How has God revealed himself ?
He has revealed himself in creation ( which we call general revelation ) and in the Holy Scriptures ( which we call special revelation ).
General Revelation :
- Psalm 19:1,
- Romans 1:19-20,
- Rom. 2:15,
- Rom. 1:21.
God has so shown himself in nature that everyone who denies him is “without excuse”
Special Revelation :
- Ps. 19:7-8.
we have to wear the glasses of special revelation (the Word of God)
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Making Sense of Things :
- Ps. 14:1
When I speak of belief in God, I do not mean belief in a god, but belief in the God of the Scriptures, the God who is eternally three-in-one and who has supremely revealed himself in the Christ who bears witness to himself in the Word. No deity but this God is sufficient to make sense out of what we see in general revelation. So belief in a god other than the God of the Bible—as well as the denial of God and deity altogether—will render everything meaningless.
Rationality :
Does this mean that I believe in such a God because it is rational to believe in such a God ? I believe in God because the Holy Spirit has enabled me to receive the revelation (general and special) of God. But, yes, it is rational to believe in such a God, and not to believe in such a God is irrational because such a failure renders everything meaningless.
Perhaps the atheist (or, better, the antitheist—the one who does not believe in the God of the Bible) would say at this point, “ I don't believe in God, and I do believe that everything is meaningless.” Of course, to affirm that everything is meaningless is irrational, even as it is impossible meaningfully to affirm that everything is irrational. All such statements manifestly contradict themselves and prove that meaning and rationality do exist because one is able to understand the statement that everything is irrational.
My believing in God does not mean that I don't think rationally or that I have no reasons for believing in God. The world is full of reasons to believe in God. Anyone who thinks that the apologetical stance of Cornelius Van Til (which I follow) is based on faith, over against reason and evidence, has not begun to understand him.
I believe in God because of his revelation, which renders all understanding possible. Revelation is not opposed to reason, but foundational to reason. Without revelation, reason has no sphere in which to operate and knowledge has no foundation. The real proof of the existence of God, then, is the impossibility of the contrary. Christianity furnishes the answer to life's most perplexing philosophical problems and provides a foundation for logic, science, ethics, etc. Deny Christianity and you have denied the foundation of all knowledge, leaving knowledge hanging in midair, as it were.
The laws of logic, the laws of science, and ethical norms cannot account for themselves. Take science, for example. I remember Dr. Knudsen telling us that that which is foundational to science is not itself of the nature of science. Indeed. Scientific methodology is not arrived at by the use of scientific methodology. Rather, scientific methodology is presupposed. This does not make it untrue or less honorable than something that is proved.
Absurdity ?
Antitheists generally regard as absurd the claim that the rejection of the God of Scripture renders knowledge impossible. So do many Christians. They rightly observe that countless numbers of non-Christians regularly operate with great success throughout the created order, composing music, discovering planets, and working successfully in the laboratory, all the while denying God. How can this be?
While the rejection of Christianity does put one in an impossible position, even fallen, unregenerate man is created in the image of God. And he continues to live in the world that God has created. He is in contact with the truth at every point of the created order, but he suppresses that truth in unrighteousness .
( Rom. 1:18 ).
( Rom. 1:18 ).
Yet he does know God and cannot escape knowing God. The antitheist, in fact, presupposes theism. He must presuppose theism even to argue against it, because without the three-in-one God of Christian theism, we can't make any sense of anything. The only way that one can employ argumentation in denying the God of the Bible is by first assuming the God of the Bible who makes such argumentation possible.
Then, cannot be limited to why I believe in God, but really addresses why I believe in anything at all. Only the God of the Bible makes knowledge possible. And we know that God, because he has revealed himself to us, his creatures.
Alan D. Strange
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