Revelation & Natural Law

Natural Revelation, Special Revelation, and Natural Law

Hey, welcome back to Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today we're going to be diving into a fascinating and important topic, the topic of natural revelation, special revelation, and the relationship between those two forms of revelation.

And so we're going to be exploring how they interact with one another and how special revelation really serves as the lens through which general or what we call natural revelation is rightly interpreted, okay?

And we're also going to touch on how this discussion relates to the broader debate over natural law, which has been a topic that has generated significant interest in discussion within various theological circles.

This is a nuanced and a deep subject, and so today's episode is especially for those Christians who are eager to gain the what's what on this topic. Now, I'm just going to share my topic, my perspective here.

I know that there have been many voices speaking to this topic, and it is not my desire to quote-unquote enter into the debates and the back and forth and so on, but it is a very important topic, and my goal here is to simply share my thoughts, and hopefully it will be useful for folks who are having discussions on this topic.

And so I suppose you can just—I can just encourage you to take my words here for what it's worth. My prayer is that this discussion will serve as a resource to help you navigate critical theological conversations relating to these important subjects, okay?

When we discuss, okay, the relationship between general and special revelation or natural revelation and special revelation, we're entering in a real—it's really a critical theological conversation that directly impacts how we understand God's self-disclosure to humanity.

It impacts how we understand the nature of human knowledge and the proper grounding of Christian apologetics, so it is related for sure, okay? And this is an issue that deals with methodology, right, the different apologetic methodologies.

And so the distinction between these two forms of revelation I think is foundational, not only for understanding how God communicates with His creation, but also how we as finite creatures, fallen human beings, are to respond to and interpret that communication, if that makes sense, okay?

And so at the outset, we need to define our terms, okay? So general revelation, sometimes called natural revelation, refers to the knowledge of God that He communicates through creation, history, human conscience—I always mess up on that word—conscience, okay?

And this is God's act of revealing Himself in a way that is accessible to all people at all times, regardless of their location or access to Scripture or what have you, right? As the psalmist says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.

Obviously, we want to affirm that biblical truth. Now, similarly, Paul writes that God's invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

That's Romans chapter 1, okay? So we want to understand the proper definition of these categories. So that's general revelation, or sometimes referred to as natural revelation. Now, special revelation, on the other hand, is God's communication of Himself and His will through particular specific means, okay?

Most notably through His Word, okay? It doesn't have to be just His Word, but anytime God reveals Himself in a specific kind of way that has specific content, right? And of course, Scripture has content that is not available to us simply by the heavens declaring the glory of God, if that makes sense, okay?

And so this special revelation can include His verbal revelation, God revealing Himself through what is known as theophanies that we see in the Old Testament, the incarnation of Christ, and of course, Scripture, okay?

And so special revelation, in essence, gives us detailed, redemptive truths that cannot be discerned through nature alone, okay? Such as the gospel of Christ, God's covenant promises with the specific content in view here, and the precise content of His moral law, okay?

And so that's special revelation.

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Natural Revelation and Natural Theology Are Not the Same

And we want to make a distinction between, okay? Because oftentimes, people will make this mistake, and they will kind of conflate these categories. So, we must be able to distinguish between natural revelation, or general revelation, and natural theology, okay?

They're not the same, okay? For those uninitiated in these kind of theological topics, they're not the same. So, natural revelation, and I like to put it this way, natural revelation is what God does, right?

It's His act of revealing Himself through the created order, okay? Whereas, natural theology, right, is a human activity, right? It's the attempt to reason from natural revelation to conclusions about God's existence or attributes, okay?

Et cetera, okay? Now, while natural theology is a valuable exercise, at least from my perspective, when conducted under the authority of Scripture, I do not attempt to interpret nature independent of the special revelation, okay?

Natural theology, and I guess the critique that presuppositionalists have with natural theology as it is traditionally and classically manifested, is that it is often undertaken autonomously, okay? It's undertaken in a fashion that assumes that human reason can rightly interpret general revelation, here's the key part, apart from special revelation.

