Witnesses

The prophets and apostles are witnesses in two different but complementary ways.  They are first of all natural witnesses.  That is to say quite simply that they were there, they encountered something of significance - namely, God's revelation.  This is the sense of 1 John 1, or 2 Peter 1.  Something happened, someone was there, and by virtue of their proximity to that event and that person, they became witnesses.

The fact that the prophets and apostles are natural witnesses has both apologetic and theological significance.  The apologetic significance is already recognised in Scripture - we did not make it up, we were there, we saw.  Appeal is sometimes made to the fact that in this sense the prophets and apostles stand in the midst of a much wider group of natural witnesses, that they are not bearing witness to something which happened hidden away, but to something which was at least in part a very public occurrence.  I can see no reason at all, beyond prejudice, why this status of the prophets and apostles as natural witnesses should not earn them a hearing at least.

The theological significance of these natural witnesses is even greater.  Their existence as witnesses in this way demonstrates that when we are talking about God's revelation we are talking about something - ultimately, someone! - historical, contingent.  An event which took place, a life which was lived, in proximity to other lives, a reality which became a factor in our space and time.  Revelation is a matter of history, of recollection and testimony, rather than philosophy or speculation.

The second way in which the prophets and apostles are witnesses is as legal or commissioned witnesses.  That is the sense in the prophetic call narratives of Isaiah and Jeremiah, or most clearly in the language of the great commission.  'You will be my witnesses' means much more than just 'you are those who have seen and heard', although it depends on that.  As those who are natural witnesses, they are claimed and sent to go and bear witness.  Their relation to what they have seen and heard is not that of neural observers; rather, they are governed and ruled by that to which they bear witness.  To be concrete, the Lord Jesus has become their Lord, in this particular way and for this particular service, their natural witness being taken into the service of his own testimony to his Person and work.

This legal witness is of huge theological significance.  To be sure, the prophets and apostles purely as natural witnesses warrant a hearing and a degree of human credence, but they do not warrant divine confidence, faith.  That can only rest in God's Word itself - in fact, in the very reality to which the prophets and apostles bear witness.  It is as Christ's own commissioned witnesses, empowered by his Spirit, that we have to listen as to Christ himself, because they are his ambassadors.  He continues to accompany and empower their witness as it is laid down in Holy Scripture; having commissioned his witnesses, he does not abandon them or their testimony.  Our doctrine of Scripture is, or should be, built on this foundation

Finally it is worth noting that all of us who are Christians are called to be witnesses - of necessity, secondary witnesses, who weren't there, didn't see or hear, and who are therefore bound to the prophets and apostles as primary witnesses.  Because of their witness, we can bear witness, that we have heard them and have found that in their witness we have heard the Word of God.

The light of Christ

One thing that Ike Miller's book on illumination has brought out very clearly for me - and it's something I've thought about before - is that the gospel binds together word and experience, the objective and subjective.  The last chapter of the book in particular discusses illumination as a human experience.  Illumination that doesn't actually illuminate is not a thing.  The Divine Light of the Father, shining in the face of Christ, has to reach human hearts and minds in the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit.  The work of the Blessed Trinity has to bless actual human lives in their real experience; only then are we really talking about illumination as we see it in Scripture.

But putting it in those Trinitarian terms helps to explain what Christian experience is.  It is a genuine experience of God, but what that means is seeing by the Spirit the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  It means having the eyes of one's heart opened by the Spirit of God so that in Jesus we see God's glory.  Miller does a great job of showing how this means, for us, concretely an encounter with Christ mediated by the Scriptural witness.  The word of God written is the place where we meet the Word of God in person.  The light in the face of Christ comes to us in the light of the sacred page.

(As an aside, I am regularly struck by this prayer in the CW liturgy for Morning Prayer: 'As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, so may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you...'  It is a prayer which directly prefaces the reading of the Scriptures!  Of course it is.  Where else do we see the light of his presence?  I don't have Miller in front of me, so I can't be sure on this, but I don't think he particularly discusses how this would extend to the word of God preached, the proclamation of the church; but certainly on Barthian terms we would want to construe that in an analagous way to the use of Scripture).

Here's the thing: it's the same light - the Divine Light of the Father, the Light of the World in Christ Jesus, the Enlightening Holy Spirit who sheds light abroad in our hearts.  The same light.  The light which dawns in the heart is the same light which shone before there was a first dawn.  ("God, who said 'let light shine out of darkness' has shone in our hearts...")  And it is the light of Christ!  There is no divine light that reaches this world which is not mediated by Christ Jesus and carried to us by the Holy Spirit.

Christians from time to time talk as if you could separate spiritual experience from content; as if there were some access to God which did not have cognitive content.  I do not think that will fly.  We encounter God in his Word - in Christ as he is brought to us in Holy Scripture and biblical preaching - by the Spirit.  There is no chasm between the taught content of the gospel and the felt experience of the gospel, just as there is no gap between Christ and his Spirit.  We tear them asunder at our peril.

History and revelation, or Wright and Barth

I hugely appreciate the work of N.T. Wright, and particularly the first three volumes* of his Christian Origins and the Question of God.  I've written before about the importance of volume 3 - The Resurrection of the Son of God - to my own faith.  Wright's work is all about locating the New Testament witness within its historical context, and interrogating it using historical tools.  The emphasis is on the fact that this stuff really happened and is therefore in principle open to all.  I like that.

On the other hand, I am a great fan of Karl Barth, whose methodology is often thought to be the exact opposite.  For Barth, although the events to which the New Testament bears witness did indeed occur in history#, in their character as revelation they are emphatically not available to all.  Revelation, for Barth, is always God's action.  He talks about it as a door, which can only be opened from the other side - i.e., God's side.  The historian, qua historian, has no access whatsoever to this.

Polar opposites?

Well, actually, no.  Wright does take fairly regular pops at Barthians in TRotSoG, but he is usually wisely careful to blame the followers and not the master.  Some followers of Barth have certainly ended up in what is basically a Christianised existentialism, where the history of Jesus is basically inaccessible and we just have to take a leap of faith into the (hopefully) waiting arms of revelation - but that isn't Barth's position.

