REVELATION

REVELATION . The concept of revelation is a fundamental one in every religion that in any way traces its origin to God or a divinity. Revelation is a divine communication to human beings. This broad description allows the phenomenologist of religion to include very different manners and degrees of revelation. In fact, the most diverse experiences, ranging from an obscure clue given by a supernatural power to the self-communication of a personal God, are possible from the standpoints of psychology, religious philosophy, and theology.

In general, religious phenomenologists use five different criteria (characteristics or factors) of revelation:

1. Origin or author: God, spirits, ancestors, power (mana ), forces. In every case the source of revelation is something supernatural or numinous.
2. Instrument or means: sacred signs in nature (the stars, animals, sacred places, or sacred times); dreams, visions, ecstasies; finally, words or sacred books.
3. Content or object: the didactic, helping, or punishing presence, will, being, activity, or commission of the divinity.
4. Recipients or addressees: medicine men, sorcerers, sacrificing priests, shamans, soothsayers, mediators, prophets with a commission or information intended for individuals or groups, for a people or the entire race.
5. Effect and consequence for the recipient: personal instruction or persuasion, divine mission, service as oracle—all this through inspiration or, in the supreme case, through incarnation.

It is to be noted that the historians of religion derived the concept of revelation from the Judeo-Christian religion where it received its theological elaboration and then in the course of research into the history of religions was transferred in a broad and analogous sense to other religions. The answer to the question whether one may speak of revelation in the proper sense in animistic, polytheistic, and polydemonistic religions will depend on the understanding of religion maintained by a given Christian scholar. In theologian Karl Barth's view Christianity alone possesses a revelation; historian of religion van der Leeuw, on the other hand, develops a much more inclusive understanding of revelation and therefore a series of types that culminates in the Christian concept of revelation.

It is certain that revelation must be clearly distinguished from magic, since magical practices aim at power over and disposal of the divine, while revelation means in principle a free announcement by the divinity. This announcement even goes beyond hierophanies and epiphanies and involves the manifestation of something holy or the rendering apprehensible of a divine depth, inasmuch as it always clearly includes the distinction between revealing subject and revealed object, between self-revealing God and mystery made known. In any case, this fuller meaning is regularly intended by the Latin revelatio and the Greek apokalupsis.

Whether gnosis and mysticism are to be regarded as forms of revelation or, on the contrary, as the opposite of revelation depends essentially on the role assigned to divine grace (as help from and self-communication of God) in these manifestations of religious life. Whenever ultimate knowledge and the vision of supreme wisdom are regarded not as the fruit of human effort alone but as a gift from God, then, as in the experience of a profound union with God that cannot be acquired by force or produced by the human being but can only be received as a gift, a self-communication of a personal God comes into play and the concept of revelation is correctly applied.

Natural Revelations

It may therefore seem at first sight contradictory to speak of "natural revelation," since the knowledge of God derived from nature seems to involve no personal, here-and-now turning of God to human beings but to result rather from the intellectual efforts of the latter. The objection overlooks the fact that religio-philosophical statements about God can never take the form of knowledge gained by the natural sciences, which turn the object of their investigations into an object of human experience and human categories of thought. God cannot be fully grasped by human thought or defined or adequately described in concepts derived from experience of the spatiotemporal world. This fact is reflected in "negative theology," which regards it as possible to say unreservedly of God only what he is not. Positive statements about him always fall short and are compatible with his absolute transcendence, his wholly-otherness (totaliter aliter ) and ever-greaterness (semper maior ), only insofar as they are made with a realization of the analogous structure of human language. In this context "analogy" does not mean mathematical similarity; it refers rather to a fundamental relation of similarity-dissimilarity, due to which every positive assertion of a formal perfection in God (being, goodness, justice, etc.) must immediately be negated. That is, it must be purified of the experienced finiteness that attaches to these concepts in the spatio-temporal world, and then applied to the trancendent God in a nonmaterial sense and in the highest possible degree of perfection. It is clear that in this three-step operation—assertion, negation, and reassertion in the mode of supereminence—negation plays the decisive role.

