Gott spricht durch seine Schöpfung zu allen Menschen (das nennen Theologen die Allgemeine Offenbarung) und durch die Bibel zu denen, für die das Heil bestimmt ist (Spezielle Offenbarung). Bavinck zeigt wunderschön auf, wie durch die spezielle Offenbarung die allgemeine Offenbarung in einem neuen Licht erscheint:
Now special revelation has recognized and valued general revelation, has even taken it over and, as it were, assimilated it. And this is also what the Christian does, as do the theologians. They position themselves in the Christian faith, in special revelation, and from there look out upon nature and history. And now they discover there as well the traces of the God whom they learned to know in Christ as their Father. Precisely as Christians, by faith, they see the revelation of God in nature much better and more clearly than before. The carnal person does not understand God’s speech in nature and history. He or she searches the entire universe without finding God. But Christians, equipped with the spectacles of Scripture, see God in everything and everything in God.
With their Christian confession, accordingly, Christians find themselves at home also in the world. They are not strangers there and see the God who rules creation as none other than the one they address as Father in Christ. As a result of this general revelation, they feel at home in the world; it is God’s fatherly hand from which they receive all things also in the context of nature.
In that general revelation, moreover, Christians have a firm foundation on which they can meet all non-Christians. They have a common basis with non-Christians. As a result of their Christian faith, they may find themselves in an isolated position; they may not be able to prove their religious convictions to others; still, in general revelation they have a point of contact with all those who bear the name “human.”
Bavinck, Herman ; Bolt, John ; Vriend, John: Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1: Prolegomena. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Academic, 2003, S. 321.