In three paragraphs (Church Dogmatics IV/2, 149-150), Barth summarises his position on the historical accessibility of knowledge of God through Christ.  "Is there", he asks, "a 'historical' knowledge of this event" - he is speaking of the event of revelation, by which he means specifically the life, death, and resurrection of Christ - "which can be maintained neutrally and with complete objectivity?"  The first answer is 'no', not if we're talking about real knowledge of God, which necessarily overflows in love.  That sort of knowledge - we might call it relational knowledge - can of course never be objective in that sense, nor is it in any way neutral.  And for Barth knowledge of God is necessarily relational knowledge.  So, no, if we're talking about "knowledge in this decisive sense", there is no generally available historical revelation.

But...  "neutral and objective - 'historical' - knowledge is its presupposition".

In other words, historical knowledge is necessary, but not sufficient, for relational knowledge.

He offers two clarifying statements.  Firstly, this historical knowledge will mean "the most impartial and painstaking investigation of the texts which speak of this event."  To try to go around the New Testament and its witness is not to seek historical knowledge of these events, but to import one's own understanding.  To seek historical knowledge of an event without reading the texts which witness to this event - well, its sufficiently nonsensical to call into question the motives.

Second, the historical investigation "must really be impartial."  That is to say, it is no use if the historian has already decided what can and can't happen in history, or what is to qualify as historical knowledge.  Impartiality means at the very least hearing the texts on their own terms.  (And not, for example, ruling out their witness to the resurrection because resurrections don't happen, or designating such witness as beyond the scope of historical enquiry because dealing with matters of faith rather than history).

I think Barth is absolutely in agreement with Wright here; the difference of emphasis between them is complementary and not contradictory.  In TRotSoG Wright effectively endorses this perspective.  Historical investigation can lead us to the conclusion that the most reasonable explanation for the rise of the church is the empty tomb and the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  It cannot get us from there to God.  But surely knowing historically that Jesus rose is the essential presupposition for seeing in him the revelation of God.

Some 'Barthians' I know would object that this is to put the Word of God on trial.  If God has spoken to us, then we should receive his Word and not question.  I agree, but it seems to me that what God has said, he has said in history.  His Word is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  To hear that Word in faith is more than, but it is absolutely not less than, to hear it in history.

* I don't think the enormous fourth volume, on Paul, is quite so good, although there's a lot of valuable stuff in there if you have the time to search for it and the strength in your arms to lift the book.

# If you have ever been told that Barth did not believe in the historicity of, say, the resurrection of Jesus - well, that is just plain wrong. It can only be maintained through either ignorance or reading and reasoning in very bad faith. But that's another topic for another day.

The Creator/creature distinction

We would not know that God stood infinitely above us unless God in Christ had decisively bridged that infinite gap.  It is not natural or obvious to think that God is profoundly other; in fact, most of the deities of the ancient world look like big human beings, and nowadays we worship normal-sized human beings, which is to say, ourselves.  It is only by making infinite descent that God reveals himself to us as the one who dwells in unapproachable distance.  It is only by taking on our nature in Christ that God shows his nature to be qualitatively different from ours.

The ironic result is that it is only from a position where God has enabled us to speak of him in very human terms that we see that our human thinking and speaking is entirely inadequate to grasp him.  We don't first know God as infinitely different (how could we?  what concepts would we deploy?) and then breathe a sigh of relief that he accommodates himself to us.  We see God in Christ in the manger and on the cross, and then we understand that this God whom we see here in the flesh is beyond us, utterly beyond us.

The only reason we know that there is a stark distinction between the Creator and the creature is that Jesus Christ has in his own person united the two.

The pure original

Last week, the theologian Peter Enns tweeted this:

Adjusting theology over time is the very history of Judaism and Xty. Otherwise they cease to exist. Holding to a pure original is a myth.

— Peter Enns (@peteenns) 30 September 2017

 Now, I have a lot of issues with Enns.  He is pretty much the embodiment of the slippery slope argument which prevents many evangelicals from engaging creatively with the doctrine of Scripture, and that's a shame.  In many ways this particular tweet captures the nature of most of my concerns with him: at one level, he is so obviously right, but where is he going with it?

In what sense is this tweet obviously true?  Well, it is true that the history of Christianity (I feel unqualified to speak to Judaism) is a history of theological adjustment.  Doctrine develops, course corrections are made, different emphases are brought to the forefront at different times.  And I think it is also (more or less) true that Christianity would cease to exist if this process ceased.  I don't mean that Christianity as a world religion would roll up and disappear - and I suspect Enns doesn't mean that either.  I mean that Christianity would cease to be a vital force.  At the very least, different cultures and philosophies mean that the core gospel message has to be expressed and re-expressed.  Theological concepts which were an adequate sign-post to the gospel at one time may communicate falsehood after a couple of centuries.  So, yes, theological adjustment is vital to the existence of Christianity.

It's the last bit, though, that is troubling.  Again, to some extent it's true.  There is no point in history where the theological consensus of the church could be held up as the perfection of theology - no, not even the immediate post-apostolic period.  After all, you'd rather have an explicit Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, wouldn't you?  I would.

But the direction of travel causes me anxiety.  The last clause - the absence of a pure original - makes me ask: what, then, controls the 'adjustments' that must be made to theology over time?  What should drive and motivate those adjustments?  How will we know if the right adjustments are being made?

There is a danger here that we fall into a fully post-modern theology.  Post-modernism makes truth an eschatological thing, but with an indefinitely postponed eschaton.  Truth is always in the future.  At best we are always inclining toward truth, but we never reach it.  In a sense, truth could be defined as that which has a future, which remains open to the future.  Now, I accept that there is an eschatological element to truth.  I accept that theology is always, or ought always to be, theologia viatorum, theology on the way.  We never have the finished product.

But...

The last word, the eschatological Word, has actually been spoken.  There is a pure original.  His name is Jesus Christ, and we know him through his commissioned witnesses, the prophets and apostles.  This does not preclude the constant adjustment; in fact, it necessitates it.  The final Word having been spoken, we have to continually ask whether we have heard it, and whether what we are saying conforms to it.  Yes, there is an openness to the future here: to future correction, to the ultimate future of the eschaton.  But that ultimate future is none other than Jesus Christ - the one who will be is the one who was (and who is).  Adjustment to our theology must therefore come from him.  Maybe that's what Enns meant.  But I fear not.

Give us thyself, that we may see...

