Recent developments in the doctrine of Revelation

Handbooks, encyclopaedias and equivalents

Yet I might have drawn some comfort from other handbooks and encyclopaedias, as well as from works that use language which is at least partially equivalent to ‘revelation’: ‘God speaks’ and ‘the Word of God’.

Russell Re Manning has edited a superb handbook that maps the current revival of interest in natural theology. ¹² The 38 chapters are arranged into five sections which examine historical, theological, philosophical, scientific and cultural/aesthetic perspectives on natural theology. The relations between revelation and reason have proved a classic area of theological reflection for practitioners of natural theology, as have traditional arguments for the existence of God which involve ‘natural’ and ‘revealed’ considerations. On these and many other questions, dozens of issues concerning revelation surface and are handled skilfully. The index to The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology illustrates abundantly how themes that involve the divine self-revelation remain alive and well for those engaged with natural theology in its different forms.

Another handbook that does not ignore the theme of revelation is The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology. ¹³ Ben Quash contributes a chapter, ‘Revelation’, to this volume in collaboration. ¹⁴ He evaluates helpfully the theology of revelation developed by Barth, Rahner, von Balthasar, their predecessors and contemporaries.

Normally theological dictionaries and encyclopaedias continue to carry entries on revelation. The Theologische Realenzylopädie, as might be expected, provides an outstanding treatment of ‘Offenbarung’. ¹⁵ The Encyclopedia of Christian Theology carries a briefer but thoroughly useful entry. ¹⁶

That God ‘speaks’ or ‘has spoken’ takes its place in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 AD (‘who has spoken through the prophets’). Some recent writers have privileged this language over that of ‘revelation’. In his Wilde Lectures at the University of Oxford, Nicholas Wolterstorff reflected philosophically on the claim that God speaks. ¹⁷ He uses speech-action theory, and concludes that it is coherent to claim that God performs ‘illocutionary’ actions. Unfortunately, in the course of his argument, Wolterstorff maintains that some of his fellow philosophers have been mistaken in assimilating divine speech to divine revelation. ¹⁸ This is to bypass the way many theologians of different schools classically understood revelation to be locutio Dei (the speaking of God).

In Beloved Community: Critical Dogmatics after Christendom, ¹⁹ a work of nearly one thousand pages, Paul Hinlicky attends to ‘the Word of God’ and has nothing to say about ‘revelation’ as such. ‘Word of God’ theology has, of course, its rich background in the works of Karl Barth (who, however, also used extensively the language of ‘revelation’) and others, not to mention past theologians like Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816–86) who summed up revelation as locutio Dei attestans (the speaking of God witnessing). Nevertheless, as Wolfhart Pannenberg and others have argued, the Word of God theology forgets at its peril God’s revealing and saving acts in history. ²⁰ An adequate theology of revelation that takes on board the full scope of the biblical witness needs to embrace both the acta Dei and the locutio Dei, both the divine discourse and the divine activity.

The liturgy and analytical philosophy

Many years ago the late Archbishop Guilford Young, himself an internationally recognized liturgical specialist, complained to me about the way theologians persistently ignore the liturgy as a source and focus for their thinking. The 1563 work of Melchior Cano, De Locis Theologicis, enjoyed a very long impact: his list of seven loci for theology did not include the liturgy. Change has been slow in coming, not least in theological reflection on revelation.

Hence it is a delight to find Philip Caldwell developing the work of an eminent liturgist, Salvatore Marsili, and encouraging a long needed change with Liturgy as Revelation. ²¹ The Eucharist, the celebration of the other sacraments, preaching, the liturgy of the hours and the visual art that adorns places of public worship – not to mention sacred music – would be unthinkable without the self-revelation of God witnessed by Holy Scripture and tradition. The mediation of divine revelation through Christian liturgies, where the priority belongs to the powerfully active risen Christ and his Holy Spirit, demands theological reflection. How, for instance, do believers encounter Christ within the sacramental practice of baptism and the Eucharist?

