Dear Friends,
Step into my study. Shall I fill you a pipe? Pour you a dram? Excellent!
When I was in the sixth grade my buddy Martin and I read voraciously. There was some sort of class contest to see how many books we could read. If I remember correctly, he and I tied for first. The other students took notice of our trips to the school library, carrying piles of books home, and, believe it or not, we inspired many of our classmates to start checking out books, too.
One afternoon the class had a “library” hour and the kids were selecting books. I saw one of the really popular (and pretty) girls—I think her name was Janet—waiting in the checkout line holding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers. I asked her if she had read the first book of the series. “No,” she replied. I said, probably very pompously, “You really shouldn’t check that book out, then.” She looked offended. I followed up: “Here, hand it to me.” She complied.
I opened the book to the first page and read her the first sentence, which I can even now quote to you verbatim from memory:
“Aragorn sped on up the hill.”
She said, “Oh, I see. I won’t check this one out.”
The Two Towers begins in media res or, “in the middle of things.” No introduction, no recap, no “Previously in Middle Earth,” just a continuation of a story and journey that you can’t just hop into. The books belong together, and they belong in an order.
In certain theological circles there has been a resurgence of interest in what the Belgic Confession calls the “two books” of God’s revelation: nature and Scripture, “general” and “special.” The Confession says:
We know [God] by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to see clearly the invisible things of God, even his everlasting power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says (Rom. 1:20). All which things are sufficient to convince men and leave them without excuse. Second, He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to His glory and our salvation.
I think it is more accurate to say that there has been a resurgence of interest in one of these two books: natural revelation. There’s a very healthy cottage industry of people writing books (here’s a brand-new example) assuring us that “natural revelation” or “natural law” is sufficient for ethical reasoning. I suspect you can imagine what the pitfalls might be in thinking about these two “books” of God.
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