The Larger Catechism

Question 2: How does it appear that there is a God?

Answer: The very light of nature in man, and the works of God, declare plainly that there is a God; but his Word and Spirit only do sufficiently and effectually reveal him unto men for their salvation.

The heavens tell of the glory of God ... The law of the Lord is perfect

Psalm 19:1,7

The first question of the Larger Catechism deals with the subject of the aim and purpose of our lives. The second brings us face to face with the ultimate reality, the reality of God. It asks a question which the Bible never asks, but which is necessary to ask if we are to understand reformed doctrine -- the gospel of salvation -- aright: the question of how we know that there is a God?

There is a clear and obvious link between this question and the preceding. If there is no God, we do not need to worry about glorifying him, and we will be unable to enjoy him. But if there is, then these are issues to which we must give urgent and immediate attention.

Today's world, however, is largely agnostic, if not largely atheistic. The legacy of some of the major philosophical and scientific movements of the past two hundred years has been to remove the supernatural from our world-view, and to explain things on a totally naturalistic and humanistic basis. Indeed, the Bible says that mankind in the grip of sin is characterised in this way: "there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God ... there is no fear of God before their eyes" (Romans 3:11;18). Nor is this just a New Testament verdict; Paul is quoting from the Old Testament (mostly from the Book of Psalms) where David summed up the position of natural man: "In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God" (Psalm 10:4).

Atheism, however, is the fool's religion (Psalm 14:1) since, as this second question of the Catechism reminds us, the fact that there is a God is incontrovertible. Several things emerge from the formulation of words here:

God Makes Himself Known To Us

The Westminster divines chose their words carefully! Look closely at the language of this second answer: there are things that declare God, and there are things that reveal God. These two verbs point to one fundamental reality: God can be known only by declaration and revelation. In other words, there must be a negative answer to Zophar's question "Can you discover everything there is to know about the Almighty?" (Job 11:7; NLT). In fact, in our search for God there is a twofold limitation: first, we can only know what God declares and reveals to us; and second, what he reveals to us is only a little of what there is to know about him.

But there is something quite grand about these majestic statements; at the very outset of the Larger Catechism, we are being told that God can, in fact, be known. He has not left us ignorant of his existence, or, indeed, of his nature. To know him is the essence of eternal life (John 17:3). True religion is 'U' shaped; it begins with God, reaches down to us, and returns to God in service, adoration and worship. We do not begin with our own abilities or knowledge or understanding, but with God's gracious self-disclosure, with the fact that he has shown himself to us.

God's existence is declared to man by general revelation

There are, according to the catechism, two ways in which all men are aware of the being and existence of God.

The first is "the very light of nature in man", man's innate sense of the grandeur of God. Even as Paul begins to examine the havoc that sin has wrought in human life, he declares of men that "what may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has shown it to them" (Romans 1:19). The being of God -- his eternal power and glory -- presses itself home on man's consciousness at every point. Man may deny the existence of God; but the argument of the New Testament is that if he does so, he is waging war on what he knows to be true. In other words, the atheist takes up his position not because he has evidence that there is not God; but because he is not prepared to accept the evidence that there is.

What is this light that shines in an otherwise dark soul? The kingdom of darkness is the natural habitation of fallen man (cf. Colossians 1:13). Yet, according to the Catechism, even in his lostness and fallenness, man is not utterly devoid of light. There is a consciousness of something greater, of a 'divinity shaping our ends', of the reality behind the universe. There is a sense of wonder at the way events unfold. There is a sense of the abstract -- an awareness of beauty, majesty, grandeur and love. All of these things man knows cannot be explained in purely humanistic categories. Above all, there is the fact of conscience. Why do I instinctively know when I have done wrong? Because there is a God in Heaven, who, when he made man in the first place, placed a red warning light in his soul to keep him on the path of truth and of justice.

We cannot avoid the fact that, being made in the image of God, men and women instinctively know that there is a God. It is a knowledge that requires modification in the light of Scripture, since sin has distorted it, and only grace can restore it. But it is there. Though God is not in the thoughts of men in the sense that they defer to him and his authority, they simply cannot escape the fact of God.

Part of that consciousness of God is registered, the Catechism tells us, in what God's creation itself declares. "The works of God declare plainly that there is a God". That is precisely Paul's argumentation in Romans 1:20 -- "since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse". The glory of the creation, in the majesty of the universe, the roll of the seasons, the intricacies of the human body -- all of these spell for us the fact of God.