To make the point more simply: God is a hidden God (Deus absconditus ). Only if he discloses himself and only to the extent that he makes himself known can he be known by human beings. This is the basic idea behind the concept of "natural revelation," which is proposed at various points in the Western tradition of philosophical theology.

The Bible

In his Letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul vividly states the possibility (not the actuality) of a natural knowledge of God: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 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. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened" (Rom. 1:18–22).

The most important statement here is "God has shown it to them." This clearly brings out the revelational character of the knowledge. The cosmos is not simply phusis or nature in the form of an eternally self-subsisting world, such as the Greeks understood it to be; rather, it is ktisis or creation, that is, God's handiwork that had a beginning and that as finite nature points to the infinite God as its creator.

Ever since the creation of the world, the invisible being of God has been known by reason. Human beings understand themselves to be creatures and therefore by reason know God's power and deity.

The apostle Paul was evidently referring to a passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, which was probably a Jewish composition written in Egypt in the first century bce. Rejecting Egyptian polytheism, the author says: "All men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things men assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. And if men were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their creator" (Wis. 13:1–5).

In this passage myths about the origin of the world and philosophical explanations of the world as emerging from primal matter (water, air, etc.), such as were offered by the Ionian natural philosophers, are being rejected in favor of an understanding in which the beauties of this world are explained as produced by a first cause.

Philosophy of Plato

The very wording of the passage from the Wisdom of Solomon betrays the philosophical influence of Plato, who speaks in his dialogue the Symposium (178a–c) of the ascent of the soul, via the various degrees of bodily and intellectual beauty, to the primordially beautiful, that is, the idea of Beauty as such. Here as elsewhere in Plato's elaboration of his doctrine of the Ideas, his thinking takes as its point of reference the origin (arche, proton ) of things. Such is the case in the Lysis, where is found the concept of the Primordially Lovable (philon ), and especially in the Republic (505–511), where Plato describes the function of the idea of the Good as such, which is the cause of being and knowledge in everything else that is. In conceiving the world as having its ground in the ideas, Plato provides the philosophical presupposition for understanding everything finite as conditioned and as sustained in being by the idea of God. The world is not intelligible in itself either ontically or noetically, either in its being or in its knowableness. Once this fundamental insight is grasped, it becomes easy to understand the viewpoint of Jewish and Christian thinkers who saw the world as a message conveying God's greatness, beauty, power, and goodness, and therefore as a revelation in the proper sense.

It is for this reason that in the passage from Romans Paul says human beings should have advanced from knowledge of God to acknowledgment of him and the payment to him of honor and gratitude. Even natural revelation implies and calls for existential consequences such as reverence and obedience.

Luther for his part interpreted Paul as saying in Romans that they are foolish who endeavor to gain a natural knowledge of God from creation as the "work" of God's power and glory. Over and against such a "theology of glory" he set a "theology of the cross" that maintains that "insofar as God's being is made visible and is turned to the world, it is represented there in suffering and the cross" (Heidelberg Disputation of 1518). But, valuable though this emphasis on God's revelation in Christ is, in Paul's view human beings are "foolish" not because they attempt to learn God's eternal power and divinity from creation but because "by their wickedness [they] suppress the truth." In general, evangelical theology still has a negative attitude toward natural theology.

Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas

In the Constitution on Faith of the First Vatican Council (1869–1870), on the other hand, the Catholic church insisted on the possibility and point of natural revelation: "God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the things that were created through the natural light of human reason, for 'ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made' (Rom. 1:20)" (Henricus Denzinger and Adolfus Schönmetzer's "Enchiridion symbolorum, no. 3004," The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, 36th ed., no. 113, Rome, 1976). The passage goes beyond what is said in Romans and speaks of God as not only the ground but also the destination of creation. It is clear from this, as it is from the expression "the natural light of human reason," that the council fathers were here following the teaching of Thomas Aquinas.