Apropos of the Eucharist, St Paul writes: ‘as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you announce the death of the Lord until he comes’ (1 Cor 11: 26). In what sense do this eucharistic eating, drinking, and announcing reveal the crucified and risen Lord here and now, as we wait for the definitive disclosure when he finally comes in glory?

Maintaining high standards in their practice of analytical philosophy, Sandra Menssen and Thomas D. Sullivan have produced a first-rate study, The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint. ²² Both sometime agnostics, Menssen and Sullivan have proposed that inquirers should not begin by examining the case for the existence of a good God as a preamble to discussing the question of divine revelation. They need only show that it is not highly unlikely that there is a creator before considering the question: ‘Has the good God revealed anything to us?’ They skilfully defend this proposal and work out its implications.

Self-revelation Primary

Well into the 20th century much theology and official teaching more or less identified revelation with content: that is to say, with a set of divinely authenticated truths otherwise inaccessible to human reason and now accepted in faith on God’s authority. This ‘propositional’ view represented revelation as primarily the supernatural disclosure of new truths which significantly enriched our knowledge about God.

But from the end of the 19th century more and more theologians and, eventually, official church documents, above all, the Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) developed as the primary model of revelation the notion of interpersonal encounter and dialogue. We find Wilhelm Hermann (1846–1922), a German Lutheran, firmly stating in his 1887 work, Der Begriff der Offenbarung, ‘all revelation is the self-revelation of God’. ²³ Primarily, God reveals the Truth (singular) or the Reality that is God rather than truths (plural) about God. Secondarily, such divine self-disclosure means that we now have some hitherto unknown and highly significant information about God, which can be expressed in the propositions of creeds and doctrines. Hence a ‘propositional’ view of revelation is not abandoned but moved into second place.

But we still find prominent writers continuing to endorse a propositional revelation as primary. Let me cite two examples: Richard Swinburne, an Anglican who became a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Paul Griffiths, also English but a Roman Catholic who teaches in the USA.

In Swinburne’s account, revelation provides reliable information about God, ‘a message from God’ that lets us know the truth of God and the way to be saved. The ‘point of a revelation is to provide honest and diligent enquirers with some information quite likely to be true about the way to salvation, on which those who seek salvation can rely’. Such ‘real revelation’ from God should be tested in a way that resembles our methods for testing letters to establish their ‘genuineness’. ²⁴ In Swinburne’s view, miracles become God’s ‘authenticating signature’, which shows that some prophetic teaching truly ‘comes from God’. ²⁵

This notion of revelation as simply messages or letters from God, rather than primarily personal encounters with God, does not fit the biblical witness of the God who in unexpected ways meets such individuals as Isaiah, Peter, Mary Magdalene and Paul, calling them to accept a new faith commitment, and radically transforming their worldview. They met God in person rather than receiving some new information about God. It was only subsequently and secondarily that they communicated in propositions what those interpersonal encounters disclosed to them. Swinburne’s picture of letters from God ignores the primary nature of revelation as a transforming meeting with God.

If a propositional view of revelation is prioritized, the faith that responds to revelation likewise becomes propositional or primarily an assent to truths or facts now revealed by God. Griffiths favours this view in Problems of Religious Diversity. ²⁶ He generally presents faith as assent to ‘claims’ revealed by God and so to be held de fide. He writes of ‘claims revealed by God’, to which it is ‘a matter of faith’ to assent. ²⁷ Hence he can describe faith as ‘faith in facts’, rather than faith in the living God who has personally approached human beings. ²⁸ This ‘faith in facts’ means, for instance, accepting that Jesus Christ is the second person of the triune God. ²⁹ The revelation that elicits such faith in facts, rather than being understood primarily as God’s personal self-revelation, also amounts to a propositional affair, or revelation understood to be the disclosure of otherwise inaccessible truths that are to be accepted, preserved and transmitted. ³⁰ Griffiths, no less than Swinburne, illustrates how prioritizing a propositional view of revelation (and faith) continues.

