Adam and Eve heard from the mouth of God the first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3:15. But did they believe in it? Did they receive and rest their souls in the promise that the Redeemer would be sent into the world to destroy the devil and reverse the curse and bring in everlasting blessedness?
“…during this life, we do not see sin and judgment in a quid pro quo arrangement. Job’s experience, and the inspired narrative of it, constitutes a large portion of the special revelation as to how we are to regard suffering among the people of God.”
Turretin lists five general uses or ends of natural theology.
Turretin situates natural theology as subordinate to supernatural theology for the latter is insufficient for a true knowledge of God or salvation.
Turretin does not give a definition of natural theology other than describing what it consists of, “The natural, occupied with that which may be known of God (to gnōston tou Theou), is both innate (from the common notions implanted in each one) and acquired (which creatures gain discursively).”
The early Reformed scholastic Francis Junius influenced Reformed theology greatly in his work A Treatise of True Theology.
For close to a millennium, the model of Christian discipleship had been centered upon the institution of the monastery/nunnery in which men and women lived celibate lives of simplicity and austerity. But the normal context of Christian discipleship in the era of the New Testament and the Ancient Church was in the realm of married life.
There are two pillars on which Turretin constructs his natural theology, the first being Calvin’s duplex cognition dei.
A Christian’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper affects his understanding of the hypostatic union, sanctification, and other related doctrines. The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is worth debating so that the church may hone its understanding and better remember the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
Natural theology has been confessed throughout the history of the church, it has not been used or understood monolithically. To use the recurring phrase of Turretin, many have “erred in excess” or “erred in defect” in their conception of natural theology.