in this session we're going to talk about general revelation how god reveals himself to all people everywhere a couple of key questions about general revelation that we want to try to answer in this session does the bible really teach a doctrine of general revelation what happens to a person who dies without knowledge of jesus and the gospel and how does general revelation impact personal evangelism and missionary efforts so what is general revelation through general revelation god has made his existence power and eternal nature known to all people everywhere general revelation includes god's self-revelation through nature the human conscience and history but this general revelation is limited in its ability to describe god his mighty acts and his salvific plan so what is general revelation in the story of the bible how does biblical theology talk about general revelation we begin in act one god's initial act of creation is itself a gracious self-disclosure of his divine nature his eternal power and his glory as the psalmist famously writes the heavens declare the glory of god and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands day after day they pour out speech night after night they communicate knowledge there is no speech there are no words their voice is not heard so in creation there is the glory of god put on display but this is a form of non-verbal communication there are no actual words being said by creation yet nevertheless they communicate the glory the existence and the nature of god act two the story of israel we find that the idolatry and worship of foreign gods among israel's ancient near eastern neighbors ultimately confirms what paul later writes about the truth of general revelation being exchanged for a lie through special revelation god gives israel a mission to be set apart from the nations when we read israel's own history we find out that israel's ancestors prior to abraham were themselves pagans who were given to idolatry who'd worshiped and served creation rather than the creator but god redeemed abraham from this we read this account in joshua 24 verses 2 and three joshua said to all the people this is what the lord the god of israel says long ago your ancestors including terah the father of abraham and nahor lived beyond the euphrates river and worshiped other gods but i took your father abraham from the region beyond the euphrates river led him throughout the land of canaan and multiplied his descendants therefore fear the lord and worship him in sincerity and truth get rid of your gods your ancestors worship beyond the euphrates river and in egypt and worship the lord so god had a plan from the very beginning to rescue israel the the ancestors of israel the descendants of israel from paganism in acts 3 the general revelation given to the world and the special revelation given to israel is surpassed by jesus the son who is himself the image of the invisible god and the exact expression of his nature who revealed god to us but even in jesus there seems to be some indication of a relationship to general revelation in him was life and that life was the light of men that light shines in the darkness and yet the darkness did not overcome it the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world in act four the apostles and the earliest followers of jesus modeled ways to use general revelation as a starting point in gospel conversations particularly in their interaction with gentiles who are not familiar with israel's scriptures and we see this play out in perhaps what is the most famous passage related to the doctrine of general revelation romans chapter 1 when paul is talking about how god is righteous in his judgment against the gentiles he says this for god's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth since what can be known about god is evident among them because god has shown it to them for though they knew god they did not glorify him as god or show their gratitude instead their thinking became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal god for images resembling mortal man birds four-footed animals and reptiles therefore god delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity so that their bodies were degraded among themselves they exchanged the truth of god for a lie and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the creator who is praised forever amen we see paul making very similar comments to pagan audiences in the book of acts in acts chapter 14. paul says this in past generations he allowed the nations to go their own way although he did not leave himself without a witness since he did what is good by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons and filling you with food and your hearts with joy paul's saying that even the goodness of god in creation in providing for you what you need is ultimately a witness to the existence of god acts 17 paul stood in the middle of the areopagus mars hill and he said people of athens i see that you are extremely religious in every respect for as i was passing through and observing the objects of your worship i even found an altar on which was inscribed to an unknown god therefore what you worship in ignorance this i proclaim to you the god who made the world and everything in it he is the lord of heaven and earth does not live in shrines made by hands from one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and he's determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live he did this so that they might seek god and perhaps might reach out and find him though he is not far from each one of us for in him we live and move and have our being as even some of your own poets have said for we are also his offspring since then we are god's offspring we shouldn't think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone an image fashioned by human art and imagination therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance god now commands all people everywhere to repent because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he is appointed and he has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead so paul at mars hill makes it very plain that god has made himself known in creation and that god is ultimately working to redeem human beings to bring them to saving faith in christ jesus in act 5 we discover this in the end of the biblical story that with the return of jesus and the consummation of the kingdom there will no