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Confirmation |
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Christian faith is based on Divine Revelation. The most basic meaning of the phrase “Divine Revelation” refers to God’s action as he reveals his person and divine plan of salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit” (50). The ultimate goal of Revelation is intimate and shared life with God. But intimacy and a shared life are not possible without true knowledge of God, and knowing God includes more than intellectual head knowledge: It involves an experience of divine love in Christ. In sum, by Revelation God makes known both himself and the way to heaven. The experience of divine love makes us adoptive sons of God (like Christ, men and women receive the inheritance intended by God: grace, eternal life). Our adoption occurs in Christ, when we are incorporated into the living Body of Christ, the Church. Whatever else can be said about Divine Revelation derives from these fundamental points. Divine Revelation is both a content (person, ideas) and a process (how we come to know the person and ideas). God reveals both his person and plan of salvation (the content) through his actions and words in time and space, that is, through history (the process). God’s revealing action complements our knowledge about him and his plan. Therefore, it is always important to ask two questions about Divine Revelation: What is its content, and how did God make it known? We shall examine both the content and process in more detail. Where content is concerned, there are three fundamental points to note when speaking about Divine Revelation. First and foremost is the mystery of the Person of God, the Divine Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Second, there is God’s plan of salvation, what the Fathers of the Church often called the “divine economy” (CCC 236). God’s plan is manifested in history by words and deeds that are recorded in Scripture, lived by the people of Israel, and fulfilled in the Church. That plan is rooted in the eternal deliberations of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In effect, the plan was established before the creation of the cosmos (cf. Eph 1:4-5). This means that Scripture and the living Tradition of the Church comprise the source of information about God’s inner self or nature and about his plan of salvation (cf. Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 9; CCC 80). Third, we come to know and believe what is revealed by the Holy Spirit’s grace. The experience of knowing God and believing in what God has revealed is what St. Paul calls the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5, 16:26; CCC 142-165). That “obedience born of the Spirit’s grace and freedom” leads to the worship of God (liturgy and prayer, both private and communal) and a specific way of life (morality). The divine act of creating many sons and daughters of God in Christ, who worship and obey the living God, is the singular foundation of Sacred Tradition. The link between Scripture and Tradition is the historical process by which God creates a people who manifest his life in the here and now. As to the process of Revelation, the following considerations are relevant. We can know only so much about God based on the operations of our intellects. For example, the mind can know right from wrong on its own; also, the natural mind can arrive at the certain conclusions that there is a god and that this god is probably kind and just. However, the natural mind cannot know that this god of the universe is God our Father in heaven, that the Father has an eternal Son, and that the Father and Son have a relationship of continuous love that is expressed in and by the Holy Spirit. God has to show us this kind of truth. And that is to say we cannot know God in any deep and personal way without Divine Revelation. God shows us the truth about himself in progressive stages. The ultimate stage of Revelation will take place in the full presence of God, in the beatific vision. The experience of receiving and internalizing the truth about God is much like the experience of a blind man who for the first time touches the leg of an elephant: He knows he is in the presence of something big, but just how big he does not yet know. Similarly, God made use of the historical process to reveal that indeed he is a loving Father; for example, he liberated the poor and oppressed from Egypt through the leadership of Moses and Aaron (cf. CCC 2984), and the great Exodus event created the People of God and prepared the way for the Church, which fulfills and will eventually completely satisfy the intent God has for all people – intimate union with himself. But we come to ultimate knowledge about God and his divine plan of salvation only through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The historical birth and death of Jesus created the possibility for any person to receive Jesus’ sonship. As we are configured to the image of Jesus, the eternal Son of God, we are configured into deeper levels of sonship by God’s Fatherhood. Jesus’ life in believers is the objective link to God’s Fatherhood. Another historical event, Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, illustrates yet another aspect of Revelation: the existence of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A final introductory comment about Revelation concerns its link to biblical morality. This is an age in which all truth is thought to be relative. It is common to hear people say, “What’s true for you may not be true for me.” Or again, “We are so unique, our circumstances so specific, truths must be applied and modified to fit our life circumstances.” Such superficial sophistication could not be further from the biblical witness about the nature of truth and morality. Biblical or covenantal morality is linked to the mystery of God’s person and his salvific