Catholic theology of revelation is grappling in a new way with the classical problems: Is revelation a present event or a memory of the past? Is it given exclusively to the biblical peoples or generally to all men? Does it come through a structured community or immediately from God? Can it be expressed in definite formulas or only in myths and symbols?
These questions are not new, but there is a new realization that the alternatives should not be presented as a simple either/or. Many would hold that revelation is an event today precisely because it is a memory of the past, and even more, perhaps, a hope for the future; that it is available to all men just because it is given in Christ alone; that it comes immediately from God insofar as it becomes actual in the church of God; that the dogmas are valid because they can be interpreted within a context of myth and symbol. By overcoming its own internal dilemmas, Catholic theology of revelation may be expected to assist in healing the divisions among Christians – divisions often brought about by a narrow and possessive understanding of a mystery too rich for comprehension and of a love which cannot be known except as that which surpasses knowledge (cf. Eph. 3: 19).
+++
REVELATION
Karl Rahner SJ, a theological heavyweight, argued that man as a spiritual being is essentially open to the possibility of a divine revelation, and that such a revelation, if it occurs, must come to him in the form of a divine “word” given within history. He focuses on the two-fold character of revelation as an ineffable experience of God and as a determinate message, and distinguishes between a transcendent, non-thematic aspect, consisting of the elevation of man’s intellectual horizons by an interior enlightenment, and a predicamental, thematic aspect, having a definite content which can be expressed in words and other objective signs.
Rahner stresses the necessity that the interior, gracious self-disclosure of God should be correctly translated (my emphasis) into human language in order that the revelation may work itself out in man's conscious life and become an effective principle of his concrete behaviour. Incorrect formulation of revelation threatens the reality of the salvific encounter itself.
He also argues that “unthematic” or “transcendental” revelation can express itself in the extra-biblical religions, which consequently play an effective role in the mediation of revelation and salvation for peoples who have not yet entered into a sufficient historical encounter with Christianity to recognize it as the definitive and universally valid self-manifestation of God.
INSPIRATION
Pierre Benoit OP (following Lagrange) set forth a theory of biblical inspiration solidly grounded in Thomistic psychology. Whereas Rahner approaches inspiration in the light of salvation history, Benoit treats of the psychodynamic faculty of the person.
Luis Alonso Schökel, SJ shows, on the basis of continental European linguistic philosophy and modern literary criticism, a view of the word as a medium through which God enters into communion with man, enables him to develop a flexible and nuanced doctrine of biblical inerrancy, or, as he might prefer to say, of biblical truth. The truth of Scripture, on his view, is not a simple matter of correspondence between statements and objective realities; it is primarily a presence of God imparting grace through his word.
THE WORD
Hans Urs von Balthasar calls upon the contemporary Christian to experience “the abyss of silence from which springs the Word of God” – which paradoxically unveils the Father who is silent in it. In several volumes of essays he ponders the mystery of how Christ, as God's Word, inundates us with his presence and lures us to follow him in his self-abnegation.
Von Balthasar has set about constructing what he calls a “theological aesthetic,” which aims to show how the Infinite has emerged from its ineffable transcendence so as to shine forth historically in the lives of Jesus and the saints.
MIRACLES AND SIGNS
Louis Monden SJ develops a dogmatic theology of the miracle as a sign and symbol, a dramatized word whereby God communicates with man, and discusses the apologetic value of miracles as evidences supporting the case for Catholic Christianity. While acknowledging that the decision to believe cannot be coerced by the evidences, and that the discernment of miracles depends upon subjective factors such as prudence and good will, Monden shows that the argument from miracles can still be presented in a very impressive way.
NORTH AMERICAN AUTHORS
Leslie Dewart, The Future of Belief, was unquestionably the most discussed Catholic theological work of the past year, although by no means the most widely acclaimed. In an utterly radical manner, Dewart argues that Christianity must be de-hellenized and de-ontologized in order to align itself with the experience of contemporary man. Revelation, in his view, must no longer be regarded as a message or a doctrine. It is an event that happens today, through God's present self-communication. Revelation was complete in the first century in the sense that the "new and eternal covenant" was established in Christ; but within the age of the incarnation, God's self-revelation, and the dogmas by which the human consciousness expresses it, continue to evolve. It they did not, Dewart argues, revelation would no longer be a reality, but simply a memory of the past. The Christian, from a standpoint within faith, experiences God as present, but not as an empirical fact. “It is always possible to look at the same facts and to find nothing but the absence of God”
The believing Christian must always conceptualize his experience, but he does not have to accept concepts formulated in the past, such as the scholastic notion of God as a supernatural Being. What is essential is that he should experience God as an expansive force impelling him to give and to serve.
