two books metaphor

[rmwilliamsll]

Perhaps the reason some of us fail to respect the great gifts of the Creator is that we have not fully grasped the fact that the creation is a major part of God’s introduction of Himself. What God says about Himself through the natural world is foundational to a biblical understanding of life. The Bible itself teaches us to read “two books” that reveal truth about God to us. Historically, theologians have labeled these two books as the “special revelation” and the “general revelation.” The special revelation is the Word of God speaking to us primarily in the Bible. The general revelation is the handiwork of God speaking to us from the world He created. The psalmist David put it lyrically:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard (Ps. 19:1-3).

Later the psalmist wrote:

I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works (Ps. 145:5).

Hundreds of years later, the apostle Paul voiced a similar view:

Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead (Rom. 1:20).

Because the idea of truth about God being revealed in His creation was so significant in Scripture, Augustine of Hippo in the third century after Christ characterized the two revelations as the “book of God’s Word” and the “book of God’s Works.” Francis Bacon (called the father of modern science) declared it again in the fifteenth century. Bacon admonished, “Let no man think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s Word or in the book of God’s Works.” Thoroughly cementing the concept of the two books into the foundational mindset of the church at that time was the Belgic Confession, an important affirmation of the Reformers. This confession asks by what means can people know God. Here is the answer:

We know Him by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: His eternal power and His divinity . . . . Second, He makes Himself known to us more openly by His holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for His glory and for the salvation of His own.

nice intro to the metaphor....
from: http://www.gospelcom.net/rbc/ds/q1113/page4.html

 

[Vance]

This is an essential concept, and I am glad you highlighted it. Even fundamentalists will see this concept when asked how those untold millions who never heard the Gospel, much less read the Scripture, could get to Heaven. Most will point to these very verses and say that God instilled the essence of these truths within His Creation and within the heart of every human. Yet often they will say that these truths contained in the natural Creation are not to be considered equal to the Scripture. Not all are adamant about this, but some are. And many others seem to lean this way when they are insistent that if the two messages from God seem to conflict, it is more likely that our understanding of Nature if mistaken than our understanding of Scripture.

There is no one who loves Scripture more than I do, I immerse myself in it every day and am constantly amazed and refreshed by the depth and importance of God's Scripture to us. But that love of God's Scripture does not rise to the level of insistence that our human interpretation of it must trump our human interpretation of nature. There has been at least as many incorrect readings of Scripture as there have been incorrect readings of God's Creation.