longer be any need for general revelation paul says this in first corinthians 13 when the perfect comes the partial will come to an end for now we only see we see only a reflection as in the mirror but then face to face now i know in part but then i will know fully as i am fully known first john 3 2 john says this dear friends we are god's children now and what we will be has not yet been revealed we will know that when he appears we will be like him because we will see him as he is so no more will there be any sort of partial revelation or incomplete revelation of god in nature we will see god manifest in his glory and he will be in no way hidden to us general revelation in christian truth so how do we talk about general revelation in a systematic way systematic theologians tend to identify three loci of general revelation the first one is this nature that god reveals himself in nature in creation that we can look at the complexity of creation we can look at the causation of creation and it ultimately points back to god god reveals himself in the human conscience in our sense of morality our sense of right and wrong and god reveals himself in history and in human providence or god's providence over humanity romans 2 12-16 for all who sin without the law will also perish without the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law for the hearers of the law are not righteous before god but the doers of the law will be justified so when gentiles who do not by nature have the law do what the law demands they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts their consciences affirm this their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them on the day when god judges what people have kept secret according to my gospel through christ jesus in other words the gentiles don't have the law of moses they don't have torah they don't have access to special revelation but they do have a sense of right and wrong that is written on their hearts so what truth can we glean from general revelation bruce demarest lists several first we can glean from general revelation that god exists we can glean that god is uncreated that god is himself the creator of everything that there is that he is the sustainer of creation that he is lord of all we also recognize that god is self-sufficient what we talk about when we talk about the assailty of god he depends on no one else god is transcendent he is separate from and distinct from creation he is not part of creation himself but he is also imminent that is to say he comes close to creation he comes by his creatures and he makes himself known to them god is eternal he is without beginning and without end he is majestic he is powerful he is wise he is good and he is sovereign he is the source of moral virtue and he is deserving of our worship and our adoration and ultimately he will judge humanity we ultimately will have to answer to god on the basis of what he communicates through this general revelation there are several debated topics related to general revelation particularly over this issue called natural theology now natural theology is a debated term largely because it means different things to different theologians for the sake of clarity what i've tried to do here is divide natural theology into two broad categories most patristic medieval and reformation era theologians advocated for a kind of natural theology even if they didn't use that particular phrase that understands some things can be known about god through general revelation his existence his attributes his power etc with this approach to natural theology general revelation can prepare us to receive special revelation note that general revelation is not thought of to be a replacement for special revelation but something that prepares us to receive special revelation origin of alexandria said this all who perceive in whatever manner the existence of providence confessed that god who created and disposed all things is unbegotten and recognize him as the parent of the universe for although no one is able to speak with certainty of god the father it is nevertheless possible for some knowledge of him to be gained by the means of the visible creation and the natural feelings of the human mind and it is possible moreover for such knowledge to be confined from the sacred scriptures yet it is from sacred scripture also that the human mind is taught how to think of the son so there is something that we can know about god through creation through what god has made known in nature but also the feelings of the natural mind thomas aquinas offered a kind of two-tier view and vision of natural theology he said this because man is directed to god as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human revelation should be known made known to him through divine or special revelation simply put according to thomas there are things that we can know about god through nature through reason but this kind of knowledge is inferior to what god has revealed through special revelation following the enlightenment on the other hand some liberal theologians and deist and really non-christian theologians in general advocated for a kind of natural theology superior to or altogether devoid of special revelation human agency and human reason can ascertain the work of god apart from any special work of grace so john toland who would have been an example of a 17th 18th century deist theologian and thinker said this what is once revealed what we must understand as any other matter in the world revelation being only of use to inform us while the evidence of the subject persuades us then reply they reason is of more dignity than revelation i answer that just as much as a greek grammar is superior to the new testament for we make use of the grammar to understand the language and reason to understand the sense of that book but in a word i see no need for comparisons in this case for reason is not less from god than revelation tis the candle the guide the judge he is lodged within every man that cometh into this world so for toland and for deists like him the need for special revelation is less important than the need we have for reason and through reason we can reason our way to god in opposition to the liberal brand of natural theology practiced by people like toland or schleiermacher theologians like carl bart dismissed the notion of general revelation and natural theology altogether this is what bart said the