Give us thyself that we may see
The Father and the Son by thee.

So John Dryden interprets part of the great 9th century hymn to the Holy Spirit, Veni Creator Spiritus - accurately capturing at least part of the concern of the original.  We seek the Spirit, so that by the Spirit we might know the Father and the Son (and, in the slightly more Trinitarian formula of the original Latin composition, might know the Spirit himself also).

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit plays a vital role in the doctrine of revelation.  Put it in the context of the whole Trinity.  The Father is the unseen, and the Son is the visible image of the invisible God.  The ancient argument for the deity of Christ revolved around this: if the Son is not God, then God is not revealed.  Nothing less than God could truly reveal God to us.  But granted the deity of the Son: how does it come about that a human being, who is not God, can have God revealed to them?  If it is true that only God can reveal God, is it not also true that only God can see God?  In other words, even granted the true revelation of God in the person of Christ, we human beings have absolutely no inherent capacity to receive this revelation.

Without God (the Spirit) working in us, we cannot see God (the Son) revealing to us the being and person of God (the Father).  And so we pray, Come, Creator Spirit!

Achtung!

Whilst doing some reading on Biblical counselling this morning (and you can expect to see some reflections on this reading at some point when I'm less cross about it), I came across an article containing the following paragraph:

Keep in mind that the normative perspective is not Scripture. The normative perspective includes ALL of God’s revelation, and that of course is universal. So theologians distinguish “special revelation,” “general revelation,” and the revelation in man as the image of God, what I call “existential revelation.”

Now, to be fair, that gets qualified later on - Scripture is uniquely normative, "ruling all the other norms".  But still, it made me think of this from Uncle Karl - who gets to play the Nazi card because, well, he was there and he was already saying it at the time, when far too few people were:

On disliking John Frame

Periodically, I return to the writings of John Frame, even though I know they will frustrate me.  Partly that's because there are people I seriously respect who have a high regard for him as a theologian, and I am trying to understand just why that is.  Partly it's because he is the foremost representative, to my knowledge, of a particular way of doing theology, a way which claims to represent continuity with historic Reformed Orthodoxy.  But I just can't get on with him, and I think I've worked out why.

Most recently I've been reading Frame's Doctrine of the Word of God, and it has really brought to the fore where I think things go wrong.  For Frame, everything is revelatory of God; everything is a medium of God's word.  "Clearly, everything that God has made, and every event that takes place, reveals God in some way" (p. 76).  Now, this does not seem ever so clear to me.  The logic behind it is that since the word of God is God (this identification is important), and since God is providentially in control of everything, everything is a medium of the word of God.  Note that he is absolutely not saying that all things and events, being subject to God's providence, are potentially bearers of God's word; he is saying that in actual fact all things and events are media of God's revelatory word.

This means that Scripture is "one word of God among many" (p. 410), albeit a word which in some way corrects and refines our understanding of the other divine words.  Frame is keen on Calvin's analogy - Scripture is like spectacles.  Without it, we do not see clearly what is being revealed of God through nature and history; with Scripture, our blurry vision comes into focus and we can see God in all things.  Note that "this is not to say that Scripture is more authoritative than the words of God in creation" (p. 411) - this cannot be said, because the word of God is God, and therefore speaks with equal authority wherever it is spoken (and it is spoken everywhere and in everything!)  But Scripture does have the role of correcting our understanding and interpretation of God's word spoken in creation and history.

What does this mean for Jesus Christ, whom Frame acknowledges to be the living Word of God, as per John 1?  Well, explicit discussion of this doesn't kick in until chapter 42 (on page 304!), because Frame follows a schema of creation-word, verbal-word, person-word.  In the end, all that he seems to do with the idea of Christ as Word is to say that he is the mediator of all revelation - because he is the creator God and the Lord of Providence, as well as the teacher par excellence.  It is particularly telling that in the next chapter Frame goes on to say that all humans are revelatory of God; Jesus seems to me on this scheme to be just the best of us.

What I really miss here is any sense of the cross in Frame's epistemology.  Everything seems to sail on in smooth continuity: God in creation, God in history, God in Jesus, God in Scripture...  There is no sense of Jesus as the light shining in the darkness; no sense of the revelation of God as that which decisively contradicts and overturns human wisdom.  God is never hidden, he never veils himself.  In fact, he is so clearly revealed in everything that Frame maintains not only that people can know about God from creation, but that each and every individual actually does know God.  He bases this on an exegesis of Romans 1 which I reject.  In Frame, I think it just serves as a powerplay.

And here's the heart of it: I think that what has happened in Frame is that the divine sovereignty has taken over from every other attribute of God.  Everything collapses into providence: God's authority and control.  It's no coincidence that Frame's multi-volume work is A Theology of Lordship, nor that he makes a slightly bizarre attempt to read concepts of lordship back into the divine name YHWH.  It seems to me that for Frame all theology boils down to this: God is in charge.  Now that's a truth, but unless it's read through the cross I think it's a truth which is hugely distorted.  And I see this not only in Frame but in many of the neo-Reformed across the pond.  In the end, it's a theology of glory, and not of the cross.

Oh, also, he says lots of nasty things about Karl Barth, which I understood much better after I read a bit about Van Til and how ridiculous he was.

What should evangelicals REALLY make of Karl Barth?

Earlier this week, the Gospel Coalition carried an article by Justin Taylor, reporting some brief comments of Don Carson's on the theology of Karl Barth, particularly as it relates to the doctrine of Scripture. There is a lot to like about Carson's comments, especially the fact that the major misunderstandings that seem to characterise a lot of American conservative reading of Barth (I'm thinking of Van Til, Schaeffer, Frame) seem thankfully absent. Even the disagreement is done in an irenic style, as one would expect from Carson. This is all good.

Having said that, I did (of course) have a few thoughts, and since it is good to share, here they are.

Firstly, let me say something about contradictions. Sometimes reading Barth it feels like his thought is heading off on two parallel lines, and it is difficult (impossible?) to see how they will ever be brought into contact. I think the doctrine of Scripture is a clear example of this: Barth insists strongly on the mere humanity of Scripture; he insists equally strongly that Scripture is the place we turn to hear the authoritative word of God. Is it just that Barth is being unduly 'extreme' about either of these positions? I don't think so. As far as I can see from my reading of Barth, this sort of structure springs from the fact that his theology is genuinely 'eccentric', meaning simply that it has its centre outside itself - in the reality of God himself. When it comes to the doctrine of Scripture, the humanity and divinity of the witness it bears are genuinely contradictory from a human point of view, and at no point can they be logically brought together or co-ordinated; they are brought together only in the act of God himself working to bring them together. In other words, if God doesn't exist, Barth's theology will be self-contradictory - but then, of course, it will also be meaningless.

