Special revelation: God’s gotta tell us about himself.

Last week I posted a piece on general revelation, the idea we can deduce God, and what he’s like, by looking at his creation. And, of course, why that’s largely rubbish: Every religion tries to deduce a bit of what God’s like by looking at nature. In so doing, every religion gets God wrong. In a thousand different ways.

Yeah, I know, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” etc. Ps 19.1 might be one of your very favorite verses. You’ve got framed posters of photos from the Hubble or Webb telescopes on your wall, captioned with that very memory verse. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about how you can love both science and God. And… big whoop. The glory of the heavens suggest the glory of their Creator… and that’s all.

Nothing about the Creator’s motives. Nor his character. Nor his love. Nor whether the mighty power he used to make the Big Bang go bang, has any limits on it. Obviously it’s vast, but how vast? Many a Christian will insist the infinity of space clearly reveals an infinite God, but… does it? ’Cause it’s empty infinite space; the Creator apparently didn’t put anything in it! Does empty space—truly empty, containing nothing whatsoever—even properly count as a thing God created?

True, the heavens declare a mighty Creator. Yet more than one pagan myth actually claims the Creator expended all his energy in the act of creation, and completely burned himself out. He created the universe… then ceased to be. Faded away. Is no more. Leaving behind his creatures; the mightiest of which, whom the pagans called gods, warred over who might rule everything the Creator left behind. Again, in these myths, nothing about the Creator’s motives for creating. Nor character, love, anything. His only purpose in these stories is to make the cosmos, then vanish.

Or, according to the 18th-century deists, God made the cosmos, then went away. Didn’t die… but he’s not around anymore, for he’s chosen not to interact with humanity (or at least they’ve rejected all the testimonies of those who had God-experiences). We might encounter him in the afterlife, but they were entirely sure we oughtn’t expect to in this life.

Bluntly, creation tells us what God made, but we know no more about his person than we know about Thomas Edison from incandescent light bulbs. So how are we to learn about God?

Duh—he’s gotta tell us.

And that’s what we Christian theologians mean by special revelation—the stuff God deliberately, personally reveals to humanity. What we know about God does not primarily come from looking at his handiwork and making (really, jumping to) conclusions. It comes from God himself.

Two kinds of special revelation.

Plenty of Christians nonetheless still try to draw conclusions about God from nature. And we have no way at all of proving any of their conclusions—unless we compare them with what God’s told humans about himself.

Every theologian who claims, “Nature reveals God is good!” didn’t deduce that from nature alone. Because, honestly, nature reveals no such thing. Nature can be awful. Natural disasters, plagues which kill millions, pestilence and death and mayhem; nature can be pretty, but nature can also be terrifying. Theologians made their deduction by looking at nature… then applying other knowledge they happen to have about God. Special knowledge. Stuff they got from the Holy Spirit, the scriptures he inspired, or the fellow Christians he inspired. But not from nature alone. Never nature alone.

Special revelation is either

1. FIRSTHAND KNOWLEDGE FROM GOD—we had a God-experience of some kind, and saw him do stuff, or he told us stuff—or
2. SECONDHAND—stuff we got from bible, or other people’s testimonies about their God-experiences.

You’d think (and certain Christians are insistent) the firsthand knowledge outweighs the secondhand. You’d be wrong. Revelation requires confirmation. And when it comes to bible, the scriptures are backed up by 20 to 34 centuries of confirmation. People have said, “Is God really this way?” tried him for themselves, and found he is. Hence the scriptures have held up all that time. They’re solid—and therefore considered authoritative.

Whereas a dream you’re pretty sure God gave you, might be extremely profound to you personally, but don’t be surprised when everybody else is a little skeptical. Your dream (and for that matter, you yourself) hasn’t been screened anywhere close to the level bible has. And if your dream is inconsistent with bible, even you oughta dismiss it; the Holy Spirit isn’t gonna contradict his own bible!

As for other people’s testimonies: Same deal. Some of the stuff they claim are God-experiences, are just profound emotional experiences, cool coincidences, or stuff they personally did but credit God for. Sometimes their “insights” are just an overly fertile imagination. We gotta confirm them too.

Some of the older Christian testimonies have withstood the test of time, which is why Christians still share them. Some really haven’t—or the only reason people share ’em anymore is because of just how ridiculous they are.

But yes, secondhand information still counts as special revelation. I know; there are people who assume if it’s not firsthand, it’s not special revelation; it’s just revelation. Nope; the “special” part has to do with the original source of the information, namely God.

Secondhand stuff definitely counts. The bible counts. The stuff God tells one of his prophets to share with you, counts. People’s testimonies count. Because though this information come through intermediaries, it did originate with God. It’s like when our siblings tell us about our parents, or when our direct supervisors tell us about the company president.

Now, our siblings or supervisors in that example, may not be the most reliable people. They could give us a really garbled or biased interpretation of what our parents or president meant. Likewise fellow Christians, sloppy preachers, and immature prophets might really mangle the message from God. (Sometimes it’d be better if they told us nothing at all!)

This is precisely why we double-check them. Even good, well-meaning Christians can get it wrong; I certainly have. I didn’t mean to, and I’m sure most of the people who get God wrong are earnestly trying not to. But we do—which is why we need fellow Christians to challenge us, second-guess us, and prove or disprove us. And we need to be humble enough to not just let ’em do it, but encourage ’em to do it. If it’s really God, it’ll stand up to scrutiny. If it’s not—if we’re following our own egos instead of God, or worse, trying to scam people—it won’t. Nor should it.