The Reality Of God’S Revelation In Creation
THE REALITY OF GOD’S REVELATION IN CREATION
ROMANS 1:18-21
Paul is clear that we can begin to find our way to God by looking at the world around us.
Paul insists that, apart from the Bible and God’s self-revelation in Christ, God has revealed himself to those with minds open to receive him, in the works of his creation. The wonder of the world, the evidence of law, order, and purpose interwoven with all nature, are evidence enough of an Intelligence behind the visible world. The first verse of John’s Gospel says as much: “In the beginning was a Mind which expressed itself...”
Furthermore, if it is clear in the world around us that Mind came before matter, it is also clear that the planning Mind seen in created things also demanded obedience to certain laws. The human body can be abused, the laws of its operation disregarded and pain follows. The land which provides our sustenance, the air we breathe, the waters upon which all life depends, are given to humanity on fixed conditions. There are laws to be observed, the selfish flouting of which—as the world is learning to its cost—brings inevitable retribution. Dust bowls, dead lakes, polluted waterways, chemical-ridden produce, smog-laden air, all carry death and pain. The planet itself could be rendered uninhabitable by its rebellious inhabitants. God put human beings in a garden, “to serve it,” (Genesis 2:15), literally translated, and it is part of human reverence for the Creator to treat his creation reverently.
Paul speaks truth. Not only is the goodness of God revealed in nature, as he told the people of Lystra (Acts 14:15-17), but as truly, the wrath of God. So, too, in human experience.
The “wrath of God,” God’s inevitable reaction against rebellion and sin, is a reality, as everyone who is willing to see can see, written into life and history. Apart, therefore, from the ultimate revelation of God, which Paul was urgent to preach, humanity, he maintains, had the elements of truth before them. Given the desire, it was possible to find God.