And here lies the tension that we as presuppositionalists, we need to address. I think it's an important point. Now, a critical point to understand is the distinction between what is—this is important—what is objectively revealed by God and how it is subjectively received by human beings, okay?

General revelation is clear, it's consistent, and it's sufficient to render all people unapologetus, as Romans chapter one says, without excuse, for their rejection of God. However, the problem is not with the content of God's revelation, but with the recipient, okay?

Human beings made in the image of God possess an innate knowledge of Him, okay? I believe that the knowledge of God is not something merely—it's not an eyeball looking and seeing concluding, although it is true that the heavens declare the glory of God, but man also has an innate knowledge within him, okay?

So that even if you were to pluck the eyes out of a man so that he couldn't see the heavens and see that they, you know, declare the glory of God, internally, in light of the fact that man is made in the imago Dei, the image of God, he still has a knowledge of his Creator, okay?

And so, this innate knowledge of God, this knowledge is woven into the fabric of man's being, right? It's not something derived merely by external sources, nor is it dependent upon necessarily special revelation for its existence.

Paul writes in Romans 119, what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them, right? Every person, by virtue of being an image bearer of God, in some profound sense, knows God, but suppresses the truth, right?

And so, this innate knowledge, and while it's true that all men have a knowledge of God, innately, this knowledge doesn't result in proper worship or obedience to God, right? Because of humanity's sinful nature, right?

We believe that after Adam sinned, his progeny is impacted by that, such that we are born with a natural inclination towards sin. We are at enmity with God. We are by nature children of wrath, right? And then Paul continues in Romans 1, verses 21 through 23, explaining that although people know God, they what?

They suppress the truth in unrighteousness and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images. And so, sin corrupts the human mind and distorts the interpretation of general revelation. And so, what is objectively clear in creation becomes subjectively misinterpreted, twisted, and even denied by fallen humanity, okay?

So, these are kind of important distinctions to keep in mind. This is what we call, when we talk about the effects of sin upon the mind, what we call the noetic effects of sin, all right? And the noetic effects of sin impacts how we interpret nature, okay?

Because we are at enmity with God, we are by nature children of wrath. We are not going to willfully interpret nature in such a way that gives honor to the one that created it all, okay? And this is where special revelation, I think, becomes very important to understand as well, okay?

And there's something important to understand the function or what special revelation brings to the table, okay? Special revelation doesn't create knowledge of God ex nihilo, okay? Rather, it clarifies the knowledge of God that is already present, but suppressed and distorted, okay?

John Calvin's analogy of special revelation being the spectacles through which we interpret general revelation, Calvin's analogy of special revelation as the spectacles, okay, I think is appropriate here.

General revelation, if I could put it kind of poetically, if it makes sense here, general revelation is like a beautiful landscape that has been blurred by the cataracts of sin, okay? And special revelation is the lens through which we can see it clearly again.

And when I say again, I mean that it was originally seen clearly in Adam, but that clarity is blurred due to sin that comes because of Adam, and then after Adam, and passed on to the sons of Adam, okay?

Now, special revelation, again, is important because it provides the authoritative interpretive framework for understanding general revelation in the right way. And so, without the word of God, the special revelation of God, fallen humans interpret general revelation, or at least they attempt to interpret general revelation autonomously through the lens, and this is important, through the lens of their rebellion, leading to idolatry and false worship.

And so, with the word of God, right, we are brought into the light of truth, seeing creation as it was meant to be seen, as a testimony to the glory, the power, and the majesty of its creator, okay? So, it's very important that we understand the relationship, not only between general and special revelation, and the objective nature of those things, but the subjective receiving of that revelation, and the active suppression of what that revelation reveals, okay?

Because remember, man is at enmity with God. We do not want to, I think as Dr. Bonson made mention that, you know, with respect to natural theology, and the often assumed autonomous categories, okay, that are often employed when engaging in natural theology, when the natural man, with the noetic effects of sin, he's an enemy of God, he's at enmity with God, when he looks at nature, if anything, we shouldn't speak of natural theology, but rather natural atheology, because the natural man is not going to desire to find God simply by observing and reasoning about creation, okay?