In his five "ways" of obtaining knowledge of God (Summa theologiae 1.2.3), Thomas was basing his thought on Aristotle rather than Plato. The background of this link in the history of ideas must be briefly sketched. Aristotle had accepted several points made by Plato: the priority of movement proceeding from within over movement initiated by what is outside (Laws, Phaedrus ); the idea that what is first in the cosmos is an idea, or eidos ("spiritual entity"); and, finally, the view that first cause and end are necessarily identical. In the framework of his own theory of potency and act, Aristotle then elaborated his doctrine of God as the First Unmoved Mover (to proton kinoun akineton auto ), who as self-sufficient intellectual reality (actus purus ) is not dependent on anything outside of himself, while at the same time all other intellectual and corporeal beings have their ground in him. God is the origin and source of the world and at the same time its ultimate end, since all things strive toward him and he moves them as "that which is loved," that is, as a supreme value that draws them (Metaphysics A, 6–9).

All these "movements" of which Aristotle speaks are not to be interpreted in mechanistic terms but intellectually or metaphysically: They are a striving for form or fulfillment in reality or value.

Thomas Aquinas reduces these arguments of Plato and Aristotle to concise systematic form. The first three ways take as their starting point certain facts of experience: that the beings of this world are in movement (in potency); that they do not have their efficient cause in themselves (they are conditioned beings); and that they do not exist necessarily but are finite, temporal, and contingent. These three ways conclude to a First Cause that "moves" everything (in the Aristotelian sense of the word "move"), is the ground of all further causal series, and has the ground of its own being within itself, or, in other words, exists necessarily and eternally.

The inevitability of this conclusion is underscored by the consideration that an infinite regress does not offer an alternative solution and that one must abandon the endless series of causes and conditions (ab alio ) and accept a First that is of a different kind (a se) if anything at all is to be explained. The idea that an infinite regress is impossible bears the clear mark of Platonic thinking, according to which something finite and conditioned is explicable only in terms of something infinite and unconditioned (anupotheton ). Platonism thus conceived is indispensable for the philosophy of religion.

Thomas's fourth way is likewise based on the gradations of being and value that is found in the doctrine of the ideas. The ground of every goodness is located in the supreme Good as such (in Platonic terms: in the [divine] idea of the Good), which distributes of its goodness and gives a participation in it.

The fifth way concludes from the order found in the world to an orderer who possesses intellectual knowledge and who is all-powerful and so infinitely good that he can bring good even out of evil. The Aristotelian idea of God as end (destination) of the cosmos merges here with the Platonic idea that evil in all its forms is simply a lack of goodness.

If now is added the assertion that these insights (for these are not empirical proofs as this term is used in the natural sciences) are acquired by "the light of reason," the place of this entire body of considerations in the history of ideas becomes clear once again. Just as in the material world the sun gives light and makes things knowable, so the idea of the good gives things being and the power to know (analogy with the sun in the Republic 508–509). Augustine therefore says that in every act by which one knows the truth one is illumined by the eternal Truth, and Thomas teaches that human reason participates in "the divine light" (Summa theologiae 2.1.91.2).

The circle is now closed. Natural revelation means that it is possible in principle to think about the finitude of the world and one's own existence and come thereby to know something of God's wisdom and creative power, because God himself makes it possible to know him through traces, reflections, and images in his creatures.

In regard to the actual fulfillment of this potentiality Vatican I showed itself rather reserved, noting that "such truths among things divine as of themselves are not beyond human reason can, even in the present condition of mankind, be known by everyone with facility, with firm certitude and with no admixture of error" because God has in fact granted a supernatural revelation (Denzinger-Schönmetzer, no. 3005; Neuner-Dupuis, no. 114). This appraisal of the situation is fully in accord with that of Thomas Aquinas (Summa theologiae 1.1.1), for in his view the knowledge made available by natural revelation is indeed possible for the human race in its present condition, but it is by no means easily gained or accessible to all. One is thus brought to a consideration of "supernatural revelation," which will here be called "biblical revelation."

