What's left of God's revelation?

I was listening to one of the excellent "Table Talk" podcasts from Theology Network this evening. (Yes, this is one of the things I do for fun, and it helps pass time while I'm cleaning the basement.) The subject was "Christianity and World Religions" with Dr. Dan Strange. In the course of the study, Dr. Strange talked about his view that world religions devolved from the high monotheism of Judaism and its antecedents. I am also a partisan of that viewpoint, so I found his discussion quite intriguing. (Perhaps someday I'll devote a post to some of the arguments for that position. Until then, I recommend going to the Theology Network and listening to "Table Talk 18." There's a link to TN on my list.)

Dr. Strange has coined a term for the elements of truth that remain in a devolved religion: "remnantal revelation." This term states that remnants of God's truth through His revelation remain in those religions. Thus, there are elements of truth in any religion, or any philosophy for that matter, but as time passes the portion of truth will become less and less as other teachings are added to it. This doesn't only affect non-Christian religions; Christians can also watch their beliefs devolve as they move away from God's revelation.

While this may have its main application in theology, I think we also see a devolution in the popular theology or philosophy of Western society. Most people still claim some faith in God, but the God they worship is generally far removed from the God revealed in the Bible, or even the God revealed in nature and conscience (what theologians call "natural revelation"). There is some understanding of God as a loving being who helps us, but an almost total loss of a majestic God to whom our devotion is due. People talk about good and evil, but most in our society (including many in our churches) define good and evil by their own standards. Our culture rejects any notion of an absolute truth that applies to all people.

The positive side of this view is that all people have some knowledge of the truth, no matter how small. This enables us to speak to anyone with at least a little bit of common ground. God does not leave Himself without a witness; everyone has the opportunity to know God in some way. Truth isn't always comfortable. (In fact, I'd argue that if your belief system is comfortable, there's probably something wrong with it!) Even more, in our culture truth isn't popular. If you claim to have truth you'll be called intolerant, narrow-minded, bigoted, and arrogant. The problem isn't with personal belief, but with stating that there is a truth that applies to everyone.

Our goal as Christians should be first of all to ensure that our beliefs haven't become "remnantal." We don't just go to church or recite creeds because it's a habit, but because we believe we are in touch with the God of all truth. Then we should stand for the truth, and help others find the truth of God and His revelation in their own lives, building from what they already have.

Ever since the earliest days of the church, those who oppose Christianity have understood that if they could prevent Christians from reading, studying, and meditating of the Bible they could wipe out the Christian faith. Even today, anti-Christian governments and organizations try to keep the Bible away from their people. The truth is powerful, however, and standing for God's truth and for God's revelation enables us to shine His light into our society.

Fighting Error With Truth

I've probably never used a title for a paper or post that is more likely to make readers go, "Well, duh!" In light of some comments I've seen relating to some current issues, however, I think it is an important reminder. When combating error, we need to begin from a base of knowing and understanding truth, rather than trying to pick apart little snippets of falsehood and fighting them like a series of brushfires.

I worked for a while in a retail store cash office. As a result of my job, I got to handle a lot of cash. (Sadly, very little of it was my own.) I couldn't even guess how many paper bills I handled during my time there. Only once did I encounter a counterfeit bill. (And trust me, if we were passing along counterfeits, our bank would have let us know!) How did I know it was counterfeit? Because I handled a lot of genuine currency. This bill didn't feel right as I counted, and upon inspection it didn't look right either. It wasn't an obvious fake, but I knew it was counterfeit because I knew what the real thing was like. (And yes, our bank did confirm it was a counterfeit bill when we sent it to them with a note explaining our suspicions.)

There is a lot of falsehood in our world today, and even a lot of falsehood in the church. How can we as pastors and teachers prepare people to deal with the false teaching they will encounter? We need to ground them in the truth of God's Word, and train them in how to study the Bible. Armed with truth, we can battle falsehood without having to study in minute detail every possible error we will encounter.

I have been listening to some excellent lectures on the early church fathers from the Theology Network web site. (I would recommend this site for the serious student of theology and church history; I'll add a link to my "favorites" box.) In his lecture on Irenaeus, Mike Reeves points out that Irenaeus' magnum opus, Against Heresies, is often seen as an attack on all heresies. It deals primarily with an attack against Gnosticism, especially Valentinianism, but in his work Irenaeus spends time dealing with orthodox teaching, and in attacking the Gnostics he also deals with the roots of many other heresies.

This reminds us of two points. First, while there are indeed many kinds of error, falsehood tends to fall into a few repeated areas. In a slightly different context, Josh McDowell has said that when answering objections to Christianity, knowing the answer to about twenty standard questions takes care of over 90% of what he is asked. Dealing with error generally involves dealing with world view questions, and those questions at their base fall into just a few categories.

The second point is that it is truth that wins the day. If you can successfully convince a person that what they believe is wrong and they should change their mind,  yet give them nothing to change to, what have you accomplished? We need to do more than point out what is wrong; we have to hold out the truth for people to believe. Our primary mission as Christians is to present the truth, the good news of Jesus Christ, to our world.

So arm yourself with truth. If you have the time and inclination, by all means acquaint yourself with the errors you are likely to encounter. We need informed teachers to tell us what we will face. But as your primary weapon in this battle, arm yourself with God's truth.