I think this sort of structure can be seen in various aspects of more traditional theology without causing any disturbance. Consider, for example, the Biblical truth that God is a god who punishes evil, and the equally Biblical truth that God is a god who forgives. These are two parallel lines stretching to infinity, apparently without ever touching. They are brought into contact only at the cross of Christ; the action of God makes two apparently contradictory statements to be in fact identical (in the sense that they have an identical referent). If this is "dialectical thinking", it is more Biblical than Hegelian, and I don't think we need to feel threatened by it.

Secondly, it is true that Barth affirms that there are errors in Scripture, although he does say at one point that Scripture's errors are more illuminating than the truths of other books (can't find the reference for this one right now). It is not clear to me that Barth ever makes use of the idea of errors in Scripture; he doesn't build anything on it. It feels to me that he thinks himself obliged to affirm the presence of errors in order to assert the true humanity of the Scriptures, against what he regards as a dangerous fundamentalism which overlooks this aspect of Scripture or at least minimises it. I think he is right to see this danger, but wrong in his defence. Although to err is human, not every human errs in every single thing they do. It should be entirely possible for Barth to affirm that Scripture is free of error in what it affirms (propositionally), but that it is still a human book, not in itself divine revelation unless God brings the human and divine together in the event of the Spirit's illumination.

I suspect this is related to Barth's Christology. Barth claims that Christ's human nature is thoroughly Adamic, that is to say fallen - it is like our nature in every way. This is a substantial departure from mainstream orthodoxy, but it is worth noting that he is also clear that Christ did not take on our fallen nature in order to do in that nature what we ourselves habitually do - i.e. he did not actually sin, but carried our sinful nature in obedience to God. Might he not, in parallel, have affirmed that the humanity of Scripture meant it was thoroughly capable of error, without in fact erring?

Thirdly, it is worth highlighting that perhaps Barth's greatest concern in all his theology, and certainly in his doctrine of Scripture, is that the church must continue to rely absolutely on God, and on his present day activity. There is no sense in which God, having acted in the past in Christ and in the inspiration of Scripture, now leaves his revelation in the hands of the church and the world. No, revelation is always God's personal activity. Although Scripture and preaching (and even the human nature of Christ?) constitute the locus of revelation, they are not themselves revelatory unless God acts by the Spirit to make them such. God is in control, always the subject of his own becoming object. In practice, that means whenever we turn to Scripture, or stand up to preach, or sit to hear a sermon we are genuinely driven to prayer, that the impossible would happen in the grace of God, and the words of men would be to us the true and living word of God .

Mind the Gaps

One of the things I would want to challenge in the average evangelical doctrine of revelation is its simplicity. I am using the word here in its technical sense, as something which does not have parts, is not capable of further analysis, stands as a monad.  I think that is the way the doctrine of revelation works in most evangelicalism.  There are no gaps in it.

To put that more concretely, what I mean is that when evangelicals talk about revelation they tend to move straight to Scripture, and thence directly to doctrine, with the assumption that they have not in any way changed the subject in so doing.  The position is that revelation is to do with the Bible - God is revealed in Scripture - and the Bible is essentially a system of doctrine, or at least a mine of potential doctrine that is just waiting for the exegete (and theologian, although the latter is looked on a little suspiciously on the whole) to dig up and arrange in orderly fashion.  Revelation, Scripture, doctrine - basically the same thing.  The only potential gap relates to human error; I may have misread Scripture and extracted the wrong doctrine from it. Nevertheless, fundamentally, revelation is simple.

I'm sketching a caricature here, but not one, I think, which is too far from life.  Caricature can be helpful; one may be quite unaware of one's larger than average nose until the caricaturist exaggerates it.  The exaggeration does not make the subsequent realisation that the nose is, indeed, rather on the large side any less true.


My quibbles with this sort of understanding of Scripture are manifold, but my two big theological objections are these:

1.  This makes revelation textual, which is not easily assimilated to the picture of revelation which is actually given in the text of Scripture.  It removes the backward question, the question of reference, from theological consideration.  We must ask 'do historical events stand behind this testimony?' - if we do not, we are essentially saying that it is indifferent whether the events recorded in Scripture actually happened.  (We can, after all, construct our systems of doctrine regardless of the answer to the question).  If Christianity is about anything - if the Bible is about anything - it is about stuff that actually happened.  There is, therefore, a gap between revelation in history and its record in Scripture.  This should not be considered a threatening gap.  If the witnesses are trustworthy - if their testimony is indeed authorised and guaranteed by God - then the gap is simply a recognition that there is an event and testimony to an event, and these things are two, not one, though they stand in the closest possible relation.  We must not be trapped inside the Bible, but must allow the Bible to point beyond itself to the reality behind the text.

2.  The doctrine I have described makes God's revelation of himself unproblematic.  That is to say, it assumes that it is an easy thing for human beings to know God - just read the book, pick out the doctrines!  But that, again, flies in the face of the Scriptural witness, which again and again insists that it is a hard thing for humans to know God - hard in particular for the omnipotent Deity!

Why are the gaps - the recognition that revelation, Scripture, and doctrine are far from identical - so threatening?  Perhaps because we cannot conceive of a way in which non-identity and identity can be affirmed at once; which is not surprising, since with man this is impossible - but with God...

Revelation and Resurrection

My thoughts once again circle around to the doctrine of revelation.  I am pretty convinced that we (by which I mean, Christians in the evangelical tradition) do not have a handle on it.  I think the reason we don't have a handle on it is that we don't see it as problematic.  God reveals himself - something about Jesus, more about the Bible, bish bash bosh, job done.  Let's call it a doctrine.  Obviously, there are lots more thoughtful treatments of the subject than that, but I haven't come across many which try to get to grips with what is, for me, the central question of our time: 'how could God reveal himself to us?'

