Another break from reading John Owen and How People Change to give way to my lecture this coming Tuesday. Unfortunately, as I started writing this lecture, I observed that I couldn't complete it in one sitting so I decided to blog it by piece. The current article is the first part that talks about natural theology.
The Infallible Word is my reference. The seventh chapter, which is about Nature and Scripture has been included in the book, which was a product of a Symposium of the members of the faculty of the Westminster Seminary more than seven decades ago. It was originally published in 1946. Cornelius Van Til, the father of transcendental presuppositional apologetics is the one who wrote it.
The chapter has 38 pages. It is not an easy read. The writer assumes that his readers are well-read in Western philosophy. And so, if you know little or almost nothing about philosophy, reading this chapter will make you shake your head, wondering what the author is talking about.
You can describe the content of the chapter in two ways. You can say that it is about God’s revelation through nature and Scripture, hence, the reason for the title of the chapter. However, God’s revelation through the Scripture is just partly discussed and so to my eyes, this first description fails to capture the overall content of the chapter.
Another way to describe the content of the chapter is a comparison of two kinds of natural theology, that of the Westminster Standards and that of the natural theology influenced by Greek philosophy.
The writer believes that the natural theology of the Westminster Standards satisfies the basic requirement to have “a well-integrated and unified philosophy of history” (p. 269). Moreover, the natural theology of the Westminster Standards is better described as general revelation or God’s revelation through nature. Furthermore, the first kind of natural theology is related to the Westminster Standards’ doctrine of the Bible particularly concerning its four attributes: necessity, authority, sufficiency, and perspicuity.
Necessity
Understanding the necessity of special revelation is easier than understanding the necessity of natural theology or general revelation. In the case of special revelation, it is necessary because man has broken the covenant and without God’s revelation of special grace there is no way man can attain salvation. In the case of general revelation, Van Til’s explanation appears too abstract for me. I only understand two things in his explanation: the necessity of general revelation before and after the fall.
Before the fall, general revelation is necessary to test man’s obedience with the natural character of supernatural revelation. Though supernatural in content, the “test” has to maintain its natural character to serve its unique purpose: to test man’s obedience. See how Van Til explains the necessity of natural revelation:
If the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had been naturally different from other trees it could not have served its unique purpose. That the commandment might appear purely ‘arbitrary’ the specially chosen tree had to be naturally like other trees. For the supernatural to appear as supernatural the natural had to appear as really natural. The supernatural could not be recognized for what it was unless the natural were also recognized for what it was. There had to be regularity if there was to be a genuine exception (pp. 269-270).
Van Til mentions an additional insight related to the necessity of natural theology that deserves attention. Here he talks about man to “learn to be self-consciously obedient” in “all things” and at “all time” (p. 270). By this, he meant man has to glorify God not only in the “higher” dimensions of life but also in its “lower” dimensions.
As to the necessity of natural revelation after the fall, the meaning is straightforward. The purpose is for man to see redemptive grace with the evidence of God’s wrath upon nature.
I think I will stop here and will pick on the second attribute in the next post.