Brother Gabriel Moran, F.S.C., has pointed out that the question whether all revelation is contained in the Bible cannot be answered until one has dealt with the prior questions of what revelation is and how any revelation is contained in the Bible. Following the general direction of contemporary European phenomenology, Moran holds that revelation is essentially "a personal union in knowledge between God and a participating subject in the revelational history of a community". Putting the accent on personal encounter, he tends toward a somewhat actualistic position, and evaluates the historical and doctrinal aspects of revelation almost entirely in terms of their power to contribute to a present existential communion with God. Having reached its unsurpassable fullness in the consciousness of the risen Christ, revelation continues to be given in the history of the church and of the world.
“The distinctive character of Judaic-Christian revelation is that God has left us no revelation,” Moran states. The Christian, therefore, should renounce the effort to deliver any message, whether dogmatic or biblical. “Other religions demand that men accept this or that thing. Christianity only invites men to accept themselves and their own freedom in a community with God.”
Moran's position is actually more nuanced than these isolated sentences would seem to suggest. He protests quite rightly against any tendency to look upon revelation as something in man's possession or at his disposal. He insists that our knowledge of God, especially within faith, is slippery and elusive. “God reveals and conceals himself in the naming of every truth. In the incarnation, God does not become obvious and comprehensible but, on the contrary, more paradoxical than ever before.”
While Moran's views seem at first sight incompatible with Rahner's evaluation of dogma as "thematized truth," the gulf is not so wide as one might think. Rahner maintains that dogma lives off mystery, the thematic off the unthematic. For him as for Moran, revelation does not adequately consist of the formulas and professions of faith that have won approval in the community. Indeed, the formulas are not revelation at all unless they are seen against the horizons of a spirit which is tending into the unfathomable mystery we call God.
Thomas
These questions are not new, but there is a new realization that the alternatives should not be presented as a simple either/or. Many would hold that revelation is an event today precisely because it is a memory of the past, and even more, perhaps, a hope for the future; that it is available to all men just because it is given in Christ alone; that it comes immediately from God insofar as it becomes actual in the church of God; that the dogmas are valid because they can be interpreted within a context of myth and symbol. By overcoming its own internal dilemmas, Catholic theology of revelation may be expected to assist in healing the divisions among Christians – divisions often brought about by a narrow and possessive understanding of a mystery too rich for comprehension and of a love which cannot be known except as that which surpasses knowledge (cf. Eph. 3: 19).
+++
REVELATION
Karl Rahner SJ, a theological heavyweight, argued that man as a spiritual being is essentially open to the possibility of a divine revelation, and that such a revelation, if it occurs, must come to him in the form of a divine “word” given within history. He focuses on the two-fold character of revelation as an ineffable experience of God and as a determinate message, and distinguishes between a transcendent, non-thematic aspect, consisting of the elevation of man’s intellectual horizons by an interior enlightenment, and a predicamental, thematic aspect, having a definite content which can be expressed in words and other objective signs.
Rahner stresses the necessity that the interior, gracious self-disclosure of God should be correctly translated (my emphasis) into human language in order that the revelation may work itself out in man's conscious life and become an effective principle of his concrete behaviour. Incorrect formulation of revelation threatens the reality of the salvific encounter itself.
He also argues that “unthematic” or “transcendental” revelation can express itself in the extra-biblical religions, which consequently play an effective role in the mediation of revelation and salvation for peoples who have not yet entered into a sufficient historical encounter with Christianity to recognize it as the definitive and universally valid self-manifestation of God.
INSPIRATION
Pierre Benoit OP (following Lagrange) set forth a theory of biblical inspiration solidly grounded in Thomistic psychology. Whereas Rahner approaches inspiration in the light of salvation history, Benoit treats of the psychodynamic faculty of the person.
