Revelation

REVELATION. - The term R., from the Latin revelare, literally "to uncover," means the manifestation of a hidden reality or truth. In this sense it was also used in biblical and theological language to designate the manifestation freely made by God of his inaccessible essence or of his designs unknown to men. The corresponding terms used by the Bible are ἀποκάλυψις (Mt. 11:27), φανέρωσις and its derivatives (Rom. 3:21), with a slight difference in meaning among them.

Every religion, being a relationship between God and man, presupposes in man a knowledge of God, and therefore presupposes a manifestation of God to man. But for the religious forms historically known, apart from the Judeo-Christian religion, it is rather man who arrives at the knowledge of God, by one path or another, than God who freely manifests himself to man as his God, Christ and Savior. Islam, which seems to be an exception, is a religion derived from the Judeo-Christian religion. Parsism is of an origin still too obscure to constitute a sure exception (cf. G. Kittel, op. cit. in bibl., III, pp. 566-73).

The Bible and Christianity know a manifestation of God to humanity through nature, which has a relationship of dependence on and resemblance to its author, so that the human intellect can ascend from it to God and acquire a certain knowledge of his existence and a certain (aliqualis) knowledge of his nature (Vatican Council, Denz-U, 1785, 1806). This first manifestation of God, clearly taught in Wis. 13:1-9, presupposed by Rom. 1:18-21, Acts 14-17; 17:24-27, is often called natural R., or R. of God through nature. It is, however, essentially different from R. in the proper sense: because it is not an act of God manifesting himself to man, but an act of man who arrives at the knowledge of God.

Besides this one, the Bible and Christianity affirm the existence of a second, more direct and immediate manifestation of God, who has made himself and his designs known through a teaching addressed immediately to certain privileged men (prophets, Apostles), but destined for all humanity. This is R. properly so called, or supernatural R. Alongside public R., of which alone we speak here, the common teaching of the Church also admits the existence of private revelations, that is, not destined for all humanity. It should be noted that r. made to individual persons, but contained in Scripture, such as the vision of Zechariah (Lk. 1:8-25) or of Peter (Acts 10:9-16), belong to public R.

I. EXISTENCE

The existence of this supernatural public revelation is a fundamental point of Catholic doctrine.

1. Scripture

A few of the more characteristic testimonies of Scripture suffice: in the Old Testament: the call and the promises made to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:1-21; 17:1-22), the revelation of the burning bush and of Sinai (Ex. 3:1-17; 19:1 ff.; 24:1), the call and the teaching of the prophets (1 Kings 3:1-21; Is. 1:2; 2:1; Jer. 1:4-19). In the New Testament the existence of a divine revelation is clearly taught by Jesus Christ himself: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him" (Mt. 11:27; cf. ibid. 13:3; Jn. 15:15). So evident is the newness of the Master's teaching concerning God to the disciples of Christ that John, although he knew well all the revelations contained in the Old Testament, wrote: "No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he himself has spoken" (Jn. 1:18). The same clear awareness of a divine revelation, concerning especially God's designs for humanity, is found in St. Paul (cf. 1 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 2:10-16; Gal. 1:12-13; Eph. 3:1-9). The author of the letter to the Hebrews summarizes the common thought: "At many moments and in many ways, in times past, God spoke to the fathers through the prophets; last of all, in these days, he spoke to us through the Son" (Heb. 1:1).

From the biblical teaching one can derive a description of the nature of revelation: a) God is by nature "hidden" from men (Jn. 1:18; 1 Cor. 2:10-11; 1 Tim. 6:16); they can know him as he truly is in himself only if he manifests himself, that is, reveals himself to them in a supernatural way (Mt. 11:27; 1 Cor. 2:11-14); b) supernatural revelation communicates to men a participation in the knowledge that God has of himself (1 Cor. 2:10-14; indeed the Son and the Holy Spirit, who reveal God, are God); c) this manifestation of God is not something to which God is bound, but a free initiative of love, an act of friendship on his part (Jn. 3:16 with 1:18; ibid. 15:15); d) the participation in the knowledge that God has of himself, and in general in the mysteries of God, cannot come about through natural intelligence alone, but presupposes an interior influence of God, the communication of a new principle of knowledge (1 Cor. 2:16; 1 Cor. 2:10-11; cf. Mt. 16:17; Eph. 1:17-18; 3:14-19).

2. Tradition

Guided by such clear teaching of Scripture, Christian Tradition has constantly affirmed the existence of a supernatural revelation; it is enough to recall the importance attributed to divine revelations by the prophets of the Old Testament, and above all the clear affirmation of the divine value of every word of Jesus Christ. This existence never encountered opponents in the properly Christian world until the 17th century: indeed all the Christian communities that separated from the Catholic Church from the 5th to the 17th century appeal to the supernatural revelation of Jesus Christ. The denial of a supernatural revelation, even on the part of those who admit the existence of God, began in the 18th century with deism (v.) and continued in the various forms of rationalism that succeeded one another: the Enlightenment (v.), liberal Protestantism (v.), modernism (v.).

3. Doctrine of the Church

In the face of these denials the Catholic Church has defined its doctrine, especially at the Vatican Council (sess. III, chaps. 2, 3 and 4), where it affirms: a) the existence of a twofold order of religious knowledge: the knowledge that, like the existence of God, can be and often is also the fruit of natural intelligence alone (cf. Denz-U, nos. 1785, 1806); alongside these, "holy Mother Church holds and teaches... that it pleased the wisdom and goodness of God to reveal himself and the eternal decrees of his will in another way (than nature) and a supernatural one, according to the words of the Apostle" (Heb. 1:1; Denz-U, nos. 1786, 1807); b) to this divine revelation is due the fact that religious truths, in themselves accessible to human intelligence, even in the present state of fallen nature can be known by all with certainty and without error. Nevertheless revelation is not necessary for this reason, but because God in his infinite goodness has destined man to a supernatural end, that is, to participate in the goods that completely surpass man's intelligence (it cites 1 Cor. 2:9; Denz-U, no. 1786). The object of revelation is therefore not only religious truths naturally accessible to human intelligence, but also mysteries properly so called (Denz-U, nos. 1795-96, 1808, 1816); c) divine revelation, contained in divinely inspired Scripture and in the traditions deriving from the Apostles, has been entrusted to the Church, which faithfully guards it and infallibly interprets it (Denz-U, nos. 1787-88, 1800); d) to divine revelation is due the full homage of the intellect and the will, which is exercised in faith (Denz-U, nos. 1789, 1810-11); e) to make divine revelation knowable and the homage of faith owed to it reasonable, God grants interior helps of grace, and has furnished revelation itself with external arguments, in the first place miracles and prophecies, which "are most certain signs and suited to the intelligence of all, of divine revelation" (Denz-U, nos. 1789-90).

This doctrine represents a complete summary of the traditional teaching of the Church concerning revelation. For this reason both points have been taken up again even recently, in the face of the resurgence of ancient errors, in the anti-modernist oath (Denz-U, no. 2145) and in the recent encyclical Humani generis (Aug. 12, 1950).

II. NATURE OF REVELATION

Theology has deepened its understanding of the nature of supernatural revelation, making use of the analogies offered by human experience.

1. Active and passive revelation

Revelation is a "word of God to man"; it therefore involves an act in God, by which he communicates his thought, and implies in man an effect corresponding to this act, analogously to what happens when a man wishes to communicate his own thought to another. The act of God is called active revelation; the effect in man is called passive revelation, or revelation received. Active revelation in God is nothing other than the eternal act of intelligence, in which is contained the truth to be communicated, the manner of communicating it, and the recipient of that truth itself; and the eternal act of will by which God freely wills that, in the course of time, at the moment and in the person chosen by him, the revealed truth should present itself in the manner willed by him and that there should be formed in that person a certain judgment of the immediately divine origin of that truth. The realization in time of this act of the divine will constitutes passive revelation.

2. The forms and content of passive revelation

Historically it is established that God chose different ways of communicating truths, such as the word addressed to Moses from the burning bush (Ex. 3:1 ff.), or those heard by the disciples at the Transfiguration (Mt. 17:3), or by means of visions, such as that of Peter (Acts 10:19-23), or simply through the communication of ideas that the recipient is conscious of receiving directly from God (thus most of the "revelations" had by St. Paul are probably to be understood: cf. Gal. 1:12; Eph. 3:3). The essential element of passive revelation is the certain consciousness that the recipient acquires that this truth is communicated to him directly by God. Without this certain consciousness there would be a truth communicated by God (infused knowledge), but there would not be revelation in the proper sense, since one would not be in possession of a truth guaranteed by God.

The psychological origin of this consciousness may also vary. It can arise from an immediate experience, as appears in the prophets of the Old Testament; it can arise from a reflection enlightened by a particular divine light (thus, probably, for Peter's confession [Mt. 16:16-17] and for the revelations of Paul); it can arise from reasoning: when the Apostles understood and definitively believed that Jesus was truly the Son of God, and had been so from his birth, then the whole life, the gestures, the words of the Master acquired in their eyes a new value: everything in him became for them divine revelation. Traces of these reflections are evident in the Gospel of John (2:21-22, 23-25; 6:65; 7:39). Even in this last case, however, the formation of the certain judgment concerning the immediately divine origin of the truth received must not be considered to be of purely natural origin. According to Thomist doctrine, perfectly in conformity in this with biblical teaching, at the origin of the certain consciousness of revelation there always stands a supernatural illumination of the intelligence (cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, De Revelatione, I, 3rd ed., Rome 1931, pp. 159-62).

3. Revelation, inspiration, assistance

In the light of this doctrine one understands exactly the difference and the relations between revelation and other supernatural facts, such as prophetic or biblical inspiration and the assistance promised to the Church for the infallible preservation of revealed truth: a) prophetic inspiration is a knowledge that the prophet acquires and expresses concerning facts or realities remote from his natural intelligence through a particular divine influence: of which, however, he may not be conscious; so that the prophet does not always, or at least not necessarily, propose his word to others as the word of God, as a truth of divine origin. When he should acquire certain awareness of the divine origin of this knowledge of his, there would be a revelation properly so called; b) from biblical inspiration revelation is distinguished because the former does not of itself involve the communication of new truths to be preserved in the sacred books, but only a particular divine influence so that the truth known and expressed in the book, by whatever way it has been known, truly corresponds to the thought that God wishes to communicate to men through the sacred book. Moreover, the inspired writer may not be conscious of the divine influence that guides him in the composition of the book. Once, however, the sacred book has been composed or has been recognized as such, every affirmation of the hagiographer, being inspired by God, becomes for that very reason a truth communicated by God to men and guaranteed by his authority, becomes revealed truth. For this reason Scripture is the first "source of revelation"; c) divine revelation is distinguished from the divine assistance promised to the Church, because revelation is the first supernatural communication of truth, whereas the promised assistance is a gift of understanding and of exact teaching of a truth already received. Revelation and infallible assistance stand to each other as creation and conservation in general.

4. The Catholic conception and the rationalistic conception of revelation

For Catholic doctrine, revelation is an act of a transcendent and personal God, who by virtue of the supreme dominion that he possesses over all intelligent creatures enters into the cognitive life of these creatures outside of every purely natural psychological law. It is God who becomes teacher and immediate witness of the truth that he communicates; and man does nothing but become conscious of this objective supernatural divine intervention.

For rationalism, religious revelation is a phenomenon analogous to any other discovery of naturally knowable truths: it is a subjective intuition of men, particularly gifted, who attribute to the divinity the fruit of their experiences, which they find difficult to explain psychologically in a completely natural way. For modernism (v.) revelation is nothing but the becoming conscious of religious experience or feeling, and when it seeks to express itself by means of concepts, like any other phenomenon of consciousness, it gives rise to religious doctrine, or objective revelation. Therefore there is no place for any objective communication of truth on the part of God: everything has its origin in consciousness and in subjective illusion.

