Special Revelation vs. Natural Revelation
God reveals himself in two ways – special revelation and natural revelation. Most Christians agree that Scripture is a reliable means of learning about God and His will. What we must remember, is that Scripture supports the notion that natural revelation is also reliable. I believe both are infallible, and I am willing to concede Scripture is inerrant for the purposes of this discussion.
If both revelations are given by the same God, it follows that …
- both are equally reliable
- both are comprehensible
- both are subject to misinterpretation
- if both are interpreted properly, there cannot be a contradiction between the two
If there is an apparent contradiction between the two, the error must be in the interpretation of one or the other.
I can’t really do a better job of explaining this than John Piper does in the video embedded below. His comments are in response to a question about the age of the Earth. I’m not going to get into that yet, but he does a fantastic job defending the infallibility of natural revelation.
All of truth is God’s truth.
The sacred Scripture itself tells us that God reveals himself in nature.
The church’s understanding of special revelation, or the bible, has been corrected by students of natural revelation – with the Copernican revolution. Both Calvin and Luther rejected Copernicus as a heretic.
I think we can learn from non-believing scientists who are studying natural revelation. They may get a better sense of the truth from their study of natural revelation than I get from ignoring natural revelation.
I believe that both spheres are God’s spheres of revelation and that truth has to be compatible.
Piper comes to the same conclusion I do. If there is an apparent contradiction between the two, the error must be in the interpretation of one or the other. It might be the scientist, but it also might be the theologian.
I think it’s worth noting that we all interpret Scripture in light of what we know all the time. The Copernican revolution is a glaring example, but we do it all the time with the small stuff. The Bible tells us that the sun rises and that a bat is a bird. Most of us interpret that in light of what we know to be true. I don’t know anyone who claims that bats really are birds because the Bible says so. I also don’t know anyone who claims that there are only, and exactly, 1000 hills on Earth wi.
Is natural revelation infallible? I say yes. What do you think?