The first section of chapter one contrasts man, as originally created, with post fall man.
Calvin writes, “Since our fall from life unto death, all knowledge of God the Creator. . . would be useless, were it not followed up by faith, holding forth God to us as a Father in Christ. The natural course undoubtedly was, that the fabric of the world should be a school in which we might learn piety, and from it pass to eternal life and perfect felicity.“
All of this is to say, that the content of natural revelation is different before and after the fall of man.
Calvin continues, “But after looking at the perfection beheld wherever we turn our eye, above and below, we are met by the divine malediction, which while it involves innocent creatures in our fault, of necessity fills our own souls with despair. . . we cannot, from a mere survey of the world, infer that he is a Father. Conscience urging us within, and showing that sin is a just ground for our being forsaken, will not allow us to think that God accounts or treats us as sons.”
Here are some thoughts on revelation, pre and post fall. To try to get at the topic, I am looking to my notes from Cornelius Van Til’s book Common Grace. Van Til’s understanding of this topic I found helpful, as he works out the significance of the fall and its impact on general revelation.
Man was created in the image of God, Calvin distinguishes between the broad and the narrow sense of being an image bearer. This is a needed distinction, as there are passages which seem to indicate that man is no longer the image of God, then there are other passages which state that man still is the image of Gad. Rushdoony gives a good definition, “the narrow sense. . . applies to the true knowledge, true righteousness, and true holiness which man possessed when created by God. The fall destroyed this image, whereas the image in its broader sense, man’s rationality and morality, his intellectual and emotional life, remain still in God’s image, but with limitations.”
Man, as originally created, was positively righteous. What does this mean for the content of general revelation? The Spirit’s testimony to man, regarding the truth of general revelation, revealed through conscience, included favor and acceptance of man in general. The content of this revelation was void of condemnation. In the original state, man could look to general revelation and rightly know that God was a Father as Calvin puts it.
This is no longer the case, why not? To answer this question, we must see how the relationship between God and man has changed in history. The Calvinist position, treats the fall as a devastating historical tragedy, dealing a death blow to mankind. Thus the fall was a real fall from life unto death. Originally, man related to God in upright righteousness, man now relates to God as a sinner that actively suppresses the truth of God. With a change in relationship comes a change in revelation. No longer can the content of natural revelation contain favor towards man in general. Now such natural revelation reveals wrath toward man in general.
Calvin’s point, in the first quote listed above, is an important one, as man is no longer fit to follow general revelation towards piety. This general revelation, which promised “eternal life and felicity,” no longer reveals favor, rather it reveals condemnation towards man in general. The state of the rebellion is made clear upon the realization that we are creatures created by God, placed is his universe and governed by his laws. Each of these things reveal something about the Creator, thus the rebellion isn’t passive, man in general actively corrupts the knowledge of God and his world. This treatment, of the character of man before and after the fall, is helpful when trying to understand how the content of general revelation changed in history.
When Adam looked at the world, he looked at it through the eyes of faith, this after all is a requirement of righteousness. Fallen man looks at the world through the grid of autonomy, lacking any faith in Christ. The necessity of faith is shown by Calvin when he writes that general revelation is a, “magnificent theatre of heaven and earth replenished with numberless wonders, the wise contemplation of which should have enabled us to know God. . . It is certain that after the fall of our first parent, no knowledge of God without a Mediator was effectual to salvation.”
The fall from life unto death, wasn’t a fall from positive righteousness into a state of neutrality. Else it couldn’t be said that natural revelation reveals wrath in general. The content of such revelation would be undecided, to reflect man’s undecided nature.