct and Clear Revelation
I first truly struggled with this question in a small study group I was leading several years ago. Part of the group program was that we would take however much time the members wanted to and work through the meaning of each passage as long as the group cared to do so. This led to some rather lengthy arguments, and often to nitpicking the meaning. (You should only use this kind of approach in a study group if everyone truly wants to do it.) In one such session we were debating some passages in Revelation, and one of the members finally gave in to frustration and said, “Why can’t God just write all this out in the sky clearly, so that we would know beyond any doubt what it meant?”
Hebrews 1:1-4 tells us that God has spoken at various times and in various ways through the prophets. Now, in the last days, he has spoken by means of his Son. But you and I still have to listen to God speak to someone else. We don’t see a physical Jesus or hear him preach. Instead we read reports of what he said to other people 2,000 years ago. We don’t even get to listen to the author of Hebrews; indeed, we can’t seem to agree on who he (or some say she) is. So again we’re hearing him speak to other people, and we are kind of eavesdropping. Why doesn’t God make it clearer? Why doesn’t he speak directly to me?
It’s not just speaking directly, though. It’s the clarity that’s important. If God would just make the message personal, we would not have to consider just what the principles are, and how to apply them to our own lives–we’d know!
I believe that God does speak to each person directly, but clarity is another matter. In doing prayer ministry, one reason people will ask me to pray with them is that they believe they have heard from God, but they’re not sure that it is God, or they’re not sure just how to put it into practice.
This is not an easy question to resolve quickly, but it’s a good question to think about. Let me make some suggestions:
1 God wants us to learn to think. We often treasure the work of the prophets, and we like the results of the wisdom writers, but are we willing to do the work that goes behind wisdom? Hebrews 5:14 tell us: “14Solid food is for the mature, for those who through practice have exercised their understanding to distinguish good and evil.” God may well want us to practice our own judgment and discernment and grow in wisdom.
2 God wants us to hear from him in a community. Any one of us can go wildly astray on our own, but when we have accountability to brothers and sisters, at a minimum we have to consider the response of those close to us to what we say. Even writing