Kant did not join Thomas in this approach. His criticism of the proofs for the existence of God is based on the principle that knowledge is valid only within the realm of sense experience and that there is no correspondence between thought and the truth as it exists in itself.

Old Testament and Judaism

Jewish theology regards it as inconceivable that human beings should know God by their own powers and apart from God making himself known, that is, revealing himself, to them. Like the rest of the Near East, Israel had certain techniques for penetrating the mysteries of God, such as soothsaying, the interpreting of omens and dreams, and the casting of lots. The Old Testament accepted some of these techniques (Dt. 33:8, 1 Sm. 14) and always refused others, for example, astrology. On the other hand, God's action toward Israel in the course of its history is always understood as revelatory in the strict sense. The people experience the nearness of God through external signs and events such as thunderstorms (Ex. 19:16), pillars of cloud and pillars of fire (Ex. 14:24), and the wind (1 Kgs. 19:12). Descriptions of theophanies in human or angelic form (Gn. 16:7, 18:2, 48:16) are also found in the early stage of the patriarchal tradition; the "angel of God" (malakh Yahveh), in particular, seems obviously to be a device for maintaining the transcendence of God.

As the history of salvation advanced it became increasingly important to interpret God's guidance of Israel. The result was revelation through words, taking the form of auditions and going beyond visions or else interpreting these. God's spirit filled the prophets; his hand was laid on the human beings he chose for this revelation.

Various verbs were used to express the divine act of revelation:

1. glh ("to uncover, unveil"). Yahveh opens the eyes and ears of human beings so that they are able to see and hear (1 Sm. 9:15, Ps. 119:18); he unveils himself (Gn. 35:7, Is. 22:14) and his mysteries (Dt. 29:29), his glory (Is. 40:15), and his justice (Ps. 98:2).
2. ydʿ ("to proclaim, make oneself known"). The essence of revelation according to the Old Testament consists precisely in this self-communication of God to his people as he makes himself known to them (Ex. 6:2), speaks to them (Ex. 25:22), and, above all, brings them out of Egypt (Ez. 20:9) and enters into a covenant with them. It is for this purpose that he makes known to Israel his name (Is. 64:2) and his ways (Ps. 25:4), that is, his commandments and his law (the Torah), as well as his wisdom (Ps. 119).
3. nggd ("to report, communicate"). This is the most frequent of all the words for revelation and means to manifest something that is hidden: God's name (Gn. 32:30), his plan (Gn. 41:25), his salvation (Is. 42:12), and his hidden wisdom (Jb. 11:6). All these contexts have this in common, that God directs his word to human beings. For this reason,
4. dvr can frequently be used for this decisive communication on God's part. God's word to Israel is his most precious gift; in it he communicates himself: "I am the Lord" (Gn. 28:13; Ex. 6:2, 6:29) and "there is no other" (Is. 45:5, Jl. 2:27).

The word of God is spoken in a special way to Moses (Ex. 20:18). The people perceive only the thunder and lightning, the trumpet blast and the smoke, that accompany the word; they see the "glory" of God but receive the commandments only through a mediator who is therefore regarded as the greatest of the prophets (Dt. 18:15). In like manner, all the later prophets are also proclaimers of God's word. He speaks through their mouths, his spirit moves them, his word is given to them; when they speak, "It is I, Yahveh, who speak" (a frequently occurring expression).

The goal and purpose of revelation is the call of Israel to be a covenanted people. This purpose is served by the revelation of God as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Ex. 3:6), as well as by the announcement of his name, which is at one and the same time a promise of his presence as helper ("I will be there as the One who will be there"; Ex. 3:12) and a concealment and withdrawal of God from any control by human beings ("I am who I am"; Ex. 3:14). The paradigmatic saving action of God becomes a reality in the deliverance and exodus from Egypt (Ex. 14) and, climactically, in the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai (Ex. 19–20). The entire religious practice and tradition and the entire liturgical cult of Israel, as well as the attribution of all laws to Moses and the constant warnings of the prophets, all show the fundamental importance of this encounter with God. Not only does the individual Jewish believer live by the light and power of that encounter; the entire social and political life of the people also takes its direction from it.

