General Revelation vs Special Revelation: Key Differences

Can creation tell us everything we need to know about God?

Before becoming a Christian, I already believed in God. I looked at nature, ourselves, and everything around us and saw the complexity. I thought, “There has to be an intelligent designer behind all of this.”

But I did not know Jesus. Sometimes, I watched a video or movie from the USA where people had T-shirts with Jesus on them. I thought, “He looks like a cool guy with long hair.”

That’s about all I knew, and that’s why we are having this conversation today: general revelation vs. special revelation.

I knew something of what we now call general revelation. I could look around at creation and sense that some incredibly intelligent and powerful Creator was behind it all.

But once I encountered what God had revealed through Scripture and ultimately through Jesus Christ, those unanswered questions began to have answers:

Who created all of this? Why did He create it? How does God want us to live? How can we be saved?

Creation had pointed me toward a Creator, but it could not tell me the full story.

General revelation is all around us, even though most people probably do not know the theological term for it. But creation alone cannot tell us everything God has revealed.

For that, we need His special revelation through His words and actions in history, His prophets, and ultimately Jesus Christ.

In this guide, we’ll look at the difference between general and special revelation, what each one tells us about God, and why creation alone cannot give us the full picture.

Key Takeaways

• General revelation is all around us. Creation, its order, and our moral awareness can point us toward a powerful and intelligent Creator.
• Creation cannot tell us the whole story. You can look at the stars and recognize that someone made them, but the stars cannot explain the Trinity, the Cross, salvation, or why we need Jesus.
• Special revelation is God making Himself known more clearly. He revealed Himself through His words and actions in history, the prophets, Scripture, and ultimately through His Son, Jesus Christ.
• Jesus is far more than another prophet or wise teacher. He is the eternal Son of God made flesh, and through Him we learn who God is and how we can be reconciled to Him.

Revelation Starts With God, Not With Us Figuring Him Out

Revelation starts with God. He has made Himself known throughout generations through His words and actions, His commands given to Israel, the prophets, and ultimately through Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is God the Son made flesh, fully God and fully man. So, when we read the New Testament, we learn how the Son of God lived among us, what He taught, and how through Him we can be reconciled to our Heavenly Father.

We can read the Bible and, with the help of the Church, use reason to understand God’s revelation. In other words, we begin to understand who God is, what He has done, and how He wants us to live.

God did not leave humanity trying to figure Him out completely on our own. He chose to make Himself known. Without that revelation, we could easily create false religions, idols, and our own ideas about what God must be like.

Honestly, even with what God has revealed, we still sometimes do a pretty bad job of understanding Him.

Creation Tells Us Something Real About Its Creator

So, let’s first talk about general revelation. I mean, it’s probably the most obvious one. We just need to look around and see what God has done.

God’s creation points to His existence when we look at planet Earth, the stars, animals, and human beings.

When I look at this complex world, it points to a Creator who is far more intelligent and powerful than we are.

We can also see an underlying order in creation. It’s not like the normal design of a healthy baby has his feet growing out of his head and his head attached to his legs.

From a tiny oak seed, there is already information within it directing how it grows and eventually becomes a huge oak tree.

Who established that order? Who determined how these