by 
Sciency people tend to care about evidence. Whether by disposition or by training, we want good evidence for believing something. “Everyone says so,” or “But it is our tradition,” usually strikes us as suspect grounds for a belief. Show me the data!
But this desire for evidence does not mean we are slavishly tied to just one sort of evidence. Even while doing scientific work, not only do we rely on observable, empirical evidence, we make inferences based upon logic and mathematics, computer simulations, and the testimony of experts. Though we may guard against too heavily relying upon our own personal experiences and intuitions, they do play a role in guiding our thought, sometimes toward real breakthroughs on difficult problems.
Outside of our work as scientists, engineers, health care professionals, and technicians, sciency people rely on much of the same sort of evidence to form viewpoints as everyone else. We have trusted sources and advisors whose testimony we consider. We trust our memories, unless we have reason to think they have led us astray. And we usually give the benefit of the doubt to other sorts of experts who have carefully gathered and synthesized evidence, even if they have not been practicing what we usually think of as scientific inquiry. For instance, we usually give high-quality historical research, careful detective work, or investigative journalism the benefit of the doubt.
But what about when it comes to knowing God? What evidence can we access for forming sound beliefs about God’s character, what God’s relationship to us and the world is, and what God wants of and for us? How do we get to know God relationally, experientially? Theologically, the term for this evidence is revelation. Unlike the evidence we go out and find for ourselves, in the Christian tradition, at least, we recognize that it is God who tells us what He wants us to know about Himself. God reveals what He wishes to us. Hence, this information is called revelation — what God reveals.
Christians have long recognized that God’s revelation comes in many varieties, but they are commonly grouped into two major classes: general and special revelation. General revelation is the information God reveals to essentially all people at all times who are open to receiving it. A prime example is what God reveals about Himself through the design and operation of the natural world. That there is a beautiful, orderly world around us, that we exist at all, is evidence of a powerful Creator who values certain things enough to create and sustain them.
Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV) puts it this way:
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
Special revelation, on the other hand, is revelation given to particular people at particular times and places in extraordinary ways. When God speaks to a prophet, that is special revelation. When the Holy Spirit convict a person to act in a particular way, that is a moment of special revelation. God can especially act through extraordinary natural events and through history, too, in order to reveal Himself. The pinnacle of special revelation was God becoming human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Bible can be viewed as a collection of special revelations, penned, edited, and compiled by God’s people over centuries. Early Christians saw in the scriptures that make up our Bible authentic records of revelations and, thus, trustworthy to guide our understanding of God, God’s relationship with us, and our responsibilities to God, each other, and the rest of Creation. The Bible, especially as it records the life and teaching of Jesus, is precious and authoritative in a way that other putative revelation is not. Through the Bible we can learn about and encounter God in a way vastly more reliable than our most careful studies of nature, our best rational reflections, or our deepest religious experiences.
The specialness of the Bible does not, however, imply that all readings of it are true receptions of the revelation it presents. We have to read using other special and general revelation to understand it to its fullest. A helpful way to think about it is the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Four means of revelation connect with and lean on each other: scripture, reason, experience, and tradition.
Full understanding of what God reveals to us comes yes from scripture, but also reason, experience, and tradition, which amounts to the cumulative reason, experience, and interpretations of special revelations God has given to His people. These four elements interact and are at play anytime we seek to understand the revelation of the Bible. Similarly, whenever we attempt to use the general revelation mechanism of reason, we reason from experiences, tradition, and (hopefully) what has been revealed through scripture. When we try to understand a personal experience of God, it too will be best understood in light of the other three.
What then about the sciences? The sciences could be seen as tools for understanding God’s creating and sustaining work in the cosmos and, so, a pathway to revelation. Is it a fifth means of revelation in interaction with the others? Some find it helpful to think of the sciences that way. Or the sciences could be thought of as a particular way to approach the other four, relying upon personal experiences of observation and measurement, collected and interpreted through careful reasoning, synthesized in the “traditions” of various schools of thought or disciplines, and built upon foundational suppositions and values revealed in scripture. On either perspective we don’t treat the sciences as self-contained sources for receiving God’s full revelation.
What this analysis suggests is that the distinction between general and special revelation, as helpful as it is, should not be taken to mean that these classes of revelation do not bear upon each other. Furthermore, the Bible cannot be read independently of other sources of revelation, even if our trust in it is greater than in others. Even if we wanted to seal off what we learn from the Bible from all other means of revelation, it simply isn’t possible. For sciency people, God’s revelation through scripture will be fuller and richer if we let all the types and means of revelation to inform its interpretation, including the sciences. Furthermore, to catch glimpses of God’s revelation in our scientific work, we will benefit from the direction and focus provided by a good handle on God’s revelation through scripture.
To encourage better integration of general revelation with God’s special revelation, I have drafted a biblical reading and viewing plan specifically with sciency people in mind. And if you decide to give it a try, I have good news for you: this blog is the first reading in the plan. You’ve already started!
