The Divine Lamp

Chapter 1

Divine Revelation

Section 1 

Notion of Revelation- Three degrees of Revelation

1) The notion of revelation: The word Revelation originally means an unveiling- an manifestation of some object by drawing back the covering by which it was hidden.  Hence we commonly use the word fo bringing to ligt some fact or truth hitherto not generally known.  But it is especially applied to manifestations made by God, Who is Himself hidden from our eyes, yet makes Himself known to us.  It is with this divine revelation with which we are here concerned.

2) The degrees of revelation:  God discloses himself to us in three ways.  The study of the universe, and especially of man, the noblest object in the universe, clearly proves to us the existence of One Who is the Creator and Lord of all.  This mode of manifestation is called Natural Revelation, because it is brought about by means of nature, and because our own nature has a claim to it, as will be hereafter explained.  But God has also spoken to man by His own voice, both directly and through the Prophets, Apostles, and Sacred Writers.  This positive (as opposed to natural) Revelation proceeds from the gratuitous condescension of God, and tends to a gratuitous union with Him, both of which are far beyond the demands of our nature.  Hence it is called Supernatural Revelation, and sometimes revelation pure and simple, because it is more properly a disclosure of something hidden.  The third and highest degree of Revelation is in the Beatific Vision in heaven Where God withdraws the veil entirely, and manifests Himself in all His glory.  Here on earth, even in Supernatural Revelation, “we walk by faith and not by sight;” “we see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then (in the Beatific Vision) face to face;” “we shall see him as he is (2 Cor 5:7; 1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2).  (From A MANUAL OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGY based on Scheeben’s DOGMATIK by J. Wilhelm and T Scannell)

Tomorrow, Section 2: The Nature and Subject-matter of Natural Revelation