Revelation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since God is utterly holy, perfect, just, and good, his Revelation about the road to heaven is completely solid, absolutely good, and totally reliable. Truth stands from one generation to the next because it carries within it the stuff of God, as it were. When God reveals a way of life (i.e., the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes), he reveals something about his own inner life. Revelation, then, derives from the way God actually “lives,” and biblical morality rests on and puts us in touch with God’s inner life. Therefore, we can have full confidence in what is revealed in Scripture, especially its moral teachings, because they are sure and certain guidelines for discovering what is consistent with the inner life of God. The teachings come from and lead to heaven. And so our morality, doctrines, and worship are rooted in the mystery of God’s person and lead us to God through Divine Revelation. Natural and Supernatural Revelation • The Revelation of God’s person and divine plan of salvation begin in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and continue through to the very last book, the Book of Revelation. A quick scanning of the Bible might lead one to conclude that the divine plan was delivered to us fully developed and obvious to all concerned. A second, more careful reading of the biblical texts shows that Revelation took place over many centuries, in different stages, and under a great variety of circumstances. Each stage of Revelation is based on the previous stage and prepares for the next. Revelation is completed in Jesus Christ, who both teaches and mediates it. With this in mind, we can refer to Scripture and make a distinction between natural and supernatural revelation. Two examples of natural revelation are the universe and human beings. For instance, the beauty found in nature suggests the existence of a benevolent and good creator. We hear a poetic echo of this reasoning in the Divine Liturgy: “All creation rightly gives you praise. . . .” Human beings, the crown of creation, reflect another kind of natural revelation. Made in God’s image (Gn 1:27), male and female point to the reality of a loving creator. Our first parents were clothed in resplendent grace and justice (CCC 54); Adam and Eve enjoyed intimate communion with God from the very beginning (CCC 54; Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 3; cf. Jn 1:3; Rom 1:19-20). Even if communion with God was not passed on to their children, our first parents did pass on a capacity to manifest the image and likeness of God. This capacity is encountered in our great potential for doing good – good that in fact we seldom do. We are capable of heroic virtue, unselfish love, justice, and glory; yet we rarely reach such greatness. We spend our lives longing and searching for truth, beauty, love, and friendship; and yet we seldom realize our hopes. How then do we explain our ability to know right from wrong even though we tend not to do what is right? The answer is: God made us that way. Thus, by natural revelation we can know quite a bit about the nature of the Creator. Beyond natural revelation there is supernatural Revelation, by which God discloses to us something of the mystery of his person and of his divine plan of salvation that we could not know on our own. The result is contact with eternal life, which fulfills all that we long for at the natural level. Adam and Eve knew something of this Divine Revelation by virtue of their condition before the Fall. The first sin, however, disrupted the unity between humans and God and permanently ruptured human relationships. As a consequence, the human family eventually grouped into families, tribes, and nations, all under the provident care of the angels (CCC 56-57). The covenant with Noah shows God’s plan to save humanity, individual by individual, region by region, and nation by nation. Two major lessons drawn from sacred history, beginning with the Tower of Babel and ending with the covenant with Noah, are that we do not have the power to preserve unity within the human family and that national identity is not the supreme good to which all security is subordinate. The covenant with Noah is a new beginning in which we learn of God’s providential care for all of humanity, protecting it from the disasters caused by its own sin. God continued the work of uniting all of his children with the call to Abraham (CCC 59). In his great mercy, God gathered the entire human family, beginning with the faith of one man, Abraham. His descendants are the trustees of the covenantal promises made to the patriarchs. The covenant with Abraham instructs us about God’s tender love and great power, about his utter holiness and invitation to intimacy. This divine pedagogy culminates in the establishment of the people of Israel, cherished above all other nations and called to be a light to other nations (CCC 60-64). But that plan of reconciling and reuniting humanity did not stop with the creating of the ethnic, cultural, and political entity called “Israel.” The creation of the people Israel is an act of divine pedagogy that set the stage for God’s greatest revelation and ultimate gift – Jesus Christ, eternal Son of God (CCC 53). It is in Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word made flesh, that we find the fullness of God’s revelation and through whom that fullness is mediated. By giving us his Son, God, as it were, spoke all that he had to say to us (cf. Heb 1:1-2); because of Jesus and his life and work, there is nothing more to be said about God. The New Covenant, or Gospel Law, that Jesus brought to us is perfect and complete. Therefore, there can be no more revelation about God; we have all that we need (CCC 66-67). The Process of Revelation • Having examined a few central themes pertaining to the content of Revelation, we turn now to the broad features of the transmission process. It is