And so, this is very, very important. I don't think that people sometimes really consider the importance of the nature of the effects of sin upon the mind of man in this entire process, okay? Dr. Greg Bonson was a renowned Christian apologist, philosopher, and seminary professor, and his life's work is now at your fingertips with Bonson U.

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Again, go to ApologiaStudios .com and start your journey today. So, to summarize, the relationship between general and special revelation can be understood in the following way, okay? General revelation is clear, but it's suppressed, okay?

God has made himself known to all people through creation and conscience, but this knowledge is innate, this knowledge is innate, but it is distorted by sin, or it is interpreted in a distorted fashion because of the effects of sin upon the sinner, okay?

Now, special revelation, I think, restores the clarity and adds content in the sense that we can't get from natural revelation, right? We don't get the gospel through looking at the stars or, you know, just looking at the heavens, okay?

So, special revelation through scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ, okay, God redeems our understanding, enabling us to interpret general revelation properly, and I think that's an important function and role of special revelation.

Now, with respect to the knowledge of God, I've argued here that it's both innate and dependent, okay? While all people have an inherent knowledge of God as image bearers, this knowledge can't lead to salvation or a true understanding without the redemptive work of special revelation.

And so, within the Christian worldview, special revelation serves as the ultimate authority, okay, the lens through which general revelation is properly understood, and by submitting to God's word, we align our thinking with his truth and avoid the errors of autonomy that lead to misinterpretation, okay?

Autonomy is not a sufficient foundation by which we reason and draw correct conclusions about God's natural revelation to man, okay? But you need to understand that general revelation and special revelation work together, okay?

They work together within God's sovereign plan, testifying to his nature and redemptive purposes. And so, when we consider the noetic effects of sin and the necessity of God's redemptive self-disclosure, right, we realize that the two revelations, both natural and special, or general and special, they're not in competition with each other, but they're in harmony, okay?

With special revelation as the necessary corrective to fallen man's reasoning, right, Scripture itself testifies, in your light we see light, okay? That's Psalm 36 .9, right? Only through God's revelation can we truly know him, worship him, and glorify him as he deserves, okay?

And while general revelation is sufficient to identify us as truth suppressors and sinners, it is the special revelation that gives us the road and the roadmap, so to speak, to how we can be saved, all right?

The Unbeliever Knows God and Does Not Know God

Now, in light of this discussion, it is often suggested that, you know, when the presuppositionalist makes the assertion that there is a sense in which the unbeliever knows God and does not know God, that this is somehow kind of a contradictory concept.

And so, this is kind of related because when we're dealing with natural and special revelation, the question often comes up, what is the nature of the unbeliever's knowledge? What does the unbeliever know?

You know, to what extent does he misinterpret, you know, the general revelation? What does it mean for natural man to suppress the truth in unrighteousness? These are all important and kind of interweaved topics, okay?

But we're often accused as presuppositionalists, and Van Til, of course, was, you know, criticized for holding to this position, which, of course, he didn't, okay? We would say as presuppositionalists that the unbeliever both knows God and doesn't know God, okay?

And we don't say this is a contradiction because we're not saying that the unbeliever knows God in one sense, but he doesn't know God in that same sense. That's not what we're saying. We're saying that there's a sense in which he knows God and a sense in which he doesn't, okay?

That's important. If you know the second law of logic, the law of non-contradiction says that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense, okay? It's important in terms of evaluating whether something is contradictory or not, okay?

So, the scripture, I think, is clear that all human beings have a real and undeniable knowledge of God, and that's where Paul says that they're without excuse. You know, you do an analysis of the biblical concept of what it means to be the Imago Dei and God writing his law in our heart.

I think we all have a knowledge of God, okay? And this is not a knowledge that's derived from argumentation or necessarily through religious instruction, right? It is an immediate knowledge rooted in man's identity as image bearers of God, okay?