Revelation and inspiration not identical

In his Church Dogmatics I/1, Karl Barth affirmed: ‘the Bible is not itself and as such God’s past revelation…it bears witness to God’s past revelation, and it is God’s past revelation in the form of attestation’. ³¹ In Church Dogmatics I/2, he expressed the distinction as follows: ‘we distinguish the Bible as such from revelation. A witness is not absolutely identical with that to which it witnesses.’ ³² This distinction between the divine self-revelation and the inspired Bible is vitally important but has not always been maintained.

Whenever the divine revelation is simply identified with the Jewish–Christian Bible, this makes it difficult, if not impossible, to recognize how the revelation of God may, in various ways, be also offered to those who follow other religious faiths and who do not accept or may not even know about the existence of the Bible. Such a simple identification would involve holding ‘extra Scripturam nulla revelatio [outside the Scripture no revelation]’.

To be sure, revelation and biblical inspiration are closely related, but identifying them is a false move that creates confusion. Nicholas Adams has summarized F. D. E. Schleiermacher’s view as follows: since the Bible was ‘written in human languages and we have only one method of interpreting human languages, regardless of what is written’, there are no “special hermeneutics” for “revelation”. ³³ Such language, despite Adams’s best intentions, runs perilously close to identifying the inspired Bible tout court with revelation. Why does he not simply say that there are no special hermeneutics for the Bible?

One could put this way the case for refusing to identify the inspired Bible with the divine self-revelation. As a living, interpersonal event, revelation takes place or happens. God initiates, at particular times and in particular places and for particular persons, some form of self-disclosure. This divine initiative achieves its goal and revelation happens when human beings respond in faith to God’s self-disclosure. As such, the scriptures are not, however, a living, interpersonal event. They are written records, which, by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit came into existence through the collaboration of some believers at certain stages in the foundational history of God’s people. The scriptures differ then from the revelation in the way that written texts differ from something that actually happens between persons – in this case, between human persons and the divine Persons.

In the long history of the Bible’s composition, the gift of divine revelation and the special impulse to write inspired scriptures were not only distinguishable but also separable. Either directly or through such mediators as the prophets, the apostles, and, above all, Jesus himself, the foundational revelation was offered to all people. God’s self-communication was and is there for everyone. The special impulse to write some of the scriptures was, however, a special charism given only to those who, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, composed or helped to compose the sacred texts of what came to be known as the books of the Old and New Testament. To be sure, the scriptures were written for everyone. But the charism of inspiration was given only to a limited number of persons.

Even in the case of the sacred authors themselves, the self-revelation of God and the operation of biblical inspiration did not coincide. Receiving in faith the divine self-manifestation was one thing, being led by the Holy Spirit to set down certain things in writing was another. God’s revelation impinged on their entire lives. In cases that we know, the charism of inspiration functioned only for limited periods in their history. Thus the divine revelation was operative in Paul’s life before and after his call/conversion (around ad 36). Around ad 50 he wrote his first letter that has been preserved for us (1 Thessalonians), and went on to compose other inspired letters during the 50s and into the 60s. The divine self-communication affected Paul’s entire history, the charism of biblical inspiration only the last decade or so of his apostolic activity.

My dissatisfaction with some contemporary writers on revelation concerns the way in which, unlike Barth, they tolerate a certain fuzziness that would more or less identify revelation with biblical inspiration. Evangelicals who espouse a verbal-inerrancy view of inspiration tend to identify revelation with inspiration. ³⁴ My dissatisfaction extends also to a notable gap.

Revelation and those of other faiths

Many scholars who have written on the theology of religions have dedicated much attention to the salvation of those who follow other faiths or embrace no faith at all. But they have engaged themselves far less with the question of revelation reaching these others. Yet can salvation ever become available for anyone or for any group without a prior or a concomitant revelation? If Christ is the (saving) Life of the world, he is also the (revealing) Light of the world.

