General Revelation 3 – Dr. Ross views

We’ve seen in the prior article general revelation is not sufficient to discover the gospel of Christ, but it is sufficient to know there is a God and to be condemned when one suppresses that knowledge in unrighteousness. So the CAT authors believe that they have a smoking gun in the writings of Dr. Ross when they state:

Dr. Ross apparently believes that knowledge gained through the observation of the universe is sufficient to gain salvation and Christian maturity. (CAT-36)

The first thing that popped in my mind when I read this was – OK I finally agree with VanBebber and Taylor on something. Finally. And to be honest I will probably find other points of agreement later in the book too.

However, we need to be a little more careful than that. Is this really what Dr. Ross believes? We do not have ready access to Dr. Ross (other than through Creation Update call in show) so we do not presume to speak for him. However we can analyze his writings just like CAT has done and see if we can ascertain what he believes. [1] And supposing that we end up with a disagreement, perhaps we might discover that Dr. Ross has changed or modified his views since the writing of these early books.

The main question for us to consider is whether the evidence cited in this section of CAT supports the conclusion that Dr. Ross believes general revelation is sufficient for salvation. So let’s see what they give as evidence. All of these are quoted from CAT-36 to CAT-39, and the relevant Dr. Ross book citation is added in the notes. For the time being we will not cover the quotes from The Fingerprint of God (TFG) because we will look at these more closely in the next article.

There are primarily 3 quotes to this topic in Ross’s Creation and Time (and 3 from TFG)

(1) “in addition to the words of the Bible being ‘God-breathed, … useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness’ (II Tim 3:16), so also are the words of God spoken through the work of His hands.” [2]

To this we agree. It is reminiscent of Psalm 19 in declaring

1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge

(2) [Ross] lists 23 verses which he claims as support for his view that nature is “likened to a sixty-seventh book of the Bible.” [3]

The intent of this section of Dr. Ross’s book is to give scriptures that show that nature has a “voice,” and it flows from this thesis that nature is likened to a 67th book of the Bible. However, this does not have direct relevance to the issue of general revelation. Just because you view nature like unto another book of the Bible, it does not follow that you believe that book has every message necessary unto salvation.

So based on Psalm 19, we will grant to Dr. Ross that nature does have a voice, and yet we can grant to the CAT authors that perhaps some of the scriptures cited don’t really deal with nature’s voice. In the end this does not impact the topic at hand so we’ll move to the next.

(3) Another NT passage which Dr. Ross uses to support his view… is Colossians 1:23. Dr. Ross writes, “Colossians 1:23 states that salvation ‘has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven.’” [4]

The full verse says this: This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister (NASB – added emphasis)

It must be admitted that Colossians 1:23 is a hard verse to understand. Very briefly, the problem is that the gospel has been proclaimed in all creation. One interpretation is that it is nature that proclaims this because at the time of the writing of Colosians, it is quite clear that the gospel had not yet penetrated to the furthest extent of the globe. We will deal with this complexity in a separate article.

Summary
Quotes from Ross’s Creation and Time do not give any explicit hint that general revelation is sufficient to salvation. So is CAT putting forth a red herring? Why do the CAT authors include Ross’s other book (The Fingerprint of God) at this point? Let’s take a look at that book and see if we can glean more info on Dr. Ross’s beliefs.

Notes:
[1] No disrespect is meant in this comment – but we must observe that in the grand scheme of eternity, life and the gospel message, it really does not matter what Dr. Ross believes. He is not the embodiment of special revelation and we do not hold him on a pedestal. While we do largely agree with him, if we disagree then so be it.

[2] Hugh Ross, Creation and Time p. 56 – emphasis added. Note the ellipsis was in the original not added by CAT authors.
[3] Ibid. pg. 57 [4] Ibid. p. 56 – emphasis added