It is part of the fabric of man's being, right? As God's handiwork is manifested in both creation and in conscience, okay? Now, at the same time, there's a sense in which the unbeliever does not know God, okay?

Scripture tells us that this knowledge that man has is suppressed in unrighteousness. You know, what does it mean to suppress the truth? Well, it does not mean that the knowledge of God is erased or obliterated, right?

The knowledge of God that unbeliever has is present, but it is actively resisted. It is actively distorted and reinterpreted to fit a rebellious, autonomous framework. So, Van Til put it this way, you know, I'm summarizing here, but the unbeliever knows God in an ontological sense.

That is, as a creature of God, right? They cannot escape the knowledge of their creator, okay? But in an epistemological sense, they deny him by suppressing the truth and constructing alternative worldviews that attempt to exclude God's authority.

And so, the unbeliever both knows and does not know God. They know him as creatures who are inescapably aware of his existence, that's what the Bible teaches, but they do not know him as he's revealed himself because they reject and suppress that revelation.

And, I mean, from a logical standpoint, this is not a contradiction, but it is a distinction between objective knowledge, what is true about God in humanity, and subjective interpretation, how the unbeliever responds to that truth, okay?

Now, when we speak of the knowledge of the unbeliever, okay, I want to say that there's a sense in which the unbeliever knows things and a sense in which the unbeliever doesn't, okay? And making the distinction between the senses is what makes it not a contradiction.

There are senses in which, you know, something can be true and another sense in which it can't, okay? And so, I want to kind of explain this. A lot of people would say that the position of the presuppositionalist implies that the unbeliever doesn't have any knowledge.

And, of course, presuppositionalists reject that. Van Til rejected that. Bonson rejected that. It's not what presuppositionalists are arguing for. So, another misconception or understanding is the claim that presuppositionalism implies that unbelievers are incapable of knowing anything, and, of course, critics will often charge that this is obviously, and I think correctly if this was literally true, is philosophically absurd and really contrary to our experience, right?

We can point out that unbelievers demonstrate a considerable amount of knowledge in areas like science, philosophy, history, ethics, what have you, right? I'm not denying that they don't know things, okay?

But the presuppositionalists do not deny that unbelievers have a knowledge. What we are asserting is that their knowledge is inconsistent with their professed worldview, okay? Unbelievers know many things, right?

Because they live in God's created world, and they're made in His image, right? Which enables them to reason, do things like observe, draw conclusions, so on and so forth. But their ability to know is only possible, we would argue, because the Christian worldview is true, even if they explicitly reject or verbally reject the Christian worldview, all right?

Unbelievers, we argue, borrow from the Christian worldview, right? Unbelievers cannot account, and I've made mention of this countless times in other videos, they cannot account for the very tools they use to gain knowledge, right?

Logic, morality, the uniformity of nature, et cetera, apart from the Christian worldview, all right? We've often used examples like the laws of logic being universal, invariant, and immaterial. These laws, we would argue, only make sense in a worldview where a rational, immaterial God governs the universe, okay?

Or things like scientific inquiry, depending upon things like the uniformity of nature, all right? That requires God. Objective morality requires God, okay? And so, we're not saying that the unbeliever doesn't know that logic is necessary or that morality, you know, they can know morality and things like this, but the truth that they know is being suppressed and reinterpreted through the lens of their rebellion, if I could say it that way, okay?

So, unbelievers know many things, but their knowledge is ultimately a result of the Christian worldview that they reject. And so, in Van Til's words, the unbeliever, and this is the example he uses, the unbeliever is like a child sitting on their father's lap, slapping him in the face, and they rely on God's revelation to know anything at all, even as they deny him, okay?

And this is unavoidable. As Dr. Bonten once said in one of his lectures, he says, if someone were to call you in the middle of the night, they wake up in the middle of the night and say, summarize Van Til's apologetic, you know, I need to know what is the essence of Van Til's apologetic.