as important to keep in mind that Divine Revelation is from heaven as it is to recognize that the manifestation of heavenly realities takes place through the historical process and involves real flesh-and-blood people. Our appreciation of Divine Revelation will increase as we understand that the transmission process is guided by the grace and work of the Holy Spirit. God first reveals himself by creating the universe and then Adam and Eve. This is followed by such events as the formation of a people, the Incarnation of the eternal Son, the creation of the Church, the Ascension of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now we await Jesus’ Second Coming. These events spanned centuries, took place in different cultural contexts, and were originally expressed in a wide variety of languages. God used the historical, political, economic, and social conditions of a fallen world to reveal his great plan of salvation. The heavenly reality touches the very fabric of historical existence. The historical events in which God reveals and acts are similar in two respects. First, each event necessarily expresses a step in God’s plan of salvation and is an intervention of divine power. The divine power is rooted in God’s superabundant life. All divine interventions are linked to each other by means of this one characteristic they all share: divine power rooted in God’s Trinitarian life. Second, the words that record these events or deeds also share in the same saving power manifested in the saving deeds. Events and words have a very special relationship, an inner or essential unity (cf. Dei Verbum, 2). This means that both the events and the words share in God’s power. The word that proclaims the saving deed contains the very same saving power found in the deed itself. The action of the Holy Spirit in the saving event is the same action of the Holy Spirit in the sacred writer who recorded the event, and it is the same action that saves when the event is proclaimed. One product of this process of transmitting and eventually recording such events is what we call Sacred Scripture. Let us consider the transmission of Revelation from Jesus until now. Divine Revelation ends with Jesus’ Ascension into heaven and the giving of the Holy Spirit. The communication of that Revelation formally concludes with the death of the last apostolic eyewitness. At this point, Revelation has a fixed content, what the Church calls the deposit of faith. However, the process of transmitting Revelation from generation to generation continues long after Jesus and the death of the last Apostle. It has been carried on by the successors of the Apostles: the men who are bishops. Each point in the transmission process receives the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which ensures the faithful proclamation and transmission of the great truths (CCC 83, 91, 93). In summary, the events and words of Scripture and the transmission process are guided by the Holy Spirit who guarantees the integrity of the message of salvation. Power of Revelation • By way of conclusion, let us consider the meaning of Divine Revelation for today. Divine Revelation does more than inform. It has the power to save us from sin, to transform us into the image of Christ. There is something very special about Revelation that distinguishes it from other kinds of knowledge, principally because of the nature of God. God reveals himself as good and holy and as desirous of friendship and intimate communion with us. He invites us to share in his divine nature (CCC 51; Dei Verbum, 2; cf. Eph 1:9, 2:18; 1 Pt 1:4). God always sends help (i.e., grace) with his many invitations. When we accept his invitation, we have already received grace (CCC 52). It is important to see that grace is, as it were, bundled with the invitation. This is not so difficult to comprehend when we look at everyday experience. Say someone wins the local lottery. Not only is the news good in itself, its goodness may very well be measured by the amount of the winner’s debt. Much the same might be said of Revelation. The grace to open up and accept Revelation is packaged with God’s self-disclosure of his utter goodness. Such knowledge has a grace within it, and therefore has a power to open the mind to God and whatever his plan of salvation might be for each individual. The message of God’s inherent goodness enables the believer to receive a share of divine life – to see and taste that the Lord is good – which is intimate communion with God. Believers can receive this great life of God at the Divine Liturgy, by reading the word of God, through the sacraments, or wherever there is authentic knowledge of God. But they must have an intimate knowledge of the content of Scripture in order to ground their understanding of God. The content and process of Divine Revelation intend the salvation of all who would accept God’s invitation to friendship. The action of revealing is both a pronouncement and a grace that makes possible acceptance of the pronouncement. The Church is the primary locus for this ongoing grace and Revelation. In this sense, the story of Divine Revelation does not end in the first or second century when the deposit of the faith became fixed (cf. CCC 84, 97, 175); it continues even to our day. God continues to enable his chosen people – the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ – to deepen their knowledge of himself through the grace of the Holy Spirit working in individuals and especially through the Magisterium (cf. CCC 85-86). The lived knowledge of God and the experience of divine life continue in and through the Church – clergy, lay, and religious – through whom that Revelation is proclaimed to the world.
See: Fatherhood of God; Imago Dei; Inerrancy; Jesus Christ, God and Man; Knowledge of God; New Covenant; New Testament; Old Covenant; Old Testament; Sacred Scripture; Sacred Tradition. |
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