Biblical Dogmatics

ural and supernatural revelation, not as indicating two modes of obtaining knowledge of God, one without, the other with God's action. All revelation is by God's action. The distinction refers to the spheres of God's activity, on the one hand in nature and the conscience of man, on the other in special supernatural acts. The Bible recognizes both. God can be really known. The incomprehensibility of God denies full knowledge, but not real knowledge. Even the imperfect and confused ideas of heathenism have elements of real knowledge of God in them. The revelation of God is a true manifestation of what He is. The anthropomorphisms of human language in speaking of God, in which the Bible abounds, signify the inadequacy of human expression, but not the unreality of God's nature symbolized in them. They denote the personal relations and characteristics of God. God In nature THE NATURAL REVELATION OF GOD. This is the revelation of a Power higher than the world, which is manifested in nature and attested by conscience. The Scriptures everywhere assume that God manifests Himself in nature. This is evident in the entire Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and Job. This self-disclosing of God in nature is referred to as a familiar thing by Jesus, as when Hesays: "Behold the birds" etc., Mt 6:26 sq. St. Paul repeatedly appeals to it, especially when preaching to the Gentiles, Act 14:17; 17:24; Ro 1:19,20. The fact of conscience, which attests the moral ...