Whether a Special Revelation Was Necessary
The word “Bible” comes from the Greek word biblos, which originally meant papyrus, a material we will mention shortly. The plural biblia referred to a set of these sheets, which together made the “book” or “books.” In examining the special claims of this book, we will leave aside the more agnostic difficulties of whether God would ever bother to speak to human beings. The assumption behind this cynical position is that we are insignificant both as a species and in terms of our position in time and space. The Christian has a solid answer to this, but it requires a more focused study in philosophical apologetics. A helpful definition of what Scripture is, in terms of its necessity, was given by the four authors of the Synopsis on a Purer Theology (1625):
“Moreover, we define the Scripture as the divine instrument whereby the doctrine of salvation was handed down by God through the prophets, apostles, and evangelists as God’s secretaries, in the canonical books of the Old and New Testament.”1
The first question on the necessity of Scripture may be divided under three articles: (1) Whether a special revelation was necessary; (2) Whether a verbal revelation was necessary; (3) Whether a written revelation was necessary.
Whether a special revelation was necessary.
Let us begin with a statement by the Westminster Confession of Faith:
“Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation” (I.1).
Likewise the Belgic Confession on, By what means God is made known unto us, says:
“We know him by two means; first, by 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, namely His power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says, Rom. 1:20. All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly fully known to us by his holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to his glory and our salvation” (Article 2).
What has the tradition meant by this? We have to look carefully over those last words quoted from the Westminster Confession: “that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.” Notice, for example, that this is not a denial of the natural knowledge of God; but specifically that knowledge necessary for salvation.
The Scriptures distinguish between general knowledge of God and saving knowledge. We might compare the words of Paul in two places.
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19-20).
The very same Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians,
“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe … The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 1:21; 2:14).2
If we come away from these two passages thinking, “So which is it?” then we can know we are doing it all wrong. Consider this reasonable rule: If our view of divine revelation pits Paul against Paul, then it is really pitting the Holy Spirit against Himself. Consequently, there must be something wrong with our thinking. So, does all mankind know God or not? The question is loaded; it lacks precision. We call that communication of God in the created order “general revelation” and we call that which is Scripture “special revelation.” Psalm 19 offers a window into both in that order. To speak of the necessity of Scripture is to imply, in one way or another, some insufficiency in the discovery of God’s truth in nature. But what exactly is the focus of that insufficiency? This is a much misunderstood concept.
About that natural knowledge of God—which is otherwise called natural theology— Turretin wrote,
“The question is not whether this knowledge is perfect and saving … but only whether any knowledge of God remains in man sufficient to lead him to believe that God exists and must be religiously worshipped.”3
This is what the Westminster Confession said can be gained by “the light of nature,” or, in the Belgic Confession, that “most elegant book.”
What then is necessary that general revelation does not communicate? This is where our speech is often imprecise. Junius began a trend among the Reformed scholastics of addressing man’s natural knowledge of God against the backdrop of man’s nature to aim at his own highest good. Yet fallen nature renders him unable to ascend to that chief end. Hence the necessity of Scripture. Junius said,
“he cannot rise up to this good by any ability of nature, nor human skill, nor by the help of any created thing.”4
Mastricht approaches the necessity in this way: “The skill of living for God is not a natural power, one to which we are not taught but made; it is instead an acquired faculty, and therefore it demands a rule to direct it.”5 This necessity, he says, “is not [an] absolute necessity, but by a consequent necessity of the divine will that willed Scripture to be the means to salvation.”6 Certainly any problem is a problem on man’s side, not God’s. Is it accurate, then, to speak of the insufficiency of general revelation? Would it not be more appropriate to speak of either (1) man’s natural inability to rightly handle any divine revelation and (2) the limitations of the scope of general revelation given the fact of the fall?
Yet we see ambiguity on this very point, partly because the Confession thinly used those two clauses: that knowledge of God, and of his will; but also partly because of the direction of modern thought following Kant’s critical philosophy in which the older metaphysical concept of “nature” was turned inside-out. By the nineteenth century, there was no longer thought to be an objective “nature of things” independent of our minds. In this light, even the otherwise very object-minded Shedd remarks that “General … revelation, though trustworthy, is not infallible.”7 This will be true if we include in our definition human reason in its subjective performance. In the same vein, Berkhof summarizes three “insufficiencies” of general revelation: (1) It does not acquaint man with the only way of salvation; (2) It does not convey to man any absolutely reliable knowledge of God and spiritual things; (3) It does not furnish an adequate basis for religion.8 The Larger Catechism gives help to rightly interpreting the Confession on this clause. Question 2 asks: How doth it appear that there is a God?
“Answer. The very light of nature in man, and the works of God, declare plainly that there is a God; but his Word and Spirit only, do sufficiently and effectually reveal him unto men for their salvation.”
Hodge spoke within the more intended context: “No man can tell a priori what is necessary to salvation,” and he adds, “On this point the Greek, the Latin, the Lutheran, and the Reformed Churches are unanimous.”9 Nature makes it plain that God exists and that all creation is obligated to Him; but whether this God wills to overcome for us the evil all around and the death that awaits—nature is silent, and even mocks us.
Although we rightly speak of a “light of nature” when considering general revelation from God’s side, yet in terms of what most concerns mankind, because of sin, all is darkness. If Paul could say about even the people of God’s obedience to the law that “Scripture imprisoned everything under sin” (Gal. 3:22), how much greater that darkness and imprisonment of the mind with only nature to guide it. So the Psalmist says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (119:105). As a last principle for our basic idea of this necessity, consider that only one who is living can be an ultimate guide to those who require it in real life. The prophet challenged Israel in this way, as they were tempted to return to the words of the dead,
“And when they say to you, ‘Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,’ should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isa. 8:19-20).
Or, as some translations have rendered that last expression, “they have no light in them.”
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1. Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Volume 1: Disputations 1-31, ed., William den Boer & Riemer A. Faber (Davenant Press, 2023), 8-9.
2. Both the Romans and 1 Corinthians passages should be read in their entirety to get the best sense of what Paul is addressing in both places, that is: Romans 1:18-32 and 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16.
3. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Volume One (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1992), I.3.3 [6].
4. Franciscus Junius, A Treatise on True Theology (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 159.
5. Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, Volume 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), I.2.1 [113].
6. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I.2.20 [129].
7. W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2003), 87.
8. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1932), 132, 33.
9. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Volume I: Theology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), I.2.3 [25].