A few things about the question:

1.  Methodologically, we need to be committed to a certain weak circularity here.  That is to say, we must decline to look at answers which are not themselves based on revelation.  Rather than imagining channels through which God might be revealed, and then investigating them for revelatory content (which is the procedure of, say, Schleiermacher and the whole liberal school of the 19th century), we need to face up to the fact that we could only find out how God could reveal himself by examining how God did reveal himself. Start with the gospel, and then move to theology and philosophy.

2.  The question is made problematic by the recognition in Kant and post-Kantian epistemology that human beings are not merely receptive in their perception of the world.  Each of us, and all of us collectively in the various groups and societies in which we find ourselves, shape the 'world' that we perceive.  We bring as much as we receive.  I think this is undeniably true, but I think the implications are widely ignored (in analytic philosophy, and in English-speaking theology).  Those implications are manifold, but one huge one is the raising of another question - how could God give himself to be known by us in a way which does not also constitute giving himself away?  How could God reveal himself without becoming another object, becoming just another building block in my construction of my 'world'?  (The wider philosophical question is what forces me, at least, to walk somewhere between a naive realism and a full-blown phenomenology).

3.  The answer, I think, lies in the analogy between incarnation and inscripturation.  God did give himself to us in such a way that he became subject to our deepest distortion of reality.  In the person of Christ, God gave himself, and to all appearances gave himself away.  That is to say, at the cross, the God-man can scarcely be seen as divine at all.  God's revelation, at its highest point, has been incorporated into anti-God constructions of the 'world' - materially, by the crucifixion.  The resurrection, however, shows that this apparent giving away of God is nothing other than the material condition of his final triumph over all such false constructions of the world.  God rescues his revelation, and in so doing shows that it was always his intention to let it walk the way of humiliation.  Is the same true in revelation generally?  In committing the witness to Christ to writing - to Scripture - God gives himself away again.  Here we have a book, another object over which I am a subject, material which I can interpret any which I please, and which I must inevitably interpret according to my situation, background etc. etc.  Is God's revelation lost?  Only if he doesn't come back to it; only if there aren't little epistemic resurrections of the text which triumph over our individual constructions.  God fights back against all our misreading.

4.  Pneumatology must be the end point, as the starting point.  Incarnate of the Holy Ghost - driven along by the Holy Spirit - reminded of all these things.  These phrases are linked historically and theologically.

Still thinking...

Revelation and Advent

Some thoughts on the topic of revelation, disconnected because they are still forming in my brain:

1.  In the NT, revelation is substantially an eschatological concept.  In the Pastorals, the appearing of Jesus is a technical term for his return (1 Tim 6:14, 2 Tim 4:8, Titus 2:13 etc.); this echoes other Pauline (2 Thess 1:17) and Petrine (1 Pet 4:13) passages about Christ being revealed at the end.  Fundamentally, revelation is a thing belonging to the new age which is not yet consummated.  Therefore, the revelation of God is an especially appropriate subject for meditation in advent, and looking forward to seeing God is at the heart of advent devotion.  1 Peter 1:8 captures the theme - we have not seen him, but we love him, and therefore we wait to see him.

2.  Revelation is an eschatological concept even when applied to the ministry of Jesus.  The end of John's gospel captures this, when it talks about Jesus resurrection appearances (e.g. John 21:1).  However, the concept is present earlier in the gospel narratives, especially at the transfiguration, which is a preview of the resurrection appearances.  When we talk about Jesus revealing God, are we talking about the eschatological light - the glory of the God-man in the coming age - breaking into this age?  Even those who saw Jesus did not necessarily encounter this sort of revelation, but many who did not physically see him have encountered it.

3.  Revelation, then, is not a static thing.  It is not something which is always there, but it is something which breaks through.  It is the new story which starts in the middle of the old story.

4.  Because revelation is the story of Jesus, it is right that our advent meditations look backward as well as forward.  The light has begun to shine, the story has begun to be told.  It makes sense that advent terminates in Christmas, every year asking the question: will we see him this year?  But also knowing that whether we do or not, we can see him in the apostolic testimony to his life, death, and resurrection.

5.  Jesus is uniquely revelatory, because he is the new story and the light in himself.  For something to break through - for a light to shine in darkness - it has to come from without.  God stepping in to creation would be - is - a new story in the midst of the old and a bright light in the darkness.  This is about incarnation.  It will not do to begin our understanding of revelation anywhere else.  If there is light anywhere else, it is because it comes from this source; if the old story starts to show some hope and some glory, it has been invested with it by the new.

Even if one rose from the dead

Here is an odd question for you: what would count as evidence that you were in the presence of God incarnate? What facts or occurrences would qualify as good rational grounds to conclude that this human being was also, in reality, God the Lord, creator of all things visible and invisible?

What things spring to mind?

Virgin birth - assuming that could be verified beyond a doubt, which I suppose it could nowadays?  Miracles - assuming that they were well-attested and we were sure there was no trickery involved?  Inspired teaching - assuming that it really did go beyond anything that anyone else had said?  Resurrection from the dead - assuming that this, too, could be verified absolutely, including a careful check that real death had occurred?

Or perhaps a cumulative case built up out of all the above?

Now, I have no interest in shaking anyone's faith.  But I do want to point out that, as far as I can tell, it would not be legitimate to draw the conclusion that I was in the presence of God incarnate from any of those things, or indeed all of them put together.  They are all remarkable, but frankly remarkable things do happen in the world.  Taken together, they certainly seem to point to the action of some higher power, but we know that there are many powers at work in the universe.

We are faced here with an epistemological problem.  What criteria could one apply to ascertain whether something absolutely unique had occurred?  And here we do mean 'absolutely unique'.  If God enters into his creation as a man, that is an event without parallel or analogue.  It is not just one of those remarkable things that happens from time to time, and that is why none of the remarkable things mentioned can be sufficient evidence of it.  Our categories of knowledge break down when we cannot compare an event with something similar, or at least something with which it stands in basic continuity.  But there is no immediate continuity between the incarnation of God and any other event in all creation, because there is no immediate continuity between God and his creation.  They are not in the same class of being.

