LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 152

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152

IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

This exchange of a true natural knowledge for the lie of idolatry is
highlighted not only in Paul’s letter to the Romans (1:23, 25), but it also
becomes the prominent focus of Paul’s proclamations recorded in Acts 14 and
17—the two passages, after Romans 1, most frequently cited in this context.11
As with Romans 1, some commentators would dispute whether either passage
can legitimately be referenced in support of natural theology,12 while others
are insistent that they “cannot be fully expounded without opening the gate
towards some sort of natural theology.”13 While the proclamation of Paul and
Barnabas at Lystra (Acts 14:15–17)—the first New Testament record of a public
witness to a non-Jewish audience—may not explicitly endorse or exemplify a
natural theology, it does at the very least reiterate the claim of God’s self-revelation in nature: “he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by
giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons” (v. 17).
It is God’s providential ordering of creation to which Paul also appeals in
his Areopagus address of Acts 17 (esp. v. 26). God has so ordered his creation
that all men, says Paul, “should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their
way toward him and find him” (v. 27). It is rightly noted that Paul’s use of the
term “seek” draws on its use in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the
Old Testament), with connotations of “groping” or “fumbling,” and therefore
implicitly expresses doubt as to whether the God who should be sought can
be truly discovered by natural means.14 Paul’s conclusions regarding natural
knowledge and natural theology are therefore perhaps not as emphatic here
as in his letter to the Romans. It is worth noting, however, that even some of
those who entirely reject any project of natural theology, and who rightly note
that Paul’s Areopagus address is almost entirely opposed to the beliefs of his
audience, are still willing to acknowledge that Paul “does not imply that they
knew no true religious propositions nor that Paul had no common affirmation
with them.”15
Though it is primarily the New Testament passages above that are most
frequently cited in affirmation of man’s natural knowledge of God, the Old
Testament does not remain silent on the subject. Foreshadowing Paul’s
emphasis on the providential ordering of creation naturally revealing its
Creator, David proclaims in Psalm 19, for instance, that “[t]he heavens declare
the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (v. 1), and that
“[t]heir voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world” (v. 4). Further, that this proclamation of nature itself is at least capable
of providing some knowledge of its Creator appears to be the clear implication of the verses located between these: “Day to day pours out speech, and
11
See, e.g., Roland Ziegler, “Natural Knowledge of God and the Trinity,” Concordia Theological
Quarterly 69 (2005), 147.

night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard” (vv. 2–3). Or, as one commentator summarizes,
“[i]t is not only the fact of general revelation that we find in Psalm 19,” but
also the fact that this revelation “is known everywhere.”16 It is in light of such
Old Testament testimony that it can be plausibly claimed that “the real source
from which the Christian natural theology sprang is Hebraic,” rather than
Hellenistic and pagan.17
It must be acknowledged, however, that apparent affirmations of man’s
natural knowledge of God are not the only parallels evident between the Old
and New Testament witnesses. Also evident are similarities in what might, at
least on their face, appear to be completely contradictory conclusions. Thus,
for example, the same Psalmist who can speak of the heavens declaring the
glory of God, of their revealing knowledge, and of this declaration being
heard, can also comment more than once on the Lord looking “to see if there
are any who understand, who seek after God” (Ps. 14:2, 53:2), and conclude
in the negative (Ps. 14:4, 53:4). So, too, in the New Testament the same apostle
Paul who could claim that even the heathen “knew God,” and had “clearly
perceived” even some of his attributes, can also register his agreement with
the Psalmist in declaring that “no one understands; no one seeks for God”
(Rom. 3:11). Indeed, not only does Paul make an emphatic assertion of what
the Psalmist had framed as a rhetorical question, but he amplifies this assertion by frequent repetition. He not only speaks in the past tense, declaring that
“the world did not know God” (1 Cor. 1:21) and that “you did not know God”
(Gal. 4:8), he also speaks similarly in the present tense of those “who do not
know God” (2 Thess. 1:8) and who “have no knowledge of God” (1 Cor. 15:34).
Though apparently contradictory, a closer contextual examination of such
passages reveals that they do not in fact undermine the confession of man’s
natural ability to acknowledge God’s existence. They merely—though emphatically—deny that man does or can have any natural knowledge of the saving
work of God in Christ. Among those described in 1 Corinthians 1:21 as not
knowing God, for example, are the scribes mentioned in the previous verse.
Certainly Paul’s assertion cannot be read to imply that the Jewish teachers of
the law were entirely ignorant of God’s existence, or even his attributes. Similarly, when Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:34 that “some have no knowledge
16
James Montgomery Boice, Psalms, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 162, 165. Cf. also
H.C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms (Columbus: Wartburg, 1959), 178, who concludes that the
Creator’s existence “is a truth which is apparent even to the heathen,” and Franz Delitzsch, A
Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 1 (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1883), 349, who writes: “it
is no proclamation made in a corner; it is a proclamation in speech that is everywhere audible,
in words that are everywhere understood, a φανερÓν.”

