Divine Revelation: God Speaks
One way we learn about someone is to ask questions. When we ask, however, we must be prepared to listen to the answers. When we discuss revelation, this is what we are talking about. Revelation is God making himself known to human beings. Revelation, in a sense, is a way of communication. This requires a communicator, who is God, as well as a people to receive the revelation. In one way of looking at it, there are two types of revelation.
The first type is God revealing himself through creation (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC 32]) in both what we can observe about the physical world and through the human person himself. The creation itself tells us about the existence of God the Creator just as the human person reveals to us God’s existence through the human soul, that “seed of eternity” that can originate only in God (CCC 33). Sometimes this kind of revelation is called natural revelation.
Natural revelation is natural in two ways: first, because the world of nature is the medium through which we receive our knowledge about God; second, because man's natural use of reason is the means of learning about God.
When we look at the created world around us, we have the natural ability to learn about God. As St. Paul tells us, "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made" (Rom 1:20).
God, therefore, reveals himself to us in the natural world of creation and through the use of our natural reason. We can observe the world around us and draw a logical conclusion that God exists. This is called natural revelation because we are using our native power of reasoning about creatures to "perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them" (Wis 13:4).
But while human beings can know God exists and can also know certain important attributes of God, including the basic difference between good and evil, it is in practice difficult to know these things without a great deal of time and effort and making many mistakes along the way. Besides, there are many more important questions about God that man simply cannot figure out on his own—questions such as who God is, what sort of God he is, and what his overall purpose was in creating human beings. For these reasons, God has chosen to reveal himself in a second, more special way. The second type of revelation is more important for the study of God. Sometimes this type of revelation is called supernatural revelation.
Supernatural revelation is always supernatural in the way that God reveals Himself. God has revealed himself supernaturally in both words and deeds CCC 53. The deeds of God do not refer only or even primarily to God’s work of making the world and sustaining it. The deeds of God are rather his interventions in human history. These begin with his dealings with our first parents in the Garden of Eden when he did not simply create human beings but invited them into intimate communion with himself (CCC 54). But human beings fell from their lofty calling and as a result sin and death entered the world. Fortunately, however, God continued to act in human history. His later deeds included his choice the people of Abraham as his means of solving the problem of sin and death in the world, his deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery and the series of covenants that he made with his chosen people as part of his overall plan of salvation. The deeds of God are recounted in the inspired words of Scripture. We will discuss more about Scripture as divine revelation a bit later.
There is another aspect to divine revelation called Tradition. We will discuss Tradition in more detail later too. But for now we can say that Tradition is not the written words of Scripture by themselves but the words of Scripture lived out in the life of the Church as she contemplates, meditates and puts into effect those words An example of a truth revealed by Tradition is that God is a Holy Trinity. The Scriptures themselves never use the word “Trinity” but instead reveal to us all sorts of things about God and Jesus Christ—a fact which in the history of the Church has caused great confusion. The word “Trinity” captures the essence of God’s inner life and being in a way that preserves the fullness of truth about God and Jesus in the Bible. The term “Trinity” provides us a way a speaking about God that is utterly faithful to the many things the Bible reveals about him.
Sometimes the Trinity is called a mystery of faith. A mystery in its strict sense is a truth we could not even know existed until God revealed it, and, even when it has been revealed, we cannot comprehend how it is true. We cannot ever understand it completely. The truth revealed transcends the natural power and ability of a created and therefore finite mind. Some of the fundamental mysteries of Christianity are such.
Divine revelation is in essence not about things or religious ideas or even commandments of God: divine revelation is God’s disclosure of himself. The ultimate revelation of God is Jesus Christ, his Son. In the epistle to the Hebrews we are told, "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world" (Heb 1:1-2). Jesus Christ is the fullness of the message of the revelation from God. Once God sent his own divine Son, there was nothing more or better that He could say.
Jesus taught his followers both personally and in the gift of the Holy Spirit (John 16:37). The body of teaching Jesus and the Holy Spirit left behind is called the deposit of faith. There are two paradoxical truths about the deposit of faith. The first is that the deposit is closed. Through Jesus Christ, God has said all there is to say. The second however is that though the deposit of faith is closed, the Church is continually growing in its knowledge and understanding of that deposit, through her worship of God in the liturgy and through her contemplation of the mysteries of faith. In next week’s lesson which deals with the development of doctrine, we will look at this more closely.
