Orthodox Christianity, in general, and the Reformed tradition, in particular, affirm that God has spoken clearly through three primary modes: His Son (the Word made flesh), the Bible or the inscripturated Word, and the entire creation. Each mode of divine speech differs in its clarity and purpose. And they are all understood as expressions of divine self-disclosure or revelation. God revealed Himself.

Furthermore, God’s speech through the Son and the Word is categorized as special revelation. God's speech through nature is called general or natural revelation. Put simply, nature reveals God as Creator; the Son, and the Scriptures reveal the same God as Redeemer. The former provides a general knowledge not of a generic god but of the only true God that is accessible to all men, believers and unbelievers alike. The latter provides the saving knowledge necessary for sinful men to be reconciled with God. This is not controversial.

The second article of the Belgic Confession, "The Means by Which We Know God," beautifully states this:

We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: God’s eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are enough to convict humans and to leave them without excuse. Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation.

Interestingly, this 16th-century Reformed confession likens the universe to a beautiful book. The first book by which we know God is the book of nature. This is commonly known as general or natural revelation. From this book, humans reflect and develop a kind of theology. This is called natural theology. J.V. Fesko writes,

“The human discipline of natural theology is validated by its "material"—the objective "book of nature"—which provides the footprints of God to both the regenerate and unregenerate. Just as biblical theology is grounded in the text of Scripture, natural theology finds its ground in the created order.”1

There is a clear distinction between biblical theology and natural theology. The former is man's activity, a reflective act assisted by the divine grace that is grounded in the written Word of God. The latter is man's activity, a reflective act assisted by the divine grace that is grounded in nature. There is also a clear distinction between natural revelation and natural theology. The former refers to an activity of God. The latter refers to a human activity. Natural theology is subjective (though not subjectivistic), in the sense that it involves the human subject’s apprehension and appropriation of natural revelation.2 Natural revelation is God's doing. Natural theology is our response to God's act of condescension in nature. This distinction clarifies that natural theology is not a "man-made" invention in the sense of creating its own content; rather, it is a rational interpretation of the "footprints" or "traces" God has intentionally left in the world that he created.

In a book published by the Davenant Press, I like how David Haines defines Natural Theology,

Natural Theology, broadly defined, is that part of philosophy which explores that which man can know about God (his existence, divine nature, etc.) from nature via His divinely bestowed faculty of reason, and this, unaided by any divinely inspired written revelation from any religion, and this, without presupposing the truth of any one religion."3

Let me highlight three things about Natural theology from Haines' definition. First, as mentioned above, it is man's reflective activity, which is also a philosophical response of man to the natural knowledge that can be known about God. There is a clear object of knowledge (that God is–his existence, and what God is–his attributes) through the medium of creation that any man created in the image of God perceives. Human can know God, regenerate and ungenerate through nature. Though. There are differences as to the extent of the use of redeemed and unredeemed reason. This will be demonstrated throughout this series in the Scripture which is also richly affirmed by our forebears. Second, this kind of theology, though unaided by any written revelation, is not unaided by the divine light. God has given man a faculty of reason or natural cognitive faculty which is able to perceive and understand God's clear revelation. Reason is not viewed here as an autonomous power but as a divinely bestowed faculty designed to perceive and process God's self-disclosure. Without the light of reason, the "Book of Nature" would remain closed to the any human mind. Contrary to the claims of most opponents of Natural Theology, it is not a product of autonomous human reasoning. Here's Thomas Aquinas,

It seems that a man cannot know any truth without grace... . Now however pure it be, bodily sense cannot see any visible thing without the light of the sun. Hence however perfect be the human mind, it cannot by reasoning know any truth without the light of God, which belongs to the aid of grace. ... The natural light bestowed on the mind is God’s light, by which we are enlightened to know such things as belong to natural knowledge.*4

This is clear. Think of it this way. Our eyes have the faculty of sight but require the light of sun (or even lesser lights) to see objects. Similarly, the human intellect has the faculty of reason but requires the "divine light" to apprehend truth. Man's ability to use reason or intellect to discern, perceive and contemplate upon God's natural revelation yielding to natural theology is a still a gift of God's common grace. Even the pagans are dependent upon the light of God that they may know the truth about God revealed in nature. God's revelation in the created order goes to all. Or as the Scriptures says, the heavens' declaration of God's glory is heard and goes to all the earth as it daily pours out speech and every night reveals knowledge (Psalm 19:1-6).

Finally, since natural revelation is clear and penetrates the human mind via the God-given reason, which then allows even fallen man to do natural theology, there is no need to presuppose the truthfulness of any religion, even Christianity. One does not need to presuppose that Christianity is true to know that God exists. This may be a hard take due to presuppositionalism but we will get to explain this further. Suffice it to say that the Scripture such as Romans 1:19–20 indicate that God's power and divinity are "plain to them" because God has shown it through "the things that have been made." I know that this is true because Scriptures says so, but man does not need to know this scriptural text to be true to perceive God's existence and being from nature.

Let me end this introductory post by saying that this is an orthodox teaching. This may sound new to some of my beloved friends or may be construed as a return to Roman Catholicism. But listen to the 17th century Swiss-Italian Reformed theologian and pastor who is best known for his three-volume work, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Francis Turretin.

The orthodox... uniformly teach that there is a natural theology, partly innate (derived from the book of conscience by means of common notions) and partly acquired (drawn from the book of creatures discursively).5

Within the Christian tradition, natural theology is never intended to replace the Bible or provide a path to salvation; instead, it provides the "preambles" of faith that make the acceptance of Scripture a rational act. I'll develop several arguments in this series, hoping to clarify this biblical and reformed principle.

May the Triune God be praised!

Footnotes

  1. Fesko, J. V. Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classic Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019. ↩

  2. Sproul, R. C., John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley. Classical Apologetics: A Rational Defense of the Christian Faith and a Critique of Presuppositional Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984. ↩

  3. Haines, David. "Natural Theology and Protestant Orthodoxy." In God of Our Fathers: Classical Theism in Reformation Theology, edited by Bradford Littlejohn. Landrum, SC: The Davenant Press, 2018. 58 ↩

  4. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae I-II, Question 109, Article 1, "Whether without grace man can know any truth?" ↩

  5. Turretin, Francis. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Edited by James T. Dennison Jr. Translated by George Musgrave Giger. 3 vols. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1992–1997. In the next articles, we will draw from his and other Reformed Theologians' writings that Natural Theology is a Reformed principle. ↩