Since history is the reduction of the covenant to practice it too acquires a theological significance. Successes and catastrophes alike are explained as having their basis in God's plan of salvation, which thus subsumes all the destinies of individuals and all events under a universal saving will that orders everything to the "day of the Lord" (Am. 5:18, Is. 2:17). That day will bring the definitive fulfillment of God's reign over all of humankind. Revelation thus has a comprehensive meaning; it looks to world history in its entirety, since it sets forth and wins recognition of God's holiness and love. For this reason a special importance is attributed to the end time (eschatology) in Jewish apocalyptic. What is to come and the one who is to come (the Messiah) take on central meaning.

The "revelation of mysteries" (a notion that occurs first in Daniel 2:18) becomes a commonplace in the Qumran documents. The devotees at Qumran believe that they possess a special revelation for the end time, a revelation available only to the "wise and initiated."

By contrast, the Judaism of the scribes (beginning with Ezra, fourth century bce) shows a tendency to regard revelation as closed and to see the prophetic movement as now past. The Jewish tradition generally accepted these positions. Only Jewish mysticism (Qabbalah, Hasidism) regarded not only the once-for-all historical act of divine revelation but also the repeated mystical experience of God as revelatory; the function of the latter is to bring out the implications of the historical revelation and make it intelligible.

New Testament and Christianity

Building on the Old Testament understanding of revelation, the New Testament writers see revelation as the self-communication of God in and through Jesus Christ. This communication is regarded as the supreme, final, irrevocable, and unsurpassable self-disclosure of God in history (Heb. 1:1f.). It is unique because, as Christians understand it, in Jesus of Nazareth, agent of revelation and content of revelation (the person, teaching, and redemptive work of Jesus) are identical and make up the sole object of revelation. The theological elaboration of the New Testament concept of revelation is to be found especially in Paul and John.

Paul

To express the idea of revelation, Paul uses above all the words apokaluptein ("uncover, remove from concealment") and phaneroun ("make apparent, show"). His basic theme is the uncovering of the mystery that has previously been hidden and is now made manifest (Eph. 1:9, Col. 1:26). Revelation, therefore, means the uncovering or unveiling of the divine plan by which God reconciles the human race to himself in Christ. Revelation is a divine creative activity, an eschatological saving deed, rather than a simple announcing of messages or items of knowledge. God is the really active one in the process of revelation. It is he who from eternity decides that in his Son he will turn in love to the human race. The incarnation of his Son in the womb of a woman (Gal. 4:4), this Son's expiatory death on the cross, and the recapitulation or unification of the cosmos under him as head and firstborn from the dead (Rom. 3:25, Col. 1:18) are the fulfillment of this hidden plan. In this plan Christ himself is what is revealed. The death and resurrection of Christ, and even the church as his body, are elements of this mystery of salvation.

In a derivative application of the term, the apostles also "reveal" the salvific justice of God (Rom. 1:17) inasmuch as they proclaim the good news brought by Jesus (2 Cor. 2:14). In the fullness of time (Gal. 1:16) the gospel is preached to all peoples (Rom. 1:16, 16:26), not like an esoteric doctrine of the Hellenistic mystery religions but as a message meant to profit the entire human race, provided men and women are ready to accept the scandal of the cross (1 Cor. 1:18–25). For it is of the very essence of revelation that it must be accepted in faith and obedience. It does not supply empirical evidence that forces acceptance; on the other hand, neither may it be accepted or rejected at whim, for it makes a claim upon its hearers and may not be rejected without resultant guilt.

In short, revelation is still incomplete within historical time. Only in its definitive stage of development at the return (Parousia) of Christ will it be complete. At that point, too, the glory promised to the redeemed will be manifested, for it will be clear beyond doubt that the redeemed are risen and that they are the children and heirs of God (1 Cor. 1:7; 2 Thes. 1:7; Rom. 8:18–23).

