General revelation

The witness of the heavens and the heart

It is called general because it is given to everyone, not to one people or age; some call it natural revelation. It is the first of the two ways in which God makes himself known (see revelation). The psalmist heard it in the sky.

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 reveal knowledge.

Psalm 19:1-2

John Wesley says of the heavens: "They are as a legible book, wherein he that runs may read it" Wesley. Paul says that creation displays God's "eternal power and divine nature" (Romans 1:20), and he told the crowd at Lystra that God "has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness" in rain, harvests and gladness (Acts 14:17). There is a witness within as well. Gentiles who never received the law of Moses still show "that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness" (Romans 2:15). The moral order written on the heart is what the church has often called natural law, and its inner witness is conscience.

What it shows and what it does not

General revelation is real and clear, but it has limits. The sky speaks of God's glory, not of his mercy to sinners; conscience can accuse but cannot cleanse. Worse, people who knew God did not honour him, and so became "darkened in their foolish hearts" (Romans 1:21). General revelation leaves us without excuse, but saving faith "comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17), and that word is given in special revelation.

The Belgic Confession (1561) names creation as the first means by which we know God:

the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God

Belgic Confession, Art. 2

These things, it adds, are enough to leave people without excuse, while God's Word makes him known "more clearly and fully". In the second century Justin Martyr spoke of a seed of the Word (the logos) in every human being, by which even pagan writers glimpsed something of the truth Justin Martyr, Second Apology 13. John Calvin taught that God has planted a sense of the divine in every heart Calvin, Institutes 1.3.

How far can reason reach?

The Catholic tradition, following Thomas Aquinas, holds that reason can argue from the world to the existence of God; yet even such truths, Aquinas said, needed to be revealed so that many might know them without error, and mysteries such as the Trinity are known only by revelation Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. The First Vatican Council (1870) taught that God can be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason from the things he has made Dei Filius. Many Reformed and Lutheran theologians agree that creation's witness is plain, but stress that people "suppress the truth by their wickedness" (Romans 1:18); Calvin compared Scripture to spectacles that let us see God rightly in his works Calvin, Institutes 1.6. In the twentieth century Karl Barth rejected natural theology altogether Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics.

Evangelicals also differ over how to use general revelation in apologetics: some build arguments from creation and the moral order, while others hold that the defence of the faith must begin from what Scripture presupposes. All agree that creation is God's handiwork and that saving knowledge comes through the gospel of Christ. See also the lesson God makes himself known and What about those who never heard?