The first type is God revealing himself through creation (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC 32]) in both what we can observe about the physical world and through the human person himself. The creation itself tells us about the existence of God the Creator just as the human person reveals to us God’s existence through the human soul, that “seed of eternity” that can originate only in God (CCC 33). Sometimes this kind of revelation is called natural revelation.
Natural revelation is natural in two ways: first, because the world of nature is the medium through which we receive our knowledge about God; second, because man's natural use of reason is the means of learning about God.
When we look at the created world around us, we have the natural ability to learn about God. As St. Paul tells us, "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made" (Rom 1:20).
God, therefore, reveals himself to us in the natural world of creation and through the use of our natural reason. We can observe the world around us and draw a logical conclusion that God exists. This is called natural revelation because we are using our native power of reasoning about creatures to "perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them" (Wis 13:4).
But while human beings can know God exists and can also know certain important attributes of God, including the basic difference between good and evil, it is in practice difficult to know these things without a great deal of time and effort and making many mistakes along the way. Besides, there are many more important questions about God that man simply cannot figure out on his own—questions such as who God is, what sort of God he is, and what his overall purpose was in creating human beings. For these reasons, God has chosen to reveal himself in a second, more special way. The second type of revelation is more important for the study of God. Sometimes this type of revelation is called supernatural revelation.
Supernatural revelation is always supernatural in the way that God reveals Himself. God has revealed himself supernaturally in both words and deeds CCC 53. The deeds of God do not refer only or even primarily to God’s work of making the world and sustaining it. The deeds of God are rather his interventions in human history. These begin with his dealings with our first parents in the Garden of Eden when he did not simply create human beings but invited them into intimate communion with himself (CCC 54). But human beings fell from their lofty calling and as a result sin and death entered the world. Fortunately, however, God continued to act in human history. His later deeds included his choice the people of Abraham as his means of solving the problem of sin and death in the world, his deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery and the series of covenants that he made with his chosen people as part of his overall plan of salvation. The deeds of God are recounted in the inspired words of Scripture. We will discuss more about Scripture as divine revelation a bit later.
There is another aspect to divine revelation called Tradition. We will discuss Tradition in more detail later too. But for now we can say that Tradition is not the written words of Scripture by themselves but the words of Scripture lived out in the life of the Church as she contemplates, meditates and puts into effect those words An example of a truth revealed by Tradition is that God is a Holy Trinity. The Scriptures themselves never use the word “Trinity” but instead reveal to us all sorts of things about God and Jesus Christ—a fact which in the history of the Church has caused great confusion. The word “Trinity” captures the essence of God’s inner life and being in a way that preserves the fullness of truth about God and Jesus in the Bible. The term “Trinity” provides us a way a speaking about God that is utterly faithful to the many things the Bible reveals about him.
Sometimes the Trinity is called a mystery of faith. A mystery in its strict sense is a truth we could not even know existed until God revealed it, and, even when it has been revealed, we cannot comprehend how it is true. We cannot ever understand it completely. The truth revealed transcends the natural power and ability of a created and therefore finite mind. Some of the fundamental mysteries of Christianity are such.
Divine revelation is in essence not about things or religious ideas or even commandments of God: divine revelation is God’s disclosure of himself. The ultimate revelation of God is Jesus Christ, his Son. In the epistle to the Hebrews we are told, "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world" (Heb 1:1-2). Jesus Christ is the fullness of the message of the revelation from God. Once God sent his own divine Son, there was nothing more or better that He could say.
Jesus taught his followers both personally and in the gift of the Holy Spirit (John 16:37). The body of teaching Jesus and the Holy Spirit left behind is called the deposit of faith. There are two paradoxical truths about the deposit of faith. The first is that the deposit is closed. Through Jesus Christ, God has said all there is to say. The second however is that though the deposit of faith is closed, the Church is continually growing in its knowledge and understanding of that deposit, through her worship of God in the liturgy and through her contemplation of the mysteries of faith. In next week’s lesson which deals with the development of doctrine, we will look at this more closely.
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