And basically, he says, you can summarize it in three words. Anti-theism presupposes theism. Anti-theism presupposes theism, okay? I mean, the reason for that is that even in rejecting God, you have to rely on God even to make sense out of your rejection.

And that is to say that the unbeliever borrows or must borrow from the Christian worldview, okay? So, we need to understand this idea of the suppression of truth, okay? And so, I think it's essential to understand that the biblical doctrine of suppression, the unbeliever's suppression of the truth does not mean that the unbeliever is ignorant or unintelligent, okay?

We talk about like, don't answer the fool. That's not to insult an unbeliever's intelligence, okay? Rather, it means that they deliberately, according to scripture, they deliberately reinterpret or distort the truth to fit their own attempted autonomous framework, okay?

This suppression is an act, according to scripture, an act of rebellion, not an indication of a lack of intellectual, you know, capability, all right? So, for example, an unbelieving scientist can make an accurate—they can make accurate observations about the natural world because they live in God's orderly creation.

However, they'll often attribute this order to chance, natural processes, or impersonal forces suppressing the truth that this order reflects the wisdom and the power of the Creator. And so, their knowledge is therefore true in a provisional sense, but it is inconsistent with their ultimate presuppositions.

And this is to say that what is professed with the mouth is not consistent with what is believed in the heart. There is a tension there, okay? Now, ultimately, the tension, I think, is resolved, okay, when we recognize that all human knowledge is grounded in God.

I think that is the scriptural teaching, and it is what scriptural teaching implies, okay? But the interpretation of that knowledge is conditioned by one's worldview. And so, the unbeliever knows God because they're made in his image and they live in his world.

Yet, they do not know God as he truly is because they reject his self-revelation and reinterpret his knowledge through the lens of that rebellion. So, they know God in judgment, but they don't know God in faith and salvation, okay?

And so, the Christian worldview explains how knowledge is possible for all people while exposing the inconsistency of unbelief. And as believers, you know, we understand that all truth is God's truth, and even the knowledge of unbelievers reflect the reality of living in God's created order.

And that, at the same time, we recognize that true knowledge, the kind that leads to worship, obedience, salvation, comes only through submission to God's revelation in Scripture and Christ, okay? And so, the unbeliever both knows God, doesn't know God, different senses, depending on whether we're speaking of their objective awareness as image bearers or their subjective suppression as sinners.

And this is, again, not a contradiction. It's an important distinction that we have to make. And we also don't deny that unbelievers know things, but we add the important qualifications and distinctions to clarify that, all right?

Why Presuppositionalists Reject Natural Law

Now, all of that out of the way, okay? It's a lot. All of that out of the way. What's up with this debate over natural law, okay? And so, what I want to talk about now is, what is natural law, and why do presuppositionalists have an issue with this, or they tend to have an issue with this, and then we'll kind of go from there, okay?

This is kind of me speaking to this issue. I know it's a big deal in various circles. I, by no means, am necessarily an authority in this area, but I do think it's an important topic in light of what we just discussed, and I want to maybe share my thoughts here, okay?

So, what is natural law, okay? So, natural law refers to the belief that moral truths and ethical principles are accessible to all people through human reason and the observation of nature without the need for scripture or, you know, some divine intervention, okay?

And so, it posits that there exists a universal moral order embedded in the natural world and human conscience, which all rational beings can perceive and use to guide their behavior, okay? And so, historically, natural law has been a cornerstone of ethical reasoning in both classical philosophy and certain streams of Christian thought, often pretty much being treated as a foundation for morality and law independent of special revelation, okay?

Now, why do presuppositionalists tend to reject this notion of natural law as it is classically formulated? Well, presuppositionalists reject natural law, this theory of natural law, as it is commonly understood because the way it's presented seems to assume an autonomous human ability to reason rightly apart from the authoritative framework of special revelation, okay?

And so, while presuppositionalists affirm that God's moral law is revealed in creation and conscience, right, through general revelation, we would deny that fallen humanity can interpret this revelation properly due to what we've mentioned, you know, everything before this, the noetic effects of sin, okay?

