Reading the two books

Its an old view that God speaks through the two books of creation (natural revelation) and the Bible (special revelation). Psalm 19 has these two books in view and writers such as Calvin comment on them.

Here's the theology (with thanks to Calvin):

1. In the beginning people could and did look at the creation and 'read' the creator.
2. One quick effect of sin was to blind humanity such that we look at the creation and see only creation (Rom 1:18fff).
3. This blindness led us deeper into sin and that increased the blindness.
4. The end result is that we look at the creation and are unable to see the creator and thus worship the creation more generally or ourselves more specifically (thus turning the image of God into an idol of itself).
5. When a person is regenerated, God restores the sight such that we are able to read special revelation with the aid of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:6fff).
6. The regenerate person is also able to read the book of natural revelation, but only when using special revelation as the spectacles or hermeneutical frame. (Jesus gives examples of this when he draws lessons from the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air.)

This morning I went out into creation to reflect on it as part of a intensive residential course that I'm helping to lead in a stunning mountain setting.

And so I saw a tree and mediated.  I noticed its rootedness; its cycles of rest, nourishment and growth; and the way in which it accommodated to the environment at its margins (blowing leaves) while remain steady at the centre (trunk). When all this is read through Scriptural frames, the tree speaks of Christian matters that many of us can easily identify.

My point in all this is two-fold:
1. There is real value and point in Christians meditating on creation because because God reveals himself there and enables us to understand it and because the differentness of the form in which the revelation is given catches our attention.
2. We can only make Christian meaning of natural revelation when we read it in the light of special revelation. The person who is most soaked in the Bible will most see God's handiwork in the heavens.

So I will gladly go back into the creation tomorrow morning and again look for God's fingerprint. But I will go having first read my Bible.