CLAIM: The facts of nature are like a 67th book of the Bible (Part 1 of 3)
It is true that Dr. Hugh Ross does liken the record of nature as a 67th book of the Bible. And while Dr. Ross can be address this himself, I believe what he means by that statement is that while the Bible reliably records the character of God, the record of nature also reliably records certain attributes of God too. But CAT does have some against this and we will try and address each.
RE: NO AUDIBLE VOICE
Psalm 19:3 confirms that general revelation, “the revelation of God’s glory through the heavens is… wordless and inaudible.” In Psalm 19, King David praises God for his general (nature) and special revelation (the written word). CAT charges that the record of nature is “inaudible”. And CAT is right in that general revelation “Nature, without revealing specific truths about God, is a constant reminder to the glory of the Creator… and add little to one’s knowledge of God or the world” (CAT-pg 30). Only, through the Bible can one learn to have a relationship with Him.
But… like the Law, general revelation has the power to point to God and to condemn- but not to save. One of the purposes of the Law was to point out sin, in that sense it had the power to condemn (James 2:10), so does general revelation (Romans 1:20-21). Another reason for the Law was point to Christ (Gal. 3:23-25), so does general revelation (Psalm 19:1-6). And like the Law, general revelation does no have the power to save.
So on these matters, I would say this OEC is in agreement with my YEC brethren of CAT. While nature is not a literal 67th book of the Bible. It has more “revelation power” and relevance than the authors of CAT might be willing to give. In fact they go so far as to make a flippant comment: “nature has no speech or voice [and this] limits its ability to be specific. This is particularly true when it comes to the ancient past or distant future. Fossils and rocks don’t come with date labels and photographs of the living animals attached. Unlike the Bible, the ‘message’ of the ‘book’ of nature is not written or spoken” (CAT pg 31) but did not Messiah say that even if His followers were silenced by the opposition “the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40) to proclaim Him?.
The authors of CAT (as most OEC) are willing to admit that nature a reliable, voluminous presentation of God’s revelation, but it is subject to human interpretation. Meanwhile they correctly claim that the Bible is accurate and reliable. All these statements are true. But what they seem to fail to notice is that BOTH the (raw) record of nature and the (original) Words of the Bible are accurate and true. But because of sin nature, most YEC say that man, particularly unsaved, are incapable of clearly and reliably evaluating it. There is some truth in this but it works in the case of the Bible too.
The Bible and nature are both reliable revelations of God. Both are absolute truth of the same Author. Meanwhile, man is indeed sinful and fallible. In this state, people are incapable of directly “seeing” both the truths. We must look at the through special “lenses”. In the case of nature, that lens is called “science” and in the case of God’s written word, that lens is called “theology”. While nature is True, it is possible for the lenses of science to distort that truth leaving our conclusions “out of focus”. Sometimes we are the source of the distortion because of our worldview. Likewise, the written word of God is also True, but it is possible for the lens of theology to distort that truth leaving our conclusions also “out of focus”. While the authors of CAT admit this to danger (CAT pg 32), they (as most Christians) fail to realise how easily we are hinder in the case of the Bible. For example, even looking at your, most likely of you are in the USA, English based translation you are looking through the distorted lens of “translation” [1]. Even if one is able to read the original Greek or Hebrew, worldview can also corrupt our view of the Bible. The lens of western cultural mindset prevents many Christians today, particularly evangelicals in the US, are hindered by a lack of understanding of first century, Jewish mindset in the areas of word pictures, word usage, and customs [2]. Just as scientific pronouncements have been wrong in the past about the record of nature, so have theological pronouncements been wrong about the truths of the Bible. Great care on observation, examination, and testing must be taken by all peoples when examining either truths. “Simple” readings of both truths should be subject to rigorous testing, least we are led astray [3].
CAT states:
“The written revelation of God is communicated by means of words, Verbal communication is subject to the rules of grammar. Context, and culture and is therefore open to objective hermeneutic study. Nature, on the other hand, is the revelation of God in general fashion and is subjective in nature... The words of the Bible do not change, while man’s environment (nature)
and understanding continually change...”
What the authors say about nature and our ability to interpret that truth accurately is correct, but they fail to appreciate that the same pitfalls are there when even reading simple verses in the Bible. True, as they put it, “words of the Bible do not change”, but our understanding, usage, meaning, and word pictures have changed. Jesus used many Jewish idioms and saying that we in the western culture fail to grasp. Jesus came as a first century Jew, not a western, American evangelical.
Let us consider one example quickly. In Matthew 6:19-24, Jesus speaks on relationship people are to have concerning material things. He mentions a “good eye” and “bad eye”. Here Jesus quotes a common Jewish proverb. In this proverb having a “good eye” is an idiom (‘ayin tovah) for “being generous” and “bad eye” (‘ayin ra’ah) is an idiom for “being stingy”. This is found in the rabbinic saying-”if a person gives a gift, let him give it with a good eye.” In the first century, Rabbi Hillel taught that an individual who gave one-fourth of his income had a “good eye”, but a person who gave only one-sixtieth of his income had a “bad eye”. This is the correct interpretation because Jesus is a Jew speaking to Jews as Jews. Context confirms this interpretation. Greed and anxiety over material things are the subject of surrounding verses.
Let us look at this the other way around. If you were to say, “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water”, even with the best, accurate translations, what word picture do you think a first century Jew might have in his mind? Especially if he insisted on taking you literally.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Even the authors of CAT demonstrated this on pg 30 looking at the different translations of Psalm 19:1-6 in NIV, KJV, and NKJV verses other translations.
[2] I have seen this many times with Bible scholars who are well versed in Greek or Hebrew but still fail to realise the word picture and meaning because they do not understand first century Jewish mindset and culture.
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