Thesis 5: God's existence is evident to reason, even though fallen human beings, because of sin, either deny God's eixstence or refuse to be grateful to him and worshp him (Rom. 1:20)
Thesis 21: The created order bears the imprint of the divine Logos, and humans are created in the image of God, which mans that the human mind can apprehend the order and structure in the creation, which is the basis of natural theology, natural moral law, and scientific laws.
(Craig Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism, 307-8)
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. 1:20)
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. (Ps. 19:1-2)
General Revelation is the revelation God has given to all creatures, showing them that there is a God, and that they have violated His Law (c.f. Rom. 2:15). Since it is given to all, it cannot be given to only the elites. It must be perspicuous to all, not to the intellectuals only. Therefore, as we see in Psalms 19, it is given without words, without reason. It is *just* there, intuitively grasped by all humans. That is the only way General Revelation can be truly general, not to a specified group of philosophers only.
In contrast to this, the ressourcement interpretation of Romans 1:20 reads Natural Theology into the text. For these new Thomists, General Revelation is Natural Theology, or at the very least Natural Theology is a major part of General Revelation. But where is this found in the biblical text? Where do we see in Scripture that one can derive from pagan thought true things about God? What then does it tell us when our new Thomists in their intellectual loftiness ignore the simple primitive tribes? Are we going to say that these jungle tribesmen do not have the true General Revelation at all, since none of them have even heard of the ontological argument or things to that effect?
General Revelation is General Revelation. Natural theology is natural theology, and the two are not each other. Most certainly, there can be overlap between the two (depending on one's definition of "natural theology"), but they are not the same thing. It is a travesty that in their zeal to "recover orthodoxy," our new Thomists are destroying the basis for reaching out to non-intellectuals and primitive societies.
No comments:
Post a Comment
This is my blog, and in order to facilitate an edifying exchange, I have came up with various blog rules. Please do read them before commenting, as failure to abide by them would make your post liable to being unapproved for publication. Violation of any of the rules three or more times, or at the blog owner's judgment, would make one liable to be banned from posting unless the blog owner (me) is satisfied that such behavior would not occur again.