church must not withhold from the world nor must it confuse and conceal the fact that god is knowable to us in his grace and because in grace only in his grace for this reason it can make no use of natural theology with its doctrine of another kind of nobility of god so for carl bart there's really no value whatsoever in appealing to general revelation or natural revelation because we have special revelation and general revelation and natural theology cannot bring people into knowledge of god perhaps the most significant debate of the 20th century was between carl bart and emil bruner and the subject of natural theology carl bart famously had opposed general revelation and emma bruner who was also a neo-orthodox theologian and a one-time friend of carl bart wrote a book called nature and grace in which he critiqued bart's position on natural revelation on general revelation and argue that there was a place that for christians to know something about god from nature by itself and bart came along and he famously wrote a book called nine or no and it was his answer to what bruner was saying about natural theology and you can read this particular little volume that comprises both nature and grace and carl bart's little pamphlet no that was written in response is very entertaining theological reading so what can we at the end of the day affirm about general revelation god's self-disclosure through nature without advocating for a version of natural theology the type b that seeks independence from special revelation i would say that even general revelation is a gift of god's grace and its recognition by human reason is no source for human boasting reason itself is a gift from god so if we perceive something about god through reason it is not something that we can boast about it's an accomplishment of our own it is the work of grace in our lives general revelation is the grounds for god's righteous judgment we get this from romans chapter one human beings who have some knowledge of god through creation and conscience have suppressed that knowledge and turn toward idolatry and this is where again paul gets off saying that paul that god is right to judge the world for god's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness people who uh by their unrighteousness suppress the truth they have a deep sense of the existence of god but yet they nevertheless suppress this truth they rebel against god and as a consequence deserve the condemnation coming to them calvin writes about this this awareness of divinity he says there is within the human mind and indeed by natural instinct an awareness of divinity since therefore men one and all perceive that there is a god and that he is their maker they are condemned by their own testimony because they have failed to honor him and to concentrate their lives consecrate their lives to his will so for calvin there's no such thing really as an atheist every human being has some knowledge of god's existence but they tend to suppress that truth in unrighteousness so what do we do with this in evangelism in missions and ministry of what value is general revelation so i would argue this general revelation is valuable and god-given knowledge of himself but it is in and of itself an insufficient source of knowledge about god scripture is the only sufficient certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge faith and obedience and though they often suppress it general revelation provides all human beings everywhere with a basic understanding of god's vision for the moral life like the value of human life truth and the need for justice we have a basic sense of right and wrong and a basic sense of justice that god has written on our hearts general revelation gives explanation to the existence of other religious traditions across the world why are men so inherently religious well it's because they are responding to general revelation and even though idolatry is itself a falsehood it points to another truth that there is a god who has revealed himself in creation there is a god who has revealed himself to their consciences yet they reject this truth general revelation can provide a starting point for christian witness so there's a couple of different arguments for god's existence that we may use some of these are what we call a posteriori arguments or empirical arguments for god's existence the first is a kind of argument from cause or causation that we call the cosmological argument and that's really important to know and understand that cosmological arguments are arguments from causation probably the most famous one of late in cosmological arguments is the kalam cosmological argument or horizontal cosmological argument used by william lane craig and this one is popular mainly because it's very simple to use and this is the way william lane craig makes the argument whatever begins to exist has a cause the universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause no one's going to argue with the first point whatever begins to exist has a reason for its existence perhaps people might disagree with premise number two that the universe has a starting point that the universe had a beginning but william lane craig and others who use this kind of argument will appeal to things like big bang cosmology to support their case if the universe had a starting point then the universe had a reason for its existence therefore the universe had a cause now you will note that this does not necessarily get us to a christian god or the god of the bible but it does get us to a starting point that it's at least logically conceivable that some god exists then there's teleological arguments teleological arguments get their name from the greek word telos meaning end or purpose and these are arguments for god's existence from the apparent design found in the universe so let me give you an example a teleological argument from fine-tuning this again comes from william lane craig the fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe is due to either law chance or design the fine-tuning is not due to law or chance you eliminate two of the alternatives therefore the fine tuning is due to design and what william lane craig is appealing to are the things in the universe that are sometimes referred to as anthropic coincidences these things in nature that makes it appear that the universe is finely tuned for human life this particular argument has been used in various ways over