The Doctrine of GENERAL REVELATION

Question 1

4a. What is the difference between “general revelation” and “natural theology”?

Answer 1

GENERAL REVELATION (Creation/Nature)

• refers to the general truths that can be known about God through nature.
• the revelation of God to all people, at all times, and in all places that proves that God exists

Psalm 19:1-4 declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

According to this passage, God’s existence and power can be clearly seen through observing the universe. The order, intricacy, and wonder of creation speak to the existence of a powerful and glorious Creator.

NATURAL THEOLOGY (Human Reason)
Affirms that it is possible to know God by exercising human reason alone. Natural theology is the part of theology that does not depend on revelation. One can, by nature, come to accurate knowledge of God.

After all, it is God who made the heavens, the moon and the stars (Psalm 8:3; 33:6), and the heavens declare His glory (Psalm 19:1).

The division of theology into “natural” and “revealed” had its roots in the writings of Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas. Other writers emphasizing natural theology were Samuel Clarke, William Paley, and Immanuel Kant. Over the years, the miraculous was downplayed as Christianity was reduced more and more to a “rational” philosophy.

“Natural theology” can also refer to the attempt to synthesize human knowledge from every area of science, religion, history, and the arts. The new natural theology pursues a transcendent “encompassing reality” in which mankind exists, but the focus is humanity, not God; consequently, it is really another form of humanism.


Natural theology is useful insofar as God has created the world and the world still points to Him as Creator. However, given the fallen state of our intellect, we cannot properly interpret even that without God’s special revelation. We need God’s gracious intervention to find our way back to Him.

Because observing nature is an intellectual pursuit, natural theology involves human philosophy and reasoning as means of knowing God.

Question 2

4b. What is Karl Barth’s position concerning “general revelation?”

Answer 2

• God’s revelation is exclusively in Jesus Christ
• Genuine revelation is always responded to positively rather than being ignored or rejected
• Knowledge of God is always redemptive or salvific in name


Question 3

4c. How does Erickson respond to it?

Answer 3

You are crazy Barth

Question 4

4d. Sketch out the basic contours of the classic “proofs” for the existence of God shared in class

Answer 4

the ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Arguments from Being (a priori)
- Definition: God is that than Which no Greater can be Conceived
- God is the greatest conceivable being.
- It is greater to exist than not to exist.
- Therefore, God exists.

the COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Arguments from Creation and Causality: (a posteriori)
- Whatever has an Effect must have a Cause
- For the present to be, there must be a Cause that is not itself Caused
- The universe is, so there must be a first cause - an “Unmoved Mover” and this we call “God”

the TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Arguments from Design (a posteriori) 
- All designs imply a Designer

- There is great design in the Universe
- Therefore there must be a Great Designer of the Universe.

the AXIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Argument from Moral Law. (a posteriori)
- All people are conscious of an objective moral law.
 - Moral laws imply a moral Lawgiver.

- Therefore, there must be a supreme moral Lawgiver.


Question 5

4d. What do you see as their value, if any? What are their shortcomings?

Answer 5

hi