Griffiths offers an example of this neglect. In Problems of Religious Diversity he presents ‘salvation’ (but neither revelation nor faith) in an opening, two-page account of key terms. ³⁵ As the index indicates, he has much more to say about salvation than about revelation and faith. ³⁶ The book ends with a chapter on ‘the Question of Salvation’, ³⁷ but there is no chapter on ‘the Question of Revelation’.

Why do Christian theologians who write about the salvation of ‘others’ privilege the issue of salvation? The ancient adage ‘outside the Church no salvation [extra ecclesiam nulla salus]’ has cast a long shadow and may well have inhibited reflection on the distinguishable but inseparable question: should we exclude revelation outside the Church (extra ecclesiam nulla revelatio)? If, however, we accept revelation ‘outside’ the story of Judaism and Christianity, how does such revelation happen and how is it connected with Christ? How might we describe the faith that revelation calls forth? ³⁸

Chapter 11 of the Letter to the Hebrews offers a generously ‘open’ version which fits the faith that can be embraced and lived by those who remain ‘outside’ the particular history of Judaism and Christianity: ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen. By this [faith] the elders [or ancestors] received approval [from God]. By faith we understand that the universe was fashioned by the word of God, so that from what cannot be seen that which is seen has come into being’ (Heb 11:1–3). ³⁹ A further view clarifies the notion of faith envisaged: ‘whoever would approach him [God] must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him’ (Heb 11:6).

This description of faith involves a view of the past – understanding the world to have been ‘fashioned by the word of God’. Faith also relies on the divine promise when considering the goal of the world (the things ‘hoped for’ and ‘the rewards for those who seek him’). Both in their view of the past and hope for the future, the lives of those who have faith are entwined with the invisible God. As such, this account of faith makes no mention of Christ, who appears only later (Heb 12:2). The opening verses of Hebrews 11 offer examples of those who are understood to have lived on the basis of their faith: some (Abel, Enoch and Noah) existed before Abraham, Sarah and the formation of the chosen people. One figure of faith is ‘Rahab the prostitute’ (Heb 11:31), an outsider who belonged to the story of the conquest of the promised land. All in all, Hebrews 11 lets us glimpse the possibilities for those called to faith by divine revelation in the universal history of human kind.

Conclusion

Theologizing about revelation may no longer enjoy the golden age that extended to 1988, the year that von Balthasar died. Yet my revised stocktaking has appreciated some continuing reflection on revelation that has extended into the areas of liturgy and analytic philosophy.

The examples of Swinburne and Griffiths illustrate, however, that the battle still continues to recognize God’s personal self-revelation as primary, while allowing for propositional revelation as its necessary, albeit secondary, companion. It also remains as necessary as ever to maintain a distinction, not a separation, between revelation and biblical inspiration.

The need for much more thinking on the question of divine revelation reaching out to those of ‘other’ faiths or none at all is patently obvious. This question involves spending time on the question of how this ‘wider’ revelation of God achieves its goal by calling forth faith. When the Letter to the Hebrews teaches that ‘without faith it is impossible to please God’ (11:6), this is tantamount to saying that ‘without receiving in faith the divine revelation, it is impossible to please God’. Without human faith, divine revelation does not occur, and vice versa: without divine revelation, human faith (understood theologically) is impossible. Theological exploration of the divine self-revelation and corresponding human faith in the case of those ‘beyond’ the reach of Christianity and Judaism has hardly begun.

Finally, in today’s world some secular critics, alarmed by the violent irrationalism of religious fundamentalists, charge commitment to revelation with suffocating the life of reason and even worse. There is still much unfinished business towards putting the case that faith in genuine divine revelation nourishes and expands the life of reason, as well as encouraging respect for human dignity, rights and responsibilities.