So, according to Romans 1, sinful humanity suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, twisting and distorting the clear testimony of general revelation to suit their own rebellion, okay? Natural law theory, if divorced from the interpretive lens of scripture, relies on the faulty assumption that human reason is neutral and capable of arriving at true moral conclusions independent of God's special revelation, okay?

And so, Van Til and Bonson, at least as I understand them, emphasize that such reasoning, I think, is rooted in human autonomy, which is itself sinful and it is hostile to God, right? Fallen man's reasoning is not a framework of rebellion against God as the natural man, okay?

And as a result, the natural law cannot account for the ultimate authority of God, nor can it offer a coherent foundation for morality, all right? And so, this is where the issues come up. The Bible teaches that while general revelation is objectively clear, okay, that's true, and it's sufficient to leave humanity without excuse, sin corrupts the human mind and the will, leading to the suppression and misinterpretation of God's truth.

And this distortion affects every aspect of human reasoning, right? It makes it impossible for humans to properly interpret general revelation without the corrective lens of scripture because of their sin, okay?

All right? Special revelation, particularly in the Bible, provides the redemptive framework and the authoritative context needed to rightly understand and apply the truths revealed in creation. And so, without special revelation, natural law becomes a futile exercise as fallen humanity lacks the moral and epistemological foundation to use it correctly, okay?

So, for example, the universality of moral principles in natural law might be acknowledged, but their ultimate source and purpose, rooted in God's character, is going to be rejected, right? Appeals to human reason alone fail to account for the fact that human reason itself is subject to the corrupting influence of sin.

That's important too, okay? So, this is important, all right? There's a sense in which, you know, me as a Christian and someone as an atheist, okay, might agree on a surface level. So, if a Christian walked an old woman across the street and an atheist walked an old woman across the street, what's the difference between those two activities?

Well, externally, there might not be any noticeable difference, but there is a difference. There is a distinction between external obedience to the law and external coupled with internal obedience to the law.

You see, it is only the Christian that is able to internally obey the law as well as externally obey the law, whereas the unbeliever can engage in external activity, but it is not a genuine example of obedience to God's law, okay?

And so, there's an issue there because of the issue of sin, okay? So, to accept natural law as an autonomous system of ethics, for example, is really to undermine the authority of scripture and to falsely assume that fallen humanity can reason its way to truth apart from God's redemptive revelation.

So, I think that such an approach is not only inconsistent with biblical doctrine, the biblical doctrine of sin, but it also leads to an incoherent worldview, okay? By rejecting natural law, presuppositionalists affirm the necessity of grounding all moral reasoning in God's special revelation, which really provides the ultimate authority and framework for understanding the truths of general revelation, okay?

And so, the presuppositional approach, at least within our epistemology, our ontology, how we understand these things, really underscores the importance of affirming what the Bible teaches about man's fallen condition and the indispensability of God's word, right?

Scripture reveals that human beings as image bearers of God have an innate knowledge of him and are accountable to him, but this knowledge is suppressed in unrighteousness and distorted by sin. Special revelation, I believe, restores clarity, okay, redemptively because when we are in contact with special revelation and God regenerates a man, we're able to see the world through the proper lens of how God has revealed it, okay?

And it restores clarity, offering the truth about God's nature, moral law, and redemptive purposes, okay? And by submitting to God's word, we can rightly interpret general revelation and avoid the errors of autonomous human reasoning.

And so, while natural law points to the reality of God's moral order, right, it cannot function as an independent or sufficient foundation for ethics or truth. And so, only the Christian worldview rooted in Scripture provides the necessary precondition for understanding morality, human nature, and the world that God has created, okay?

Adam, the Fall, and the Limits of Natural Revelation

So, let's kind of unpack this in summary, okay? So, Adam, for example, okay, in his pre-fall state had access to both general or natural revelation and special revelation, okay? So, God revealed himself to Adam through the natural world, okay?

Creation displayed his power, wisdom, and divine nature as Romans, pardon, Romans 120 affirms. Special revelation, Adam also enjoyed direct personal communication with God, and this special revelation was covenantal, and it included specific commands, such as God's instructions regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so on and so forth.

But what's important here is that the special revelation wasn't an added luxury, right? It wasn't essential for Adam to interpret general, I'm sorry, it was, pardon, it was essential for Adam to interpret general revelation rightly.

You see, general revelation revealed God's attributes and the natural order, but special revelation provided the covenantal framework and specific moral guidance Adam needed to live faithfully as God's image bearer.

And so, Adam, uncorrupted by sin, was able to reason rightly and interpret general revelation correctly in light of God's direct communication. But when we talk about after the fall, everything changes.

You see, when Adam and Eve sinned, they experienced separation, all right? A separation from God's presence in the way that was prior to the fall, okay? They were expelled and they were removed from the garden, that relationship experienced a separation, right?

Now, while God continued to reveal himself through redemptive history, I don't deny that, this special revelation became, how can I say this, mediated, maybe less direct, okay? It's not that it was gone, obviously, right?

God still revealed himself, but it was different than what was the case in the garden, right? General revelation, though, natural revelation, general revelation, didn't cease after the fall, right? The heavens still declare the glory of God, right?

Creation still reveals his eternal power and divine nature, but sin distorted humanity's ability to interpret this revelation. As Paul explains in Romans 1, fallen humans, what? We said it repeatedly here, suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

And this suppression doesn't mean that people are ignorant of God. Rather, they actively distort or reject the truth that is clearly revealed to them in creation. So, general revelation remains objectively clear, but because of sin, humans misinterpret and suppress it, refusing to acknowledge God as the creator and the source of all truth, okay?

Now, here's where we want to address a key point, and this is important. The unbeliever, as I mentioned before, still has a true knowledge, but it is a knowledge that they sinfully suppress, okay? The unbeliever can know many things about the world, scientific facts, moral truths, and even the existence of God, okay?

Because they live in God's created order and bear his image. This is why scripture says they are without excuse. They are not without excuse because they don't know something. They're without excuse because they do know something, right?

The reality of God, according to scripture, is inescapable, and they cannot live in the world without encountering his revelation. And indeed, they themselves are revelatory of their maker in whose image they were created, okay?

But fallen humanity refuses to acknowledge the source of this knowledge. Instead of, as the Bible says, instead of glorifying God and giving thanks to him, they suppress the truth, exchanging it for lies, and construct alternative worldviews in its place.

And their knowledge is therefore inconsistent. They depend on the truths of God's revelation while simultaneously denying him as the source of those truths. And so, this suppression is not due to a lack of intellectual capacity, but it's a moral rebellion against God.

It's not that the unbeliever knows nothing. Rather, they refuse to submit to the God who makes their knowledge possible, okay? So, I hope that that's been a lot. I hope that makes sense, okay? I think the key, the rub here, is that biblical consistency requires us to reject any intellectual construct that would allow categories of autonomy and neutrality to seep in.

And so, I'm not trying to be nitpicky. I don't think presuppositionalists are trying to be nitpicky here. But if you're understanding natural law within the context of autonomous human reason and neutral categories, and making it that those categories, when assuming those categories, it's possible to gain a genuine understanding of God's revelation, then that's where I think it becomes an issue.

Now again, stepping back from this discussion, again, this is a hotly debated topic, okay? And again, as I said at the beginning, I don't wish to kind of throw myself into the debates. I'm not going to be responding to, you know, if someone makes a response to this video, I'm not going to go back and forth.

But I think the nature of the discussion, wherever you kind of stand on this whole discussion, I think it is an important issue because it does have impact for issues of consistency. It has impact for our apologetics, okay?

And I think it's so important that when we do apologetics, we allow the special revelation to inform how we are to understand the nature of the unbeliever. And so, I think that's essential. So, I think these are really, really important issues.

All right. Well, I belabor the point a lot. I hope that this has been helpful and useful to you. If you have your thoughts, if you agree or disagree, or maybe I've said something that kind of seems a little awful, let me know in the comments.