Luis Alonso Schökel, SJ shows, on the basis of continental European linguistic philosophy and modern literary criticism, a view of the word as a medium through which God enters into communion with man, enables him to develop a flexible and nuanced doctrine of biblical inerrancy, or, as he might prefer to say, of biblical truth. The truth of Scripture, on his view, is not a simple matter of correspondence between statements and objective realities; it is primarily a presence of God imparting grace through his word.
THE WORD
Hans Urs von Balthasar calls upon the contemporary Christian to experience “the abyss of silence from which springs the Word of God” – which paradoxically unveils the Father who is silent in it. In several volumes of essays he ponders the mystery of how Christ, as God's Word, inundates us with his presence and lures us to follow him in his self-abnegation.
Von Balthasar has set about constructing what he calls a “theological aesthetic,” which aims to show how the Infinite has emerged from its ineffable transcendence so as to shine forth historically in the lives of Jesus and the saints.
MIRACLES AND SIGNS
Louis Monden SJ develops a dogmatic theology of the miracle as a sign and symbol, a dramatized word whereby God communicates with man, and discusses the apologetic value of miracles as evidences supporting the case for Catholic Christianity. While acknowledging that the decision to believe cannot be coerced by the evidences, and that the discernment of miracles depends upon subjective factors such as prudence and good will, Monden shows that the argument from miracles can still be presented in a very impressive way.
NORTH AMERICAN AUTHORS
Leslie Dewart, The Future of Belief, was unquestionably the most discussed Catholic theological work of the past year, although by no means the most widely acclaimed. In an utterly radical manner, Dewart argues that Christianity must be de-hellenized and de-ontologized in order to align itself with the experience of contemporary man. Revelation, in his view, must no longer be regarded as a message or a doctrine. It is an event that happens today, through God's present self-communication. Revelation was complete in the first century in the sense that the "new and eternal covenant" was established in Christ; but within the age of the incarnation, God's self-revelation, and the dogmas by which the human consciousness expresses it, continue to evolve. It they did not, Dewart argues, revelation would no longer be a reality, but simply a memory of the past. The Christian, from a standpoint within faith, experiences God as present, but not as an empirical fact. “It is always possible to look at the same facts and to find nothing but the absence of God”
The believing Christian must always conceptualize his experience, but he does not have to accept concepts formulated in the past, such as the scholastic notion of God as a supernatural Being. What is essential is that he should experience God as an expansive force impelling him to give and to serve.
Brother Gabriel Moran, F.S.C., has pointed out that the question whether all revelation is contained in the Bible cannot be answered until one has dealt with the prior questions of what revelation is and how any revelation is contained in the Bible. Following the general direction of contemporary European phenomenology, Moran holds that revelation is essentially "a personal union in knowledge between God and a participating subject in the revelational history of a community". Putting the accent on personal encounter, he tends toward a somewhat actualistic position, and evaluates the historical and doctrinal aspects of revelation almost entirely in terms of their power to contribute to a present existential communion with God. Having reached its unsurpassable fullness in the consciousness of the risen Christ, revelation continues to be given in the history of the church and of the world.
“The distinctive character of Judaic-Christian revelation is that God has left us no revelation,” Moran states. The Christian, therefore, should renounce the effort to deliver any message, whether dogmatic or biblical. “Other religions demand that men accept this or that thing. Christianity only invites men to accept themselves and their own freedom in a community with God.”
Moran's position is actually more nuanced than these isolated sentences would seem to suggest. He protests quite rightly against any tendency to look upon revelation as something in man's possession or at his disposal. He insists that our knowledge of God, especially within faith, is slippery and elusive. “God reveals and conceals himself in the naming of every truth. In the incarnation, God does not become obvious and comprehensible but, on the contrary, more paradoxical than ever before.”
While Moran's views seem at first sight incompatible with Rahner's evaluation of dogma as "thematized truth," the gulf is not so wide as one might think. Rahner maintains that dogma lives off mystery, the thematic off the unthematic. For him as for Moran, revelation does not adequately consist of the formulas and professions of faith that have won approval in the community. Indeed, the formulas are not revelation at all unless they are seen against the horizons of a spirit which is tending into the unfathomable mystery we call God.
Thomas