Of course, it is necessary to our faith that all these things have actually happened and been true.  They are necessary, but not sufficient, reasons to trust that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour, as he is to the whole world.  But I think there is something significant in the fact that the most dazzlingly revelatory events - the Transfiguration, say, or indeed the resurrection itself - have deliberately very limited audiences.  And even those audiences contain doubters and deniers - think of the guards at the tomb, or the 'but some doubted' of Matthew 28.

So, what are we to say to this?

Firstly, I think there is something we can say about continuity.  The incarnation does stand in continuity with the history of Israel, or to be more precise (but less temporally straightforward) the history of Israel stands in continuity with the incarnation.  In the light of Israel's history, we can understand Jesus as the mighty God come to save his people.

But secondly, we must recognise that even this connection can only be seen if we are given eyes.  We can rehearse the evidences, the signposts that something extraordinary is happening in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  We can highlight the sense that he makes of Israel's history, and vice versa.  But ultimately, unless it is shown us - shown to each of us personally - we cannot see it.

Veni Creator Spiritus!

Leap of faith?

The concept of the leap of faith is pretty central to the view of religion which most people hold in western culture today.  It can be given a positive or a negative spin.  Negatively, the leap of faith is portrayed as ignoring the facts, running contrary to the evidence, 'committing intellectual suicide', throwing oneself into the darkness even though the light of knowledge is shining all around.  On this view, a leap of faith means plunging into absurd mysticism, usually because one is unwilling to deal with the cold, hard facts of life.  Positively, the leap of faith is portrayed as reaching out for something 'beyond', something that transcends the mundane, something that provides meaning and purpose in a universe otherwise devoid of both.  Although the leap does take us beyond knowledge, per se, it is somehow a virtue to trust in something - almost anything - that will give our lives a bit of content - and who knows, maybe that something is really out there.

Christians tend to divide into those who hate the idea of a leap of faith and see no place for it in Christianity, and those who embrace it.  Broadly speaking, the former believe that Christianity is based on evidence and rationality, can be demonstrated, and does not involve any leaping because it is all within the bounds of what is ordinarily referred to as knowledge.  They tend to be keen on the discipline of apologetics, and to have some regard for natural theology.  The latter, on the other hand, do not believe that the arguments and evidences will get you all the way.  They may vary as to how far they will get you - perhaps very close - but at the end of the day, you will have to make a leap.  You will reach the end of your intellectual resources, and the arguments and evidences will take you to a point from which you just have to jump.  If God is there, presumably he'll catch you.

I would suggest, of course, that neither of these positions is quite right, mainly because they both have something desperately wrong in common.  Both believe that human beings can work it out, sort it out, and live it out, without assistance.  Either we have to think it through, or we have to jump.  Either way, the decisive action is ours, and comes on our side.

What if revelation were needed - personal revelation, God stooping down to meet me?  What if instead of the leap of faith we were presented with the 'leap of grace'?  What if it was all, in the end, about receiving?

"If we know ourselves, as the Christian does, we cannot think that we are capable of this leap.  And the whole idea of a leap that we have made or are making is best abandoned.  No one makes the leap.  As Christians, we are all borne on eagles' wings."

God revealing and revealed

I've been brushing up on my Patristics over the last couple of weeks, with the help of John Behr's books on the formation of Christian Theology.  It's been really useful stuff.  One of the things that has been driven home to me is that the foundational question of Christian Theology is 'does Jesus Christ reveal God?'  Of course, it's possible that I'm reading things through this lens because I think that this is the central question to be asked and answered today; still, Behr does indicate that this is at the heart of discussions in the first four centuries of the Church as well.  Indeed, he structures his discussion of the Fathers' doctrine around the gospel question 'who do you say I am?' - with each theologian giving subtly different answers.

An interesting contrast drawn by Behr is between Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons.  Both are generally considered to be orthodox, which makes the comparison all the more interesting - we are not dealing with wild heresies, but with a discussion within the Great Church.  Behr argues that for Justin, who never quite escapes his Platonist past, it is a presuppositional truth that God is utterly transcendent, and therefore not capable of being seen.  He understands Christ as a second God, a visible God.  He is not at this point heading into ditheism; he believes in, although he doesn't particularly develop, the oneness of the Father and the Son.  But he does apply titles to Christ which would later drop out of use - he calls him an apostle and an angel.  It wouldn't be too hard to show Scriptural support for both titles, but in Justin's theology they show the place of the Son: he bridges the gap between the Father and the creation, as a messenger.  This enables Justin to see significant continuity between the Son and creation, and to claim all truth - even when uttered by pagan philosophers - as the Word of God.  "[F]or Justin, the revelation of God in the Incarnate Word is the last, even if the most important, in a series of discrete revelations" (Behr).  Moreover, for Justin the Word reveals the Word - God the Father, in his incomprehensible transcendence, remains essentially unknown.

For Irenaeus, on the other hand, there is no division between the Father and the Son; although distinct, they are absolutely united.  The Son reveals the Father - "the Father is the invisible of the Son, the Son is the visible of the Father" (Against Heresies).  The Son is not conceived of as a bridge (which in the end leads nowhere), but as the manifestation of the Father himself.  The continuity between the Son and creation which creeps in to Justin is absent; God is revealed only in Christ, the incarnate Word, and not elsewhere.  Where for Justin, the Son/Word as intermediary between God and creation can be seen throughout creation and only supremely in Christ, for Irenaeus the Son is seen in Christ alone.  The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ are the revelation of God.  Prior revelation, to the patriarchs and through the Scriptures, is to be understood as related prophetically to the incarnate Word.  There is no room here for any logos asarkos.

It is interesting that the debates about Christology that developed long after Justin and Irenaeus were safely home would revolve initially around whether Christ really is God and therefore able to reveal God, and then around whether this happens in real humanity.  It is all about whether God can be known, and how he can be known.  The answer the orthodox arrived at in the fourth century is that God can be known, but only in his Son, who as true God truly reveals God, and further that the Son can only be seen as incarnate, crucified, and risen, as a true human being.  That, for me, is the crux of all Christian theology: is God seen in Christ, and him crucified?  Is he seen there truly?  Is he seen there alone?

Veiled in Flesh

The curtain in the tabernacle, and later the temple, seems to serve one important purpose according to the Scriptural testimony: it keeps sinful people away from God.  That was both a burden and a blessing.  A burden, because it cut human beings off from the fellowship with God for which they were designed; a blessing, because in fact in their sinful state human beings could not stand that fellowship.  No one can see God and live.