Paul's response to the question of how God deals with those who have never had the opportunity to read the Bible is that, even without the Bible, no-one can deny the existence of God. To do so is inexcusable. It is to fly in the face of the evidence of general revelation, both internal and external to us. As John Murray puts it, in his commentary on Romans 1:20, "If men do not glorify and worship him as God they have no excuse for their impiety, and that the impiety might be without excuse is the design of the manifested glory".

God not only created the world, and made man in his own image; he created the universe in such a way as to leave the imprint of his own hand on all his works. In spite of the scholastic reasoning of Aquinas, and the philosophical attempts of others to explain, rationally and logically that God does, in fact, exist, no argument is necessary. That is not to say that theism is non-rational or non-philosophical -- quite the contrary. God is the only true ground of reason and all philosophy.

But you do not need complex arguments to 'declare plainly' that there is a God. All you need is to watch the sun setting on the West Side of Lewis on a Summer's evening, and it spells GOD. All you need is to feel a twinge of conscience when you have done something you shouldn't, and it spells GOD. All you need is to look in on yourself, or out on the world, and then you know. God is there. And the moment you know God is there, you have no excuse for not glorifying him and enjoying him fully. There is no cloak for your sin once you know God exists.

God's existence is declared to man by special revelation

To recap: God has graciously made himself known to us, and his existence is known to us by a natural light within and by the works of creation without. But then there is this second part to the Catechism's answer: "but his word and Spirit only do sufficiently and effectually reveal him unto men for their salvation."

What is the Catechism saying here? It is saying, at the very least, that the same God whose existence is so glaringly obvious in creation and nature, also reveals himself in his word and by his Holy Spirit. The God of Creation and Providence is, in other words, the God of the Bible. That is an important principle; it means that we cannot divorce the reality of the God of the Bible from the reality of the God of creation. This fact legitimises science, philosophy and cultural arts. It reminds us that we do not find a different God in the Bible to the God who speaks to us in the order, beauty and majesty of the world around us.

Nonetheless, it is drawing a contrast between the two kinds of revelation. It is telling us that there is a level at which general revelation is insufficient and at which it is ineffective. It leaves us without excuse, but it cannot bring us to experience the salvation there is in Christ.

I think the second part of this answer in the Catechism can be broken down into the following propositions:

General Revelation Is Insufficient And Ineffective For Our Salvation

We know that there is a God. The space-time world we inhabit spells out this fact for us in loud, clear, bold letters. But the knowledge we glean through these means -- awareness of God's existence, his greatness, his power and his glory -- are insufficient to make us aware of our need in the light of the fall, and of the saving work of Jesus Christ.

There are two important points being made here. First, the fall has not obliterated the general revelation of God's glory. Although the creation groans under the weight of man's sin (Romans 8:22), and although sin has meant that the ground is cursed (Genesis 3:17), the ground still spells GOD, and the creation still declares his glory. Sin has meant that we do not glorify him as we ought; but it does not mean that our knowledge of his glory is obliterated. Even as fallen creatures in a fallen world, we can know that God exists.

Second, there is a difference between knowing that we are small, and knowing that we are sinners. We look at the stars in the sky and say "What is man!" (Psalm 8:3). We look at the mountains and realise that we are truly "less than nothing" (Isaiah 40:17). The grandeur of God's work can make us appreciate, at one level, the smallness of man in comparison to the greatness of creation. It can also register in us the wonder and majesty of man's own constitution and make-up.

But there are limits. Knowing that we are small is not the same as knowing that we are sinners. And knowing we are sinners is indispensable to our being saved. Even although we are confronted with the majesty of God in creation, we immediately send our thoughts flying to other things, as Calvin reminds us in his Institutes:

"Even when, under the guidance and direction of events, we are in a manner forced to the contemplation of God ... are led to form some impressions of Deity, we immediately fly off to carnal dreams ... and so by our vanity corrupt heavenly truth" (1.5.7).

The Word Of God Is Necessary For Salvation

God has declared himself to us in his works. But he has also declared himself to us in his word. Although Question 3 will identify his word with the Bible, this Question simply reminds us of the fact that God has spoken. It is in his speech, in his special revelation of himself as a personal, communicating God, that all we need to know for salvation may be known. Apart from that word, we could not be saved, or know about God's purposes of salvation at all.

The grace of God is manifest not only in the fact that God has purposed to save sinners, but in the fact that he chose to reveal that purpose. We can know God's mind by reading God's word. There is absolute truth because of God's revelation. Apart from what that Word declares, we could never experience the blessings of God's salvation. If Calvin is right, and our thoughts fly to carnal dreams instead of remaining fixed on God, the supreme object of our devotion, then we need a fixed, unalterable standard of revelation. And such we can only find in the word of God. The Bible not only provides information for us about God, but actually enables us to grasp the truths necessary for salvation.

