LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 307

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II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

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“He existed, Ta’aroa was his name. In the immensity [of space] there was no earth, there was
no sky. There was no sea, there was no man. Above, Ta’aroa calls. Existing alone, he became the
universe.”2

The Natural Knowledge of God in Our Christian Witness
Bible Study and Discussion Guide

“At the beginning all things were in the mind of Wakonda. All creatures including man were
spirits. They moved about in space between the earth and the stars. They were seeking a place
where they could come into bodily existence.”3

This Bible study is based on the 2013 report by the Commission on Theology and Church
Relations, The Natural Knowledge of God in Christian Confession and Witness.1 This Bible
study may be used independently or in connection with the CTCR report. The following terms
are used in this study:

“The great [Hindu] sage Manu declared, ‘One ought to know the Supreme Spirit Who is the
Ruler of all, subtler than the subtlest, of resplendent glory, and capable of being realized only by
the meditation of pure-minded ones”4

Natural Revelation: God’s revelation of Himself in nature, in the things He has created (Rom.
1:19; Ps. 19:1).
Special Revelation: God’s revelation of Himself through His Son and in His written Word (Heb.
1:1-2).
Natural Knowledge: The dim and incomplete knowledge of God that human beings have through
His revelation of Himself in nature (Rom. 1:20).
Natural Law: God’s universal moral laws written on the hearts of all people, believers and
unbelievers alike (Rom. 2:15).

Read Rom. 1:21-25. Although God revealed Himself “in the things that have been made,” what
did fallen human beings do with that revealed knowledge?
Even people who have never heard the story of God’s revelation of Himself in Christ and in
Scripture are “without excuse” because they “knew God,” that is, they knew there was a God
who created all things and yet they “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:20-21, 25).
This exchange of a true natural knowledge of God for the lie of idolatry is also highlighted in
Paul’s proclamations in Acts 14 and 17, the two passages that, after Romans 1, are most often
used in discussing humanity’s natural knowledge of God.
Read Acts 14:8-18. What do the people of Lystra believe about Paul and Barnabas after
witnessing the miraculous healing of the lame man? How does their response reflect mankind’s
natural knowledge of God? What evidence from nature do the apostles use as they try to
convince the people of the existence of the one true God?

The Natural Knowledge of God
Read Ps. 19:1-6 and Ps. 104. According to these psalms, how does creation reveal its Creator?
What is revealed about Him? Where and when have you seen evidence of this proclamation by
the natural world?

The proclamation of Paul and Barnabas in Lystra in Acts 14:15–17 is one the earliest New
Testament records of a public Christian witness to a non-Jewish audience.

The most important text in Scripture about the natural knowledge of God is Romans 1:19-20:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his
invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived,
ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without
excuse.”

Read Acts 17:22-31. What did Paul observe about the people of Athens? How does he use
natural revelation to tell them about the true God? What does the apostle say about their idols?

God has shown even unbelievers “what can be known” about Him. This revelation of His power
and glory in creation is not a complete or saving knowledge of God, but it is “clearly perceived”
(Rom. 1:19-20) and it is “the truth about God” (Rom. 1:25).
What do the following accounts from world religions reveal about humanity’s natural
knowledge of God?

1
The CTCR report, The Natural Knowledge of God in Christian Confession and Christian Witness (LCMS
Commission on Theology and Church Relations, 2013) is available for download at
http://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=2431 or available for purchase through Concordia Publishing
House at www.cph.org.

God has so designed His creation says Paul, “that [all people] should seek God, and perhaps feel
their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:27). The apostle indicates that people are “groping”
or “fumbling” their way toward God.
Read Ps. 53:1-5. God looks down from heaven to see “if there are any who understand.” What
conclusions does the psalmist reach about humanity’s natural knowledge of God?

2
Tahitian creation story in Philip Novak, The World’s Wisdom: Sacred Texts of the World’s Religions (New York:
HarperCollins, 1994), 140-141.
3
North American Omaha creation story in Novak, 334.
4
Swami Bhaskarananda, The Essentials of Hinduism (Seattle: Viveka Press, 2002), 66.

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Read Rom. 3:10-11; 1 Cor. 1:21 and Gal. 4:8-9. What does the apostle Paul say in these verses
about humanity’s natural knowledge of God?

Read Matt. 11:25-27 and Matt. 16:13-17. Who truly knows the Father? How did Simon Peter
come to know that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God”?