the centuries william paley used a particular illustration about someone walking along a beach and finding a watch and you know that a watch wasn't there by accident that a watch had to be designed by someone and left there on the beach the same thing is true of creation when we see it creation appears in every sense of the word to be finely tuned for human life there are all these variable variables that that make human life uh possible but the odds are stacked against us it seems as if the universe is finely tuned and created for sustaining human life and then another type of argument altogether is what you call a moral law argument moral law arguments argue god's existence from the objectivity of moral values and duties a simple moral argument plays out like this if god does not exist objective moral values and duties do not exist objective moral values and duties do exist therefore god exists now just to explain this a little bit more clearly what we are not saying is that a person who does not believe in god cannot be a moral person that's not at all what's implied what we are saying is that a person who does not believe in god does not have a basis or an objective place to stand for the reason that he or she holds to those particular moral values moral values if they are objective must be rooted in an objective moral law giver as c.s lewis spells this out just as bodies all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws so the creature called man also had this law with great difference that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not but a man could choose either to obey the law of human nature or disobey it think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle or a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him you might as well try and imagine a country where two and two made five but the remarkable thing is this wherever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real right and wrong you will find the same man going back a moment later he may break a promise to you but if you try breaking a promise to him he'll be complaining it's not fair before you can say jack robinson so making arguments for god's existence can provide a common ground for gospel witness but make note these arguments are no substitute for evangelism itself arguments for god's existence like everything in general revelation does not necessarily lead a person to belief in the god of the bible so how do we use this doctrine in christian disciple making we can talk about expository sermons that are built around relevant biblical texts preach a sermon on psalm 19 as i recently did preach sermons on romans 1 and 2 on acts 17. this is one way that we communicate what general revelation is to the people in our churches teach a bible study class on doctrinal topics and talk about general revelation train people in how to use these arguments for god and evangelism remember these are not the same thing as sharing the gospel but maybe a way of removing some obstacles that some people may have to coming to faith and use this content for missions training and the gospel imperative every single person everywhere no matter whether they've heard the name of jesus or not is responsible for what they do with general revelation they are accountable to god because of general revelation let me conclude by talking about ways in which general revelation can direct our affections christian spirituality and the fundamental problem is with idolatry is that the misdirection of our affections take us away from the creator to that which has been created our affections or our passions our emotions are sinful at this point they are misdirected general revelation can be used as a grounds to appeal to the affections of unbelievers and gospel witnesses how do we stir people's hearts toward god there's a couple of what we call pragmatic arguments that point people ultimately to the existence of god one of which is called a desire argument and desire arguments explain the universal longing for god by the existence of god and this is the way a argument desire an argument from desire plays out this is peter krift every natural innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire but there exists in us a desire which nothing in time nothing on earth no creature can satisfy therefore there must exist something more than time earth and creatures which can satisfy this desire this is how augustine talks about it lord you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you we are created to be in a relationship with god and we are miserable until we find it blaise pascal says something similar what else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness of which all that now remains is an empty print and trace this he tries to fill in vain with everything around him seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are though none can help since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object in other words by god himself god alone is man's true good simply put there is a god-shaped hole in all of our hearts that only he can feel and we are going to be miserable until we actually place that faith in god and this is not just something christian writers write about atheists too have this kind of longing bertrand russell who was one of the most famous atheists of the 20th century wrote this the center of me is always eternally a terrible pain a curious wild pain a searching for something beyond what the world contains something transfigured and infinite the beatific vision god i do not find it i do not think it is to be found but the love of it is my life it's like a passionate love for a ghost here the world's most famous atheist in the 20th century is saying that he longs for god he can't find god he doesn't believe god exists but it is his life and then john paul sartre the famous atheist existentialist of the 20th century says that god does not exist i cannot deny that my whole being cries out for god i cannot forget atheists too long for god so in general revelation we find god revealing himself in such a way that he is drawing men to himself that we can be in a relationship with him that we can know of his existence but the problem is we have suppressed this truth and unrighteousness we have rejected the god who longs to be with us and we are in need of special revelation ultimately to make that relationship take place which we are going to turn to in the next session