I have been wondering whether there is something else going on here, as well as the obvious.  The question 'where is God?' sounds, to us, hopelessly naive, but it was a question to which the OT Israelite would be able to give three answers.  Firstly, God is in heaven, whence he does whatever pleases him.  Secondly, God is throughout the world, directing and sustaining all creation.  Thirdly, God is in the Most Holy Place, in the tabernacle/temple.  These are all true, and some of the tensions between them are captured in Solomon's prayer of dedication at his great temple, recorded in 2 Chronicles 6.  What strikes me, though, is that it is surely the third answer which gives the Israelite the greatest comfort, and upon which his faith rests.  The fact that the OT often reports the perversion of this faith, portraying Israel as presuming upon God's favour because of his presence in the temple (see Jeremiah 7:4), merely reflects and underlines the fact that for Israel the presence of God in the temple is the foundation of their confidence.

Why is that?  Why is the Lord's presence in the Most Holy Place more significant for Israel than his presence in the highest heaven?

I would suggest that it is only by taking up residence behind the curtain that God can be Israel's God, or rather that they can know him as Israel's God.  The God of the heavens, and the God of the cosmos, are frankly not entities which can be known.  Where is God?  If not behind the curtain, if merely everywhere, what answer can we usefully give to the question?  And doesn't the God who is not behind the curtain - not in a particular place - all to easily become the God who has no particular characteristics, and finally not a particular God at all but a vague and unknowable force?  Whether we then go for pantheism, or prefer polytheism as a way of filling the gap between this unknown God and us, we certainly lose the real God, the personal God who is with us and for us.

Ironically, it seems that God has to curtain off a small section of the cosmos he has made in order to show himself as the Lord of the whole cosmos; ironically, in order to reveal himself as the God he really is, Yahweh must conceal himself behind a piece of cloth.

Consider, then, Hebrews 10:19-20: "...we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh..."

Granted, the author of Hebrews has in mind primarily the curtain as the separation between holy God and sinful man - the more obviously Biblical application of the temple idea.  But he does make the point that the tabernacle curtain was a sign of Jesus' human body - more than that, of his flesh, his whole human space-time existence.  The particular God - the God who actually exists and is for us - takes flesh and hides himself in it so as to be revealed.  God cannot be known in the abstract.  He can only be known if we can give a satisfactory answer to the question 'where is God?'; and the answer we give is that God is in Christ.

In Hebrews, of course, the curtain is opened up.  That, too, has happened.  Christ's body, torn open on the cross, reveals God as he truly is - the crucified One, God in the depths, God suffering in my place.  Is that, I wonder, why the veil of the temple was torn in two just as he died?

Irony: man in his sin hides from God, and is thus revealed to be the sinner he is; God in his righteousness hides himself from man, and is thus revealed to be the righteous God he truly is.

Implication: where do I look for God?  Is it in his hidden-ness, or do I always clamour for the glory of the general God, the no-god?

The Nineteenth Century

I am just approaching the end of a term spent studying Protestant theology in Europe and America in the 19th Century.  It has been fascinating, but only in the way that a documentary about the Titanic or a train-wreck might be fascinating.  The 19th Century sees the complete marginalisation of orthodoxy within Protestant theology, and a move toward man as the measure of all things which is utterly destructive.  By the time we get to the First World War, we are faced with the terrible sight of German theologians enthusiastically supporting the Kaiser's war, and theologians across Europe not only failing to protest the war but actually talking it up as a war for Christianity and civilisation, as if these two were the same, as if they were both in desperate danger, and as if leaving the youth of the continent dying in the mud would save them.  And that was not a blip; it was the logical end point of the mainstream of theology over the previous century.

What went wrong?

Well, firstly, in the 18th century, theologians argued that Christianity was reasonable, and therefore ought to be believed.  That doesn't sound like the precursor to a disaster; the whole exercise was in fact considered as necessary to stave off disaster and to equip Christianity to survive the Enlightenment.  But at some point there was a switch.  Instead of arguing that the whole of Christianity was reasonable and therefore to be believed, suddenly theologians were arguing that only what was reasonable was to be believed, and therefore Christianity must be subjected to a critique that removes everything reason cannot accept.  This was, in many ways, just a frank acceptance that the 18th century apologetic project had failed.  This failure was not immediately obvious.  But as 'what can be rationally believed' gradually shifted, the ground upon which the 18th century theologians had taken their stand was eroded and eventually destroyed.  A bare kernel of 'Christianity' was left.

Secondly, theology failed to assert the transcendence and immanence of God.  Kant stressed the transcendence; Hegel in protest stressed the immanence.  The former made God inaccessible, and was not hugely attractive to theologians (although philosophers liked it); the latter seemed much more likely to provide theology with what it felt it needed - a plausible philosophical basis.  But for Hegel God was locked inside the system of the world, and especially human culture.  The logical development of his thought was the 'History of Religions school', which sought to trace the development of religion in history in order to see the revelation of God.  Protestant Christianity was seen as the highest point (absolute religion for the likes of Schleiermacher and Harnack; the best so far for Troeltsch).  In this movement, revelation came to be identified with cultural development.  It comes as no surprise that a theologian like Harnack, who wrote that Protestantism was the genius of the German national spirit, would ultimately fail to criticise the War.  (In fact, he signed a manifesto in support of it).

What do we have to learn?

Firstly, to be suspicious of our felt need to make Christianity rationally acceptable to those around us.  We could succeed in this apologetic task and still be putting down a time bomb in the church which will be devastating in a hundred years.  In particular, we need to remember that there is not some timeless standard of rationality to which we can appeal; what seems reasonable to someone today may not seem so reasonable in a few decades.  So we mustn't rely too much on the rationality of those around us.

Secondly, we need to be on our guard against moving with the times.  Revelation always stands over against culture and critiques it from its own place.  Whenever anyone discards a piece of Scriptural teaching on the grounds that it is old fashioned (and this happens often, under different guises), we need to ask whether the surrounding culture has been allowed to smother the voice of the apostles and prophets.

The sacrifice of God

Once one sacrificed human beings to one's god, perhaps precisely those whom one loved most; the sacrifices of the firstborn in all primitive religions belong here...

