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This week I happened to read two separate things that sparked my interest on this idea of Natural Revelation. The concept is that we can learn something about God based on our experience of, and in, the creation. Often times the Protestant tradition has ignored this avenue of truth. One of the two items is CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity, and the other was a presentation from the Society of Biblical Literature annual conference by JP Moreland:

… man Evangelicals fail to engage in parity of approach: (1) natural theology and moral law; (2) the realm of spirit/souls; (3) divine guidance, prophetic revelation, words of knowledge and wisdom.

By way of application, we must teach our people two things: (1) It is appropriate, proper, and obligatory to reason for God’s existence from general revelation and to use the natural moral law in moral devate. (2) How to engage in such reasoning regarding the important issues of our day. In my experience, laypersons typically have never been exposed to a course on ethics or moral reasoning. This must be remedied. JP Moreland

JP is speaking to the phenomenon that Christians today have retreated by claiming that the Bible is the *only* (not the ultimate) source of truth. He feels it is a reaction to the change in the secular world-view, resulting in science claiming that it is the sole source of truth (which has attempted to put thorns in the sides of Christianity).

CS makes a fantastic case for the existence of God (not necessarily the Christian God) based on this natural moral law:

That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there stats up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much - we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so - that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

Based on this natural moral law that is outside ourselves, CS concludes that God must exist. We have not created this law and imprinted it on ourselves. We cannot keep it, and yet we feel guilty because of it. Therefore something else created it.

In that sense we should agree with the account given by Christianity, and some other religions, that God is ‘good’. But do not go too fast here. The Moral Law does not give us any grounds for thinking that God is ‘good’ in the sense of being indulgent, or soft, or sympathetic. There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do so. If God is like the Moral Law, then he is not soft.

All things considered, I think these are fantastic ways in which we can show people that based on their very own experiences that they ought to be looking for God.

… Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness