Introduction: Revelation has
been understood in various terms. We
will study some of those understandings or views of revelation in brief:
1 Proposition: Traditionally revelation has been understood
in terms of verbal or quasi-verbal communications by God to recipients who then
pass on what they have heard- ‘Thus says the Lord…’ Revelation is thus
understood to have a propositional form and faith is seen as assent to the
revealed propositions. Thomas Aquinas
accordingly describes ‘sacreddoctrine’as ‘established
on principles revealed by God.’
The primary
location of these revealed propositions is commonly held to be the Bible. Although authority may also be ascribed to
the unwritten tradition of the church and to the works of the Fathers, the
Bible has been seen as the work in which the divinely conveyed propositions are
expressed. It is thus describable as
‘the Word of God.’ Thomas Aquinas states
that God is ‘its author’ and John Calvin speaks of it as ‘the only records in which Godhas been
pleased to consign his truth to perpetual remembrance’ and its contents therefore as having
as ‘full
authority’ as if ‘God had been heard giving utterance to them.’
Nevertheless, even if the revealed truths are held to have been given in
some verbal form, they still have to be understood and applied.
2 Event and History: Since an Enlightenment and to an important
extent as a result of critical study of the Bible, the propositional view of
revelation has widely given way to the view that divine revelation is through
events and that the Bible, so far as it is authoritative for theological
understanding, is so as to the record of these events and of faith’s perception
of their revelatory significance.
According to the so-called Heilsgeschichte (salvation history)
school, God reveals himself by means of certain events in history. For example, G. Ernest Wright describes
history as ‘the chief medium of revelation’ and theology as ‘theconfessional
recital of the redemptive acts of God in a particular history.’ For Christian theology this history consists
of the events which are reported in the Bible.
3 Encounter: Another type of the non-propositional
understanding of revelation stresses that it is not a matter of the imparting
of information but one of immediate encounter with the divine. Thus Paul Tillich states that ‘revelation
is not communication concerning abeing, even concerning a transcendental being’
but ‘the
self-giving of the absolute hidden,which by the very fact of its self-giving
emerges from its concealment’ in a total manner.
4 Presence: Revelation in the NT takes the form of
the union of word and act in the person of Jesus. William Temple suggests that this makes sense
since the personal God can be revealed adequately and fully in and through the
life of a person, and human persons can fully understand only that which is
personal. Jesus is the union of the act
of God and the word of God (1 Cor.1:24; Jn.1:14). Thus the concept of the word of God is
transformed and gains a new meaning. It
means no longer speech from God mediated by the prophets but the very personal presence
of God. Now the word of God is
not simply something which is heard but the one who is seen, touched, and
encountered (1 Jn.1:1)
Conclusion: The above models
help us see that all theological understanding is a matter of gaining insights
into the ultimate nature of reality.
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