> If this way of coming to know God is as important as you
>suggest, the complete silence of Scripture about any examples of it is
>very strange.
I agree it is very strange. God's dealings with those outside the main
biblical stream are a mystery. Apparently God did not think it important to
tell us how He dealt with the occupants of India, China, Japan, Austrailia,
South Seas, North and South America, Europe, while he was making of Israel a
people for Himself.
>How about all of those non-Israelites or those
>> before Abram? How did they come to believe?
>
> Like who? God _speaks_ to Cain & Noah - one can think through
>other people. (Thus Luther on Gen.4) Who's arguing from silence now?
How about the Canaanite Melchizedek?
>The Bible _doesn't_ say they _weren't_ converted by contemplating the
>starry heavens, so they were? Everybody in the Bible who believes in
>the true God does so because God addresses him or her, mediately or
>through the preaching of others. "Faith comes from what is heard, and
>what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ" (Rom.10:17).
I don't know how they became believers. I don't say that the witness of
creation is the only witness, but I think it is clear from Rom 1 that it was
an important witness.
>
> "It is a remarkable thing that no canonical writer ever used
> nature as a proof of God's existence. All set out to convince
> us of it. But David, Solomon, and the rest never said: `There
> is no void; therefore there is a God.' They must have been
> cleverer than the cleverest of their successors, every one of
> whom has used this argument. The fact is worth pondering on."
> Pascal, Pensee #6.
>
I guess Pascal's argument from silence is about as effective as anyone
else's argument from silence.
Bob Miller