12

See, e.g., Bell, No One Seeks for God, 99.

13

James Barr, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 26; see also at 36.

14

See Ziegler, “Natural Knowledge of God and the Trinity,” 148–9.

15

Stephen R. Spencer, “Is Natural Theology Biblical?” Grace Theological Journal 9 (1988), 65.

17
Barr, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology, 56. Not only do each of the commentators cited in n.
16 above thus conclude with cross-references to Romans 1; Boice, Psalms, 1:162, goes further to
suggest that “this is exactly what the apostle Paul writes in Romans 1, in a passage that probably has the nineteenth psalm in mind, even though it is not directly quoted.” Intriguingly,
where Paul does directly quote Psalm 19 (in Rom. 10:18), he seems even to equate nature’s
proclamation with, in some sense, gospel proclamation.

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of God,” he addresses this charge directly to “some” within the congregation
at Corinth. It is implausible here, too, that he means to imply that some have
been received into the church despite their knowing nothing at all about God.

exhausts what the Confessions have to say about the ‘natural knowledge of
God.’”23 To be sure, there is no shortage of passages which, read in isolation,
might support such a stark view. The Large Catechism, for example, confesses
that, before being brought by God into the communion of saints, “we were
entirely of the devil, knowing nothing of God.”24 The Apology of the Augsburg
Confession, commenting on the effects of original sin, speaks similarly, noting
bluntly that one such effect is “being ignorant of God.”25

This is perhaps made even clearer by Paul’s parallelism of “knowing
God” and “being known by God” in Galatians 4:9, where the previous verse’s
claim that “you did not know God” cannot be read as synonymously parallel
with God’s not knowing man, that is, not being aware of man’s existence.
Rather, “‘[t]o know’ is not used in any mundane sense of either ‘to perceive’
or ‘to acquire knowledge about,’ but in the biblical sense of ‘to experience,’”
and most specifically to experience the grace of God.18 Thus, as another commentator also notes regarding Paul’s similar declaration in 1 Corinthians 1:21,
“[a]t this point Paul’s Jewish understanding of ‘knowing God’ comes to the
fore. . . . The phrase in the next clause, ‘to save those who believe,’ is therefore
the proper commentary on this one.”19 In other words, the ignorance of God
highlighted in these passages is not an absolute ignorance, but an ignorance
of the gospel and its effects.20

B. The Concurrence of the Confessions
In light of the Lutheran confessors’ desire to do nothing other than offer
a faithful summary and explication of Scripture’s doctrinal content, it will not
be surprising that the Confessions set forth the same nuanced portrayal of
man’s natural knowledge of God that is evident in Scripture itself. Similarly,
though, because individual confessional statements—like individual biblical
statements—may occasionally appear to contradict others, interpreters of the
Confessions—again, like those of the Bible—can often lose sight of this nuance
by emphasizing some passages over others.
This is the case, for example, when it is categorically asserted that “the
Lutheran Confessions are entirely consistent in denying natural man the
ability to know God”;21 that, according to the Confessions, “[n]either God the
Creator nor God the exacting Lawgiver, neither God’s love nor God’s wrath
can be recognized in this fallen world”;22 and that such a conclusion “virtually