The verses in the previous section show us that human beings can acknowledge the existence of
God, but the above verses indicate that unbelievers do not have any natural knowledge of the
saving work of God in Christ. According to Galatians 4:8, those who do not know God are
enslaved “to those that by nature are not gods.” In Galatians 4:9, Paul speaks of believers who
have come “to know God.” Here, for us, “to know” does not mean “to perceive” or “to acquire
knowledge about,” but is used in the biblical sense of “to have a relationship with,” specifically
to trust in the grace of God. The ignorance of God discussed in these verses is not absolute
ignorance but it is an ignorance of the Gospel.

Additional Comments from Martin Luther on Natural Knowledge
Martin Luther wrote that “the forms of worship and the religion that have been and remained
among all nations are abundant evidence that at some time all men have had a general knowledge
of God.”9 Writing about the sailors whose ship carried Jonah away from Nineveh (referring
especially to Jonah 1:5: “Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god”), Luther
comments:
The whole world talks about the Godhead, and natural reason is aware that this Godhead
is something superior to all other things. This is here shown by the fact that the people in
our text called upon a god, heathen though they were. For if they had been ignorant of the
existence of God or of a godhead, how could they have called upon him and cried to him?
Although they do not have true faith in God, they at least hold that God is a being able to
help on the sea and in every need. Such a light and such a perception is innate in the
hearts of all men; and this light cannot be subdued or extinguished … Let us here also
learn from nature and from reason what can be known of God. These people regard God
as a being who is able to deliver from every evil. It follows from this that natural reason
must concede that all that is good comes from God; for He who can save from every need
and misfortune is also able to grant all that is good and that makes for happiness. That is
as far as the natural light of reason sheds its rays—it regards God as kind, gracious,
merciful, and benevolent. And that is indeed a bright light.10

The Lutheran Confessions and Natural Knowledge
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession says that original righteousness (the righteousness that
Adam and Eve had before the fall into sin) included “a more certain knowledge of God,”
implying that human beings, even after the fall into sin, do not lack all knowledge of God, but
have a less certain knowledge.5 In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther writes that “there has
never been a nation so wicked that it did not establish and maintain some sort of worship.”6
Luther hastens to add, of course, that those outside the Christian church do not know God rightly
and so do not have saving faith.
Sinful human beings have some knowledge of God, but it is not the knowledge revealed in the
person and work of Jesus Christ and granted by the Holy Spirit. The Formula of Concord states
that “pagans had something of a knowledge of God,” but remarks that “they did not truly know
him.”7 The Formula also states: “Even though human reason or natural intellect may still have a
dim spark of knowledge that a god exists . . . nevertheless [that knowledge] is ignorant, blind,
and perverted so that even when the most skillful and learned people on earth read or hear the
gospel of God’s Son and the promise of eternal salvation, they still cannot comprehend, grasp,
understand, or believe it on the basis of their own powers; they cannot regard it as truth.”8

Luther goes on to comment on two defects in the “bright light” of human reason. People may
know that God can help them, but they do not know if he wants to help them, and even though
they believe that there is a God, they cannot know or find the true God.
Read Jonah 1:1-6. What prompts the sailors to cry out to their gods? What do those cries reveal
about the sailors’ attitude toward their gods? How do the sailors illustrate the two defects
mentioned by Luther? Read Jonah 1:7-16. What do the sailors learn about Jonah’s God? How
do they come to this knowledge, by natural revelation or through special revelation? How do the
sailors respond after learning about the God of the Hebrews?

Read 1 Cor. 2:6-16. Why are even “the most skillful and learned people” unable to understand
or believe the Gospel? Who alone grants such understanding?
Read Is. 44:12-20. How do these verses illustrate the “ignorant, blind, and perverted”
knowledge of God that human beings have through natural revelation?

Natural Law: The Law Written on the Heart
The apostle Paul discusses humanity’s awareness of natural law. He writes: “For when Gentiles,
who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 2, The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 114.17, italics added.
Large Catechism, The Book of Concord, 388.17.
7
Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article 5, The Book of Concord, 585.22, italics added.
8
Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article 2, The Book of Concord, 545.9.
5

Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians (1535), Luther’s Works, ed. J. Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen, vol. 26 (St.
Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963), 399.
Martin Luther, Lectures on Jonah (1526), Luther’s Works, ed. Hilton C Oswald, vol. 19 (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1974), 53-54.

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2019 Convention Workbook