The work of the Spirit of God is necessary for salvation

But there is more. If we are to enjoy the blessing of salvation -- including the ability to glorify God and to enjoy him in communion and fellowship, God must work in our hearts. It is necessary not only to have the will of God presented to us objectively in the word, but also to have the work of God's Spirit subjectively in our hearts.

This is not to say that the Spirit's work is independent of the Word, and another source of revelation. It is, however, to say that there must be some work of God IN us as well as some word of God TO us if we are to enjoy God's salvation. Calvin spoke of this work as an illumination, the Holy Spirit testifying to the truthfulness and trustworthiness of God's Word, and enabling us to acquiesce in the promises of that Word for our salvation. He saw it as a fulfilment of Isaiah 54:13, the promise to Messiah that all God's children would be "taught of the Lord".

The result, Calvin said, was "a conviction which asks not for reasons" yet it was "a knowledge which accords with the highest reason, namely, knowledge in which the mind rests more firmly and securely than in any reasons ... the conviction which revelation from heaven alone can produce" (1.7.5).

This fact can be clearly demonstrated from the New Testament. We read in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that the 'natural man', the man who is unregenerate, "does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him". In Romans 8:6 Paul says that the difference between life and death is a matter of the object on which our minds are set: "the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace".

There is no such thing as a Christian who does not have the Holy Spirit. God's work in the human heart is a work of his Spirit, and that work is vital for salvation. As Jonathan Edwards puts it in his magisterial Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, "a spiritual application of an invitation or offer of the gospel, consists in giving the soul a spiritual sense, or relish, of the holy and divine blessings offered, and also the sweet and wonderful grace of the offerer, in making so gracious an overture, and of his holy excellency and faithfulness to fulfil what he offers and his glorious sufficiency for it; so leading and drawing forth the heart to embrace the offer; and thus giving the man evidence of his title to, and personal interest in, the thing offered" (Works, Vol 1, p271).

Our response, therefore, to the Gospel offer, requires us knowing the Gospel (which we read of in God's word) and realising our need to respond to it, followed by our actual responding to it, both of which are the work of God's Spirit in our hearts.

The Word And Work Of God Are Sufficient For Salvation

The Catechism here reminds us that "God's word and Spirit only do sufficiently reveal God" for our salvation. The whole concept of the sufficiency of the Bible is undermined in many churches by an emphasis on tongue-speaking, or charismatic phenomena, or miracles, or new prophecies. But the emphasis of the Reformed faith falls heavily on the enoughness of the Bible. 'Sola Scriptura' -- the Bible alone.

All that we need to know in order that we might intelligibly understand the Gospel, and personally respond to it, we know in God's holy Word. We need no new revelation -- no papal statements ex cathedra, as in Roman Catholicism, no Joseph Smith writings, as in Mormonism, no prophecies of Mohammed, as in Islam. We need the Bible, and the Bible is sufficient. This rules out the need for further revelation.

We also need the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is sufficient. This rules out any idea that we can save ourselves. If we do not have the Spirit of Christ, we are not his (Romans 8:9). But if we do have the Spirit of Christ, then we are his children, led by him and taught of him (Romans 8:14-19). If there is a sufficiency in the work of the Holy Spirit, so that he cannot be replaced nor does he require to be supplemented in the salvation of men, then his work is the difference between spiritual life and spiritual death. What greater proof could there be of the indispensable nature of the Spirit's work in our lives?

The Word And Work Of God Are Effective For Salvation

Not only are God's word and Spirit sufficient, they are effective. God's word does not return to him without accomplishing his design and fulfilling his purpose (Isaiah 55:11). Nor can the work of his grace in the heart of man be overcome. The Gospel can be resisted; Christ can be rejected; the Bible can be ignored. But when God begins to work savingly, he begins to work effectively.

The Word And Work Of God Are The Sole Sufficient And Effective Means Of Revelation Which Lead To Salvation

That word 'only' is important. You don't get far in theology without realising the importance of little words! The Catechism, at the outset, is grounding the whole matter of a soul's salvation on one foundation: on the foundation of God's sovereign, gracious, loving work in the lives of men.

These are themes which will be explored in further questions and answers. But they set the stage, and introduce us to fundamental realities about God and about ourselves. These opening words remind us that the evidence for God's existence is overwhelming, and our need for God to act in revelation and illumination in our hearts is overwhelming too. The Larger Catechism begins its journey along the road of doctrine by taking us through the gate of grace. May we learn grace, and experience grace, as we follow along this road.

© Iain D. Campbell 2001