ABSTRACT
Revelation is the truth disclosed by or about God. Christians assume, and sometimes try to argue, that God exists and freely and lovingly communicates with human beings publicly and perhaps privately for the sake of their well-being. Beyond that, questions rapidly scurry about. Does God disclose himself or a set of ideas? How can we rely on what we think is the truth disclosed or communicated by God? In responding to these questions, revelation is variously presented as Scripture as a bulk literary deposit, or Scripture as the history of God’s dealings with the world. Quite separate is the claim that revelation is knowledge of God, not necessarily or only disclosed in Scripture, but also from sense experience or disclosed to the mind itself. Underlying the several discussions all along the line is the epistemological dimension of the problem of revelation: how is it that we know God and his intentions for us? While some of these questions go back to the fourth century with the incisive questioning of Augustine of Hippo, whose huge output is shot through with epistemological anxiety, they all became far more pressing with the modern understanding of knowledge de ned by empirical evidence as the sole criterion of knowledge and one of its offshoots, historical biblical scholarship. The positivist vision of knowledge triumphed, and Christian theology was sent into a tailspin about whether we reliably know God at all and whether the traditional sources for doing so (Scripture, tradition, reason) are reliable. A new view of the possibility and nature of revelation now tied to experience emerged from this struggle. Here we will rst brie y review the traditional view behind the modern crisis. Then we will examine recent discussion on the human capacity by means of which we know God experientially. Finally, we will point out some recent suggestions regarding the content of revelation.