Then, during the moral epoch of mankind, one sacrificed to one's god one's own strongest instincts, one's "nature": this festive joy lights up the cruel eyes of the ascetic, the "anti-natural" enthusiast.

Finally - what remained to be sacrificed? At long last, did one not have to sacrifice for once whatever is comforting, holy, healing; all hope, all faith in hidden harmony, in future blisses and justices? Didn't one have to sacrifice God himself and, from cruelty against oneself, worship the stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, the nothing? To sacrifice God for the nothing - this paradoxical mystery of the final cruelty was reserved for the generation that is now coming up: all of us already know something of this-

Thus Nietzsche, in Beyond Good and Evil, section 55.

I wonder to what extent this clarifies the death of God. It is not, in fact, a mere murder, but a cultic murder. God has not been merely killed, but sacrificed, in a final self-consuming act of religion. Again, it is to Nietzsche's credit that he recognises that this is a sacrifice. Of course, he thinks it will set humanity free in some sense, but it is nevertheless a suffering, a cruelty inflicted upon oneself which in some way forms the logical highpoint of asceticism (which Nietzsche considers to be the heart of religion).

The sacrifice of God plays out in different ways in the Christian tradition. The most basic statement that can be made about it is that God sacrifices himself - again, this is an event in the history of God, not merely a human event. Therefore the BCP can say of Christ's death that he "made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world". Perhaps the question to ask Nietzsche here is whether his own concept of the sacrifice of God is not merely an insufficient echo of the gospel.

More directly relevant, though, to Nietzsche's theme is the requirement that the gospel puts on Christians to be continually sacrificing God.

Now, before you think I've gone all Roman, I should say that I have in mind a mental process, and that strictly speaking I do not have in mind God. What I mean is this: the revelation of God in the gospel - in the face of Jesus Christ - teaches us that all of our ideas of God are wrong. Jesus Christ continually crashes through every symbol, doctrine, thought, image, or idea of God that I am able to devise. So I find myself in this position: I must have these symbols, doctrines, and ideas - without them I cannot think of God at all; but I am continually reminded that my symbols, doctrines, and ideas are inadequate - in fact, they are not truly representative of God.

So I am always sacrificing my image of God, always laying it on the altar - no matter how comforting or inspiring an image it is to me. I sacrifice it, to receive afresh the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And as soon as that knowledge has passed into memory and symbol, I am called to sacrifice it.

Is there, then, nothing steady - nothing lasting - in the knowledge of God? Yes - but the steady, lasting thing is Jesus Christ himself, from whose grace my inadequate (and in itself idolatrous) knowledge of God can live.

Revelation in 1 Samuel 3

The story of Samuel's call is intriguing from the point of view of the doctrine of revelation. We are told that "the young man Samuel was ministering to the Lord" at the beginning of the story - taking part in temple services (what was the temple at Shiloh? Just the tabernacle, or something more? Would be interested if anyone has any knowledge here, although it's strictly beside the point of this post). We are also told that "Samuel did not yet know the Lord", despite his presence in the temple. In this regard, Samuel's autobiography mirrors that of Israel as a whole: "the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision".

Into this situation comes the voice of God. The Lord personally calls Samuel by name, and effectively commissions him as a prophet by giving him a message to deliver to Eli. (The role of Eli in this process is somewhat ambivalent, in keeping with the presentation of his character throughout the book). There is no doubt in anyone's mind that this is God speaking: "the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel... knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord".

What interests me most in this chapter is the end result: "the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord". Note that no phsyical apparition is in view here - the call narrative rules that out. By speaking to Samuel, God appears to him. By giving him his word, God reveals himself. Now Samuel knows the Lord.

Of course, Samuel had a great deal of information about the Lord at the beginning of this chapter. He had access to reports of God's past revelation of himself to Israel, he had knowledge of God's prescribed worship (probably - although he is reported to be sleeping where the Ark is kept!), and he doubtless had instruction from God's priest. But until the Lord spoke to him personally, God was not revealed to him. Facts and reports did not constitute personal revelation.

'General' revelation? Suppressing the truth in Romans 1

Romans 1:18-32 is also often interpreted as affirming a broad view of revelation. Verses 19 and 20 certainly seem to point in this direction: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 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."

I feel much more tentative in advancing a contradiction of this interpretation than I did regarding Acts 17, and I would be very interested in comments.

Firstly, there is revelation going on in this passage - "the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven". However, if we ask to whom this revelation is made, the answer seems to be that it is made to Christians. If we read verses 17 and 18 together, we get: "For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith... For the wrath of God is revealed..." In other words, from the standpoint of faith in the gospel it is possible to see the wrath of God revealed in the way pagan history has played out. The pagans themselves, of course, do not see this.

Secondly, this passage is a description of pagan history. In chapter 2, Paul will go on to discuss Gentile responsibility to God, and then move to the question of whether the Jews escape condemnation through having the law. So it seems most sensible to read this second half of Romans 1 as Paul's review of how the Gentiles got into this mess in the first place. I think this view helps to explain the phrase "ever since the creation of the world", and also helps to explain Paul's description of decline from a high level of knowledge. Obviously, at the beginning there was recollection of God's personal revelation - his close personal fellowship - with Adam and Eve. But this has been gradually squandered. Knowledge had been exchanged for ignorance. (Doubtless this does also describe the general trend in societies which neglect God, but I think Paul is here describing history, not sociology).

Thirdly, this perspective on pagan history can only be delivered from the point of view of Biblical faith. I am uncomfortable in the extreme with the use of this passage to say "everyone does actually know that God exists, even if they won't admit it - they're just suppressing the truth". Paul's description of history points to the conclusion that people actually do not know that God exists, because since the creation of the world there has been systematic suppression of this truth. Only from the point of view of God's self-revelation can it be seen that this truth has been suppressed.

What then of the fact that "what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them"? And more acutely, what about the fact that this has been plain "ever since the creation of the world" - i.e. not just in the beginning, but ever since?

I think Paul is saying: the information is all still there - but without God's special self-disclosure this will inevitably lead to ignorance, due to human sin. Again, I question whether this should be called 'revelation'. A process which cannot lead to anyone knowing God, but will through sin always lead to idolatry does not seem to me to deserve the label. At the very least, we must say that Romans 1 does not teach that people actually know about God - precisely the opposite!