Westminster Wednesdays: WCF 1.1, Part Two

General Revelation Renders All Inexcusable

Section one of Chapter one begins by placing everyone in their proper category: without excuse. God has given us three things which work in concert such that we are without excuse: his work of creation, his work of providence and the light of nature he has implanted within us. Creation screams loudly that God exists and that he is good and wise and powerful. I cannot watch a nature show with my family without both being amazed at the complexity and intricacy of what God has wrought by merely speaking and being dumbfounded by the willful and arrogant disregard those shows have for the very God who created.

But, as if creation were not enough, God also demonstrates his wisdom, power and goodness through his providential care of all his creatures. Rather than just allowing for rain to fall upon the lawns of Christians, he also causes it to rain on our pagan neighbors (though I have a sneaking suspicion that having to mow grass is actually a sign of the curse, but I digress…). When the rain clouds spin into tornadoes, God doesn’t just smash the houses of those who willfully disbelieve in his Son. Further, God demonstrates in his ordering of the animal world that parents should care for their young and that the young should listen to and honor their parents. In fact, the rare exception to this kind of behavior only serves to underline how common and natural we consider it.

Thirdly, God demonstrates his goodness, wisdom and power through what the confession calls the “light of nature.” In Seventeenth Century parlance, this is the faculty of reason. We have the capacity to think and reason from cause to effect and from effect back to cause. We have the capacity to infer and deduce. God did not give us the capacity to do these things infallibly, and certainly the effects of sin deeply affect our ability to reason, but we have that capacity as a gracious gift from God. In addition to the capacity to reason, God has implanted within every human what Paul calls “the works of the Law” (Romans 2:14-15). This isn’t the Law in terms of the specific list of ten positive and negative commands. Rather, God has implanted within us all a conscience that points us away from those things God’s Law prohibits and rebukes us for failing to do those things his Law commands.

With reason and conscience God, as it were, gave us one third of the puzzle and then set before us the two other parts of creation and providence. Taken together, we have all we need to discern that there is a God and that he is wise, powerful and good. This, however, is as far as it goes. We cannot reason from creation and providence that God is merciful. In fact, quite the opposite: the more we know of God’s goodness, the more we are forced to consider our non-goodness, the more we expect from him judgment, not mercy. At the end of the discussion of what God has chosen to reveal to all (called General Revelation), we find that we are all without excuse. We know that God exists. We know we owe him our love, devotion and service. And we know we fail to do those very things.