The synoptics

The revelation accomplished in Jesus is extremely important to the early community as well. As a result, the statements made in the synoptic Gospels are in principle the same as those in the preaching of Paul.

There is no doubt that the Old Testament is a vehicle of revelation; nonetheless the fullness of revelation comes only in Christ (Mt. 5:17–19). Jesus differs from the other agents of revelation because not only does he claim a complete and direct knowledge of God's saving will (Mt. 11:27, Lk. 10:22), but his messianic work is also the definitive revelation and calls for an unconditional decision (Mt. 4:20, 8:22, 10:37–39; Mk. 1:18; and others).

John

The concept of revelation emerges most clearly in John, even though he almost never uses the term apokaluptein. He prefers the verb phaneroun ("make apparent, show") and likes to use pairs of concepts that were popular in the Hellenistic religious movements of his time, especially gnosticism: light and darkness, truth and falsehood, life and death. The expression "bear witness to the truth" is typical of Johannine theology.

John regards the revelatory event as the center of his message. Not only is Jesus the redeemer by means of his "work"; he is also and above all the proclaimer of God's truth and the life and light of the world (Jn. 1:4). God is invisible and unknowable; the Son alone knows the Father, and in him the Father is made visible and understandable (Jn. 1:14, 1 Jn. 1:1). He has brought knowledge of God and borne witness to him (Jn. 1:18, 3:11–13); he speaks in plain words of the Father (Jn. 8:38). Revelation is therefore given together with the person of the Logos (the Word); it is the manifestation of the life and love of God (Jn. 4:7–9). Because Jesus is the only-begotten Son, he reveals the Father in what he says and does. "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn. 14:9).

In keeping with the realized eschatology of the gospel according to John, faith, as response to revelation, can even now be described as a "seeing" (Jn. 6:40, 12:45, 14:19). What is revealed is already present. Yet, although revelation is essentially completed with the first coming of Jesus, John, like Paul, can speak of the "revelation of Jesus" and of the "glory of the children of God" at the return of Christ (1 Jn. 2:28, 3:2).

Revelation

The Revelation to John is a New Testament book that focuses its attention on the final age and the return of Christ. It presupposes the proclamation of salvation as achieved through the cross and resurrection of Jesus and, in John's vision on Patmos of the Apocalypse, it interprets the persecutions and sufferings endured by the communities in the light of the hope of their coming fulfullment. The book's images and symbols, taken from Jewish apocalyptic, are intended to urge the reader to perseverance and fidelity. The various hymns of the heavenly liturgy reflect the response of the church to God's judgments, which have for their ultimate purpose the salvation of his creation; this salvation will be achieved despite the terrors that are announced.

Islam

Islam's understanding of revelation comes closest to that of the Bible. Waḥy, or revelation, comes from God, usually through the agency of the archangel Gabriel. It is concerned with God's decrees, his mysterious will, the announcement of judgment, and his commandments, the divine law (sharīʿah ). Revelation is given to the prophets and, in its definitive form, to Muḥammad (c. 570–632), who receives it in dreams, visions, and auditions. It is set down in the Qurʾān, the uncreated archetype of which has been taken up to the throne of God in heaven. This uncreated word is not, however, the source of God's self-knowledge (as it is in Christian theology). To this extent, the Muslim conception resembles the Jewish, while at the same time it is distinguished from the latter by the absence of any promise. In the Qurʾān the content of revelation is wisdom and guidance for living and, above all, warnings and the announcement of final judgment. Because it is divine in origin revelation may not be altered.

Zoroastrianism

Zarathushtra (seventh to sixth century bce) was another nonbiblical prophet. He too saw revelation as having its source in the voluntary action of a unique and personal God. The dualism that is otherwise prevalent in the Iranian world is based on an original revelation to the extent that this last calls for an unqualified ethical decision. Like Ahura Mazda, the Mazdeans opt for the good and against evil. This tension soon hardens, however, into an ontic dualism. The world is divided between good and evil and thus reflects at all cosmic levels the opposition between the virtues and their contraries. History becomes the field of a struggle that is predetermined by God and will end with judgment and transfiguration.