Both the Apology and the Large Catechism themselves, however, also contain further statements which prevent one from too hastily concluding that
any natural knowledge of God is merely a theological fiction. Contrasting the
effects of original sin with original righteousness, for instance, the Apology
notes that the latter afforded man “a more certain knowledge of God”—the
apparent implication being that man, even after the fall, does not lack all
knowledge of God, but can possess only a less certain knowledge.26 Thus
the Large Catechism can not only note that “[t]here has never been a nation
so wicked that it did not establish and maintain some sort of worship,”27 but
also that “[a]ll who are outside this Christian church, whether heathen, Turks,
Jews, or false Christians and hypocrites—even though they believe that there
is only one true God and worship [him]—nevertheless they do not know what
His attitude is toward them.”28
In this light it has been well noted that those confessional statements
emphasizing natural man’s ignorance of God should not be made to say more
than they actually do:
Properly understood, they do not deny the natural knowledge
of God, but rather point to the perversion of this knowledge into

23
Werner Elert, The Structure of Lutheranism, trans. Walter A. Hansen (St. Louis: Concordia,
1962), 51.
24
LC 2.52. All quotations from the Lutheran Confessions, unless otherwise noted, are drawn
from The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and
Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).
25

Ap 2.8; cf. also 2.14, 2.23.

Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (Dallas: Word, 1990), 180; see also, e.g., Gordon D. Fee,
The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 72.

26
Ap 2.17; emphasis added. Thus, FC SD 2.9 can speak of “a dim spark of knowledge that a
god exists.”

19
Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 72 n. 26; see also The New International Dictionary of
New Testament Theology, vol. 2, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 395–97, there
cited for explication of Paul’s “Jewish understanding.”

27
LC 1.17. It is noteworthy that Luther here echoes, perhaps even paraphrases, the Roman
pagan Cicero, who likewise asserted that “there is no tribe so civilized or so savage as not to
know that it should believe in a god.” Cicero, The Laws, 1.24.

20
Thus Gregory J. Lockwood, 1 Corinthians (St. Louis: Concordia, 2000), 582, commenting on
1 Cor. 15:34, can describe it as “ignorance regarding the resurrection and its implications for the
Christian life” (emphasis added). Cf. also 2 Thess. 1:8 with its parallel between “those who do
not know God” and “those who do not obey the gospel.” Similarly compare the manner in
which the Lord himself speaks even of his chosen people not knowing him in, e.g., Jer. 4:22, Jer.
9:3, and Hos. 5:4.

28
LC 2.66. The above translation of this much disputed passage follows that of the Concordia Theological Seminary faculty, “Religious Pluralism and Knowledge of the True God: Fraternal Reflections and Discussion,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 66 (2002), 300. For further
commentary on this passage, see also Charles Arand and James Voelz, “Large Catechism, III,
66,” Concordia Journal 29 (2003), 232–4; John Nordling, “Large Catechism III, 66, Latin Version,”
Concordia Journal 29 (2003), 235–9; Thomas Manteufel, “What Luther Meant,” Concordia
Journal 29 (2003), 366–9; E. Christian Kopff, “Who Believes in and Worships the One True
God in Luther’s Large Catechism?” Logia 13/3 (2004), 55–57; Edward Engelbrecht, One True
God: Understanding Large Catechism II.66 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2007); and Jon Bruss, “Luther,
Non-Christians, and the One True God: Another Go,” Logia 20/2 (2011), 57–9.

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21
Edmund Schlink, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions, trans. Paul F. Koehneke and Herbert
J.A. Bouman (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1961), 48.
22

Schlink, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions, 48.

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