I believe that a widely held belief by most Christians is that God reveals himself in two ways: specifically and generally. Specifically being through scripture as attributed most frequently to Paul (2 Timothy 3:16-17) in the Holy Bible (although at the time he had no idea of the New Testament as a part of God's word or that a simple letter he was writing would be considered a portion of God's word). The latter of these two is taken from Paul in Romans 1:20 where he states "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."
When I hear this scripture I think of my own experiences in the past when I looked at nature, "Wow, how could this be achieved by anything other than the hand of God". This is an expression of awe, of course, and, I believe, does not bear any insight in the existence of God. I believe that Paul was not the first person to have had the idea that the credit for this awe goes to God, but that this sense of awe had its genesis well before Paul's parents thought of conceiving. This of course is supported within his statement. I believe, contrary to Paul's statement, that this awe is inspired more by a lack of understanding which is then attributed to the revelation of God.
I can think of many times in which I have seen something that is simply amazing and have not attributed the cause of this awe to God. I believe most people can. Take a magic show for instance. The awe we experience here is simply due to a lack of understanding of how the trick was completed. Upon understanding, the awe does diminish. This behavior can be seen easily over and over in the life of a child. Just think of the magical quarter your uncle or friend of the family used to pull out from behind my ear? I believe this understanding leaves room for the following idea. Before people had sufficient understanding of natural processes in nature they had a greater awe for its complexity since the undersanding of its workings was limited. Crediting it to God for Paul and others in the Juedeo-Christian tradition or god for others then is not such a far stretch. So do I still have awe? Sure, but in my understanding of its working I am able to respect its complexity through its own workings understanding that it is not, I believe, a magic show.
The second part of the general revelation story that is so often skipped over is how gut-wrenching and putrifying some parts of this world are to the mind. Is this a sign of God's existence? If so, what does it say about that God? Don't worry I have already thought about why I would think something is gut-wrenching in the first place (because it reminds me of my own immortality not because of a moral standard). If I listened to Paul, I could take these screw-ups in nature as a proof that God does not exist as easily as I could do the opposite. So, in summary, it does not suffice for me to assume that simple awe of nature in its complexity serves universally as evidence for God in whatever sense he is defined.
I believe that many Christians draw an interesting conclusion from the possibility of general revelation. That is no one can incite insufficient evidence as to the existence of God, and if they do, it is not because the evidence is withstanding but rather due to the insufficiency of man. As stated previously, I believe it is the exact opposite. The insufficiency of man's knowledge and understanding in the past led to an inaccurate attribution of nature as evidence for God.
Another interesting conclusion that I believe many Christians hold to (including myself for a time) is that this general revelation leaves no man unaccountable to God for his/her unrighteousness. I believe this belief is a void in Christianity since the central message of what is referred to as conservative or fundamental Christianity is that belief in Christ is required for absolution from these sins and acquiring eternal life with the creator. I believe this poses problems when one is required to hold to a specific type of revelation when only exposed to the general revelation. I also believe the supposition that general revelation somehow holds us accountable is a farce because the statement as posited by Paul breaks the law of contradiction. He is basically stating that we are seeing what is not seen. I believe holding one eternally accountable for believing such a contradition is a very tough pill to swallow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
hey thanks for the thoughts, paul. i can remember as a child alway wondering what would happen to someone who lives in a remote place like parts of australia or africa. as i grew older, i was told that god would reveal himself in the beauty of the earth. this has never sat well with me. how can someone understand something so specific like acceptance of christ from looking at trees? i am tired of the overly simplistic explanations of my youth. these explanations only made the belief system i was in lose credibility...how frustrating. i believe this matter has not sufficiently been explained or explored in a believable way. personally, i believe a much better explanation is that we simply do not know what happens to those folks. why can't christians ever admit that they don't know something instead of using explanations that i found unconvincing even as a child. thanks for honestly discussing this.
Post a Comment