Hinduism

Even in Hinduism it is possible to speak of revelation as this concept is understood by historians of religion. The Vedas have the status of sacred revelation: śruti ("heard," i. e., revealed directly by the gods to seers) is clearly distinguished from smṛti ("remembered," i. e., composed by humans). According to Hindu belief, the Vedic literature has existed from eternity, is supernatural in origin, and has been transmitted to human beings by unknown seers of the primordial period.

In the Ṛgveda, forces and elements of nature are viewed as divinities. Later on the question arises whether behind the multiplicity of divinities there is hidden an ultimate ground of the world. The Upaniṣads are concerned with the question of the identity of ātman and brahman (the principles of the individual and the cosmos respectively), and with the transcription of souls and redemption.

Notions of revelation and a consciousness of transcendence are also discernible in other religions, although often only in an obscure and confused form, despite the fact that an especially clear idea of God is evident in archaic forms of religion. Because of this last-named fact many scientists of religion in the past accepted the existence of a primordial revelation in the form of an originally given knowledge of God in the early phase of human history; today, however, this view is generally not accepted.

See Also

Divination; Enthusiasm; Hierophany; Inspiration; Oracles; Prophecy.

Bibliography

For basic information concerning the topic, entries in several reference works can be profitably consulted: "Offenbarung," in the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2d ed., vol. 7 (Freiburg, 1962); "Offenbarung," in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3d ed., vol. 4 (Tübingen, 1960); and "Révélation" in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, vol. 6 (Paris, 1937). Karl Rahner's article "Revelation," in Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, vol. 5 (New York, 1969), is especially valuable.

Those aspects of revelation accessible to the phenomenology of religion are summarized in Gerardus van der Leeuw's Religion in Essence and Manifestation, 2 vols. (1938; reprint, Gloucester, Mass., 1967), and in Th. P. van Baaren's Voorstellingen van Openbaring, phaenomenologisch beschouwd (Utrecht, 1951), which includes an English summary. There is also a very good discussion in Herbert H. Farmer's Revelation and Religion: Studies in the Theological Interpretation of Religious Types (New York, 1954). For the history of religions approach, see the standard work of Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1978–1986).

On the treatment of the topic within Islam, see A. J. Arberry's Revelation and Reason in Islam (London, 1957). On Hinduism, see K. Satchidananda Murty's Revelation and Reason in Advaita Vedānta (1959; reprint, Livingston, N. J., 1974).

For discussions of natural revelation, see Fernand van Steenberghen's Dieu caché (Louvain, 1961), translated as Hidden God: How Do We Know That God Exists? (Saint Louis, Mo., 1966), and Johannes Hirschberger's Gottesbeweise: Vergängliches-Unvergängliches in denkender Glaube (Frankfurt, 1966).

The following works treat the biblical concept of revelation: H. Wheeler Robinson's Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament, 4th ed. (Oxford, 1956); Erik Voegelin's Order and History, vol. 1, Israel and Revelation (Baton Rouge, 1956); Ernest Findlay Scott's The New Testament Idea of Revelation (New York, 1935); and Frederick C. Grant's Introduction to New Testament Thought (New York, 1950). For theological discussions of revelation, see Rudolf Bultmann's "The Concept of Revelation in the New Testament," in Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann, edited and translated by Schubert M. Ogden (New York, 1960); Romano Guardini's Die Offenbarung: Ihr Wesen und ihre Formen (Würzburg, 1940); Karl Barth's Das christliche Verständnis der Offenbarung (Munich, 1948); Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1951–1963); Karl Rahner's Hearers of the Word (New York, 1969); and Revelation as History (New York, 1968) by Wolfhart Pannenberg and others.

Johannes Deninger (1987)

Translated from German by Matthew J. O'Connell