III. THE PHASES OF REVELATION

In this immense work of teaching on the part of God, several phases must be distinguished: primitive revelation; Hebrew revelation; Christian revelation.

1. Primitive revelation

It is not possible to know with absolute certainty the content of the truths communicated by God to the first parents and the manner in which they were communicated. The narrative of the origins of humanity, of the test, of the fall and of its consequences, contained in the first three chapters of Genesis (v.), certainly reproduces historical realities, but it does not allow us to reconstruct with all the particulars the manner in which they historically took place. Common theological teaching holds as certain the existence of a primitive revelation at the origins of humanity. And this teaching appears confirmed by the results of the comparative history of religions (v.).

2. Hebrew revelation

The existence of a divine revelation to the Hebrew people is one of the fundamental teachings of Christianity; to it Jesus and the Apostles explicitly appeal (Mt. 5:18, 21 ff.; 22:31; Acts 1:16; 28:25; Rom. 1:2; Heb. 1:1; 3:7). Christian revelation itself is the fulfillment of the Hebrew revelation that prepared it (cf. Mt. 5:18). Here are some characteristics: a) progressiveness: it began with the vocation of Abraham (Gen. 12:1 ff.), but Scripture itself attests that God did not manifest himself completely to Abraham (Ex. 6:3). Historians of the Hebrew religion point out the successive developments that it underwent on three fundamental ideas: monotheism, messianism, the conception of the future life. This development is certainly due in part to a deepening of the religious reflection of the Hebrews, but in large part, especially as regards the first two ideas, it is due to a progressive illumination of divine revelation; b) the instruments of this revelation were certain men (patriarchs, prophets, hagiographers), whom God freely chose. The Hebrew revelation was not a continuous revelation, and among the Hebrew people there was no organ that was the official bearer of the divine revelation, as the magisterium now is in the Church; there was, however, a means of transmitting the revelation: the sacred books. For this reason in the Hebrew religion it is possible to observe notable differences of development in different periods, and at times even momentary obscurations, parallel currents not perfectly amalgamated with one another. All the more evident, however, appears the divine action which, guiding and making use of all the natural diversities, brought the Hebrew people to that degree of religious knowledge which made possible the insertion, without violent shocks, of the Christian revelation; c) the Hebrew revelation was in fact a preparatory revelation that was not an end in itself; its function was to prepare the Christian revelation, in which it found its fulfillment (cf. Mt. 5:18; Gal. 3:24). For this reason the Hebrew revelation ceased its function with the coming of the Christian revelation, or, better, the whole content of truth that it possessed was made its own by the Christian revelation.

3. Christian revelation

The disciples of Christ had a most vivid sense of the newness of the Christian revelation with respect to the Hebrew revelation (cf. Jn. 1:18; Eph. 3:1 ff.; Heb. 1:2). Jesus himself emphasized the newness of his teaching, particularly as regards the mystery of the Trinity (Jn. 15:15), the mystery of the Church (Mt. 13:11), the perfection of the Christian law (ibid. 5:21 ff.). But the teaching of Jesus Christ did not consist only in words: his every gesture, his every interior sentiment, known outwardly, was an objective manifestation of the thought and love of God. The first and great revelation of God is the very Person of the Incarnate Word (cf. II Cor. 4:4-6). In the light of the teaching of Jesus Christ and under the illumination of the Holy Spirit promised by him (Jn. 14:26; 15:26; 16:12-15), the Apostles understood ever more completely the mystery of Christ and of our solidarity with him, the mystery of the Redemption and of our participation in the divine life through Jesus Christ, the mystery of Christ who is the Church, the divine designs concerning the future life of the Church. All this patrimony of truth constitutes the Christian revelation. It was concluded with the death of the last Apostle and was handed over to the Church either in the form of written documents (the inspired books of the New Testament) or in the form of traditions faithfully preserved and transmitted by the episcopal body. After the death of the last Apostle the Church has no new public revelations, but it understands, interprets and explains in an ever clearer light and with an ever greater completeness the content of the revelation received from the Apostles. In this consists the development of dogma (v.).

IV. POSSIBILITY OF REVELATION

The difficulties against the possibility of revelation are derived from its superfluity, from its incompatibility with divine wisdom, from its alleged anthropomorphism, from the incommunicability of the divine knowledge or, as regards mediated revelation, from the intervention of human instruments subject to error.

The first difficulty is derived from the self-sufficiency and autonomy of the human intelligence. Man must suffice unto himself in the knowledge of moral and religious truth as well: nothing can be accepted as true unless it is recognized as true by reason; man would contradict the most intimate exigency of his nature if he accepted a truth from outside, even from God. The answer is: the immanentist supposition of the self-sufficiency of the human intelligence, however, easily falls before two facts. The historical observation of the enormous difficulty, for men, of knowing the fundamental moral and religious truths outside the influence of Judeo-Christian revelation. It is enough to recall the difficulties, the contradictions, the errors of philosophy, the puerilities and, at times, the coarse aberrations of religious conceptions. In the second place, one could deny the existence of truths inaccessible to the human intelligence only by supposing that man can with his natural intelligence exhaust the reality and the designs of God. Such a postulate, however, would evidently contradict the infinity of the divine Being: if God is truly infinite, He cannot but have something unattainable by the finite intelligence of man. On the other hand, it constitutes no diminution for man to receive from God some illumination on the mystery of his life and of his action in the universe. Revelation cannot appear contradictory to the dignity of man except to one who supposes that man is himself the absolute.

The second difficulty could be formulated thus: for revelation to appear intelligible and therefore possible, it is not enough that God have unknown truths to communicate; there must be an intelligible reason for doing this. One does not see what the revelation of unknown truths could serve. The answer is: according to Catholic doctrine (v. above: Council of the Vatican) revelation has a twofold purpose: it supplies the deficiencies of the natural intelligence for the knowledge of religious and moral truths, completing the limited capacities of the fallen intelligence with the higher light that comes from divine teaching; it further introduces men to the knowledge of the supernatural realities that constitute the real world in which the life of humanity now unfolds. Revelation is not an end in itself; it does not represent the ultimate and definitive rite between man and God; but it is that of another knowledge, the beatific vision, in which the present imperfect knowledge of the supernatural realities communicated by revelation will become a perfectly clear and self-transparent knowledge. Revelation therefore has an essentially pedagogical function: the immediate purpose of revelation is to make possible the love of supernatural realities, that love which is called supernatural charity; because charity is the indispensable condition and the preparation for the vision.

The third and fourth difficulties were particularly emphasized in the modernist period in the form of a dilemma: either one conceives revelation as the communication of a divine "word" or concept in the usual meaning of the term, and then one falls into anthropomorphism; or one maintains the infinite transcendence of the divine knowing, and then one does not understand how it can be communicated to man. The answer is this: the difficulty reproduces, in the particular sector of revelation, the general problem of the relations between the divine infinite and the human finite. Theological thought had already formulated the solution in principle with the doctrine of analogy (v.). The divine truth is communicated to men by means of concepts which, while not expressing it as it is in God, and therefore not expressing it adequately, are nonetheless capable of truly reproducing its content, in a certain measure. One could have recourse, to illustrate this answer, to the knowledge and the teaching of Jesus Christ. According to the common and certain theological doctrine, Jesus possessed during his earthly life the immediate vision of the Being and the designs of God: he saw the Trinity and in the Trinity all reality having some relation to him. He himself attested this (Jn 16:14-15). Such knowledge was a single, most simple, intuitive act, which embraced everything. Jesus spoke to the disciples in order to communicate to them a participation in his own knowledge of God (ibid. 15:15): and he spoke a human language, made of concepts and words accessible to the finite human intelligence. In his intelligence there occurred the passage from the simplicity of the divine knowledge to the imperfect but not deceptive multiplicity of human concepts. What occurred in him as a consequence of his being the Incarnate Word, God can miraculously repeat in other men, whom he chooses in order to reveal.

The last difficulty concerns the rationality of a mediated revelation: granted that revelation is possible and knowable by the one who immediately receives it; but when it is communicated to men, then it loses the guarantee of its divine origin. The men who received it, apart from Jesus Christ, were all fallible and limited, and inevitably, even without realizing it, they could transmit, along with the truth of divine origin, their limited, personal or perhaps erroneous interpretation of the truth received. The answer is that it belongs to the essence of revelation that the one who receives it have a clear and certain knowledge of what he receives from God and distinguish it from his own personal reflections, and the very experience of the recipients of revelation assures us of this: it is enough to recall the way in which Paul speaks of virginity and marriage (1 Cor 7:10-12). Moreover, it must be remembered that we are not here dealing with phenomena explicable by purely natural causes; if God willed that the truth revealed by him should reach all men precisely as he revealed it, he certainly does not lack the possibility of obtaining this: and it is this that the assistance of the Holy Spirit, promised first to the Apostles, then to the Church, guarantees us.

V. KNOWABILITY

This reflection opens the way to resolving also the last difficulties, concerning the knowability of divine R. The difficulty takes two forms: it is not clear how the one who receives the R. can acquire the certainty of not being the victim of an illusion. Furthermore, it is not clear how others, who do not have the experience of immediate contact with God, can acquire the certainty that he is not the victim of an illusion.

It has already been said (v. above, III, 2) that the certain consciousness of receiving a truth from God can have different psychological origins: this certainty cannot be formed, like any other certainty, except by a purely interior path. Often, however, one notices that the recipient of the R. doubts its divine origin and wishes to withdraw from the commitments that the word of God imposes; then God intervenes with extraordinary signs, which eliminate every doubt, for example, in the vision of Zechariah (Lk. 1:18-20), or in the conversion of Paul (Acts 9:1-19). But above all it must be remembered that in forming this judgment the human intellect is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth: Scripture regards those who receive some R. from God and who speak in God's name as "full of the Holy Spirit," that is, as enlightened by him in a supernatural way. For this reason they can have certainties that are naturally inexplicable to others (cf. 1 Cor. 2:12-16). The question then arises how others, who do not have this immediate experience of theirs, can distinguish men truly enlightened by the Holy Spirit from the deluded or from liars; the true from the false prophets. The R. itself suggests various criteria or signs, which constitute as many motives for recognizing the true R.: the moral quality of the prophet, the content of his doctrine, the fruits of this doctrine and finally - the decisive criterion - the works that he performs in order to guarantee, through God's intervention, the divine origin of what he asserts: prophecies and miracles (cf. Jn. 15:22-24). When God speaks, and wishes his R. to reach all men, he well knows how to accompany it with "signs," such as to guarantee its divine origin to every man disposed to receive it (cf. Mk. 16:20).

VI. MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF REVELATION

The reason for the divine guarantee lies in the moral consequences that derive from the fact of revelation: God, who speaks, man is bound to believe. That is, he must accept as true everything God says, even if it appears difficult and inexplicable to his intelligence, and, in the moral order, he must adopt as the norm of his own conduct the norms revealed by God (for example, the beatitudes). With the existence of a divine revelation, the human intelligence ceases to be the sole norm of religious and moral truth and must accept a truth that transcends it. Moreover, even when he did not have certainty of a divine revelation, if only the hypothesis of its existence presents itself to him, man is bound to seek it; as soon as he perceives it as possible that God has spoken, he has the duty to seek whether this has truly happened and not to stop until he has realized where the divine revelation truly is. The search may be long and difficult, but if he has good will, Grace guides him infallibly toward the light: to encounter God.

Carlo Colombo