Revelation Introduction

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INTRODUCTION TO REVELATIONS : M.M.NINAN I MEANING OF REVELATION Revelation [ˌrɛvəˈleɪʃən] n 1. the act or process of disclosing something previously secret or obscure, especialy something true 2. a fact disclosed or revealed, especialy in a dramatic or surprising way 3. (Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) (Christian Religious Writings / Bible) Christianity a. God's disclosure of his own nature and his purpose for mankind, especialy through the words of human intermediaries b. something in which such a divine disclosure is contained, such as the Bible [from Church Latin revēlātiō from Latin revēlāre to REVEAL] Revelation noun (Concise Encyclopedia) Transmission of knowledge from a god or gods to humans. In the Western monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, revelation is the basis of religious knowledge. Humans know God and his will because God has chosen to reveal himself to them. He may communicate with his chosen servants through dreams, visions, or physical manifestations and may inspire prophets who relay his message to the people. His will may also be translated directly into writing through the handing down of divine law (e.g., the Ten Commandments) or scripture (e.g., the Bible and the Qur'an). Other religions emphasize “cosmic” revelation, in which any and all aspects of the world may reveal the nature of a single underlying divine power (e.g., Brahman in the Vedas). Revelation may be defined as the communication of some truth by God to a rational creature through means which are beyond the ordinary course of nature. 1
INTRODUCTION TO REVELATIONS : M.M.NINAN The truths revealed may be such as are otherwise inaccessible to the human mind — mysteries, which even when revealed, the intellect of man is incapable of fully penetrating. But Revelation is not restricted to these. God may see fit to employ supernatural means to affirm truths, the discovery of which is not per se beyond the powers of reason. The essence of Revelation lies in the fact that it is the direct speech of God to man. The mode of communication, however, may be mediate. Revelation does not cease to be such if God's message is delivered to us by a prophet, who alone is the recipient of the immediate communication. Such in brief is the account of Revelation given in the Constitution "De Fide Catholica" of the Vatican Council. The Decree "Lamentabili" (3 July, 1907), by its condemnation of a contrary proposition, declares that the dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are "truths which have come down to us from heaven" (veritates e coelo delapsoe) and not "an interpretation of religious facts which the human mind has acquired by its own strenuous efforts" (prop., 22). Possibility of revelation The possibility of Revelation as above explained has been strenuously denied from various points of view during the last century. • Rationalists (under this class we include both Deist and Agnostic writers). Those who adopt this standpoint rely in the main on two fundamental objections: they either urge that the miraculous is impossible, and that Revelation involves miraculous interposition on the part of the Deity; or they appeal to the autonomy of reason, which it is maintained can only accept as truths the results of its own activities. Do you believe in the kind of miracles that defy explanation, like an ax head floating in water, or the rotation of the earth stopping for a full day or reversing by ten degrees, or someone reviving after having been dead? Those kinds of miracles tend to make skeptics of all of us. The very nature of miracles is that they defy the laws of nature and physics. Ax heads don’t float; they sink. The earth never stops spinning; it continues its consistent rotation so that we are able to precisely measure time. It only rotates one direction; it never goes backward. And dead people stay dead. Miracles, by definition, are “supernatural” or beyond nature. For this reason, atheists and evolutionists cannot accept the miraculous. If there is no God who created the cosmos with all its laws and lives in dimensions which are not known to man, then the laws of Physics are God and I am sure they know where they come from. 2
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Bible Studies Six Enigmas in the Bi
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