ABSTRACT
One of the great difficulties of all-knowing modernity (including postmodernism and the other reactionary ‘-isms’ into which it tends to fragment itself ) is its blindness to its own blindnesses. Recent critical historical analysis1 has at least pointed out how these very blindnesses have structured the modern way of looking at the past. This limited way of looking involves all disciplines, so that, like any other discipline, much modern theology suffers the same kinds of faulty vision about its past. One remarkable insensibility has to do with the modern notion of revelation. Specifically, certain trends in modern theology fail to come to terms with the origin of the notion of revelation from within modernity itself and its metaphysical framework, rather than from patristic or medieval notions. Given that so many Christian theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, regard revelation as the most fundamental category, this lacuna takes on particular significance for any account of theology within modernity.
