Models of Revelation 12

Dulles defines in Chapter 9 what he means by “symbolic communication” or “symbolic mediation.” First, he notes, revelation never occurs in an unmediated encounter with God. That encounter is always mediated – specifically, by symbols as “an externally perceived sign that works mysteriously on the human consciousness so as to suggest more than it can clearly describe or define. Revelatory symbols are those which express and mediate God’s self-communication” (p. 131).

“Symbol” here is a special kind of sign. Some signs only indicate something (as a shadow on a sundial); others represent something, usually by convention or tradition (as a written word stands for a set of sounds, which in turn stand for an agreed-upon meaning in a particular language). Symbols might indicate or represent, but what makes them symbols is that they evoke something beyond what can be indicated or represented. Their meaningfulness exceeds the indicated or represented meaning.

Because symbols evoke, their communication includes the response of the viewer. A national flag might only be a sign if we’re reading it in a catalogue, and have no emotional response to it. But it might be a powerful symbol, evoking a broad response of feelings and memories and expectations, when we see our own flag flying on some special occasion or place. “To enter the world of meaning opened up by the symbol we must give ourselves; we must be not detached observers but engaged participants” (133). Many kinds of things can be symbols: words, objects, persons, artifacts, dreams, rituals, myths, allegories, etc.

This definition faces two fundamental problems, of subjectivity, and of finitude. (1) If the symbol requires the participant to add his own experiences etc. in order to be meaningful, then how can symbols be (a) objective, and (b) universal? And (2), how can symbolic communication reveal to humans something beyond natural human experience? Where does that “supernatural” content come from, if the meaningfulness of the symbol depends so strongly on the human audience? Dulles sidesteps these problems to some extent: “To establish this, one would have to construct a theoretical argument based on the nature of revelation itself…. [Here,] I shall seek to propose an argument based on the parallelism between the properties of symbolic communication and of revelation. Four such properties may be singled out” (136).

First, symbolism gives participatory knowledge. A symbol is never a sheer object, but rather lures us into a newly-opening universe of meaning. Second, symbols transform the knower; the new meanings it opens change the one who participates in the symbolic communication. Third, that transformation is expressed as “consistent and committed action” (137). Fourth, symbols allow a kind of knowledge or awareness not available to discursive thought. They are a kind of mystery, both concealing and revealing in their evoking.

“These four qualities of symbolic knowledge make it apparent how symbol can be uniquely apt as a medium of revelation; for the qualities of revelation correspond, on a transcendent level, to those just noted…” (138). Just like symbols, revelation gives participatory awareness, transformation, commitment, and insight into unfathomable mysteries.

I do wish Dulles had given a more comprehensive answer here. Everything else he will say in the book depends on this point, that revelation takes place through symbolic mediations, using a variety of symbols according to the five models (propositions, history, inner experience, mystery, and new awareness). It seems plausible, but in making this point, he does not face squarely the problems of subjectivity and finitude. Instead, he goes around them by noting that symbols are like revelation. This is not sufficiently convincing, by itself. This becomes an enormous “IF…” statement, to which the remainder of the books is the “THEN…” which follows. But “IF NOT,” then his whole argument for symbolic mediation fails.

Dulles tries to buttress his assertion with three examples: light, the Cross, and the Eucharist (140-1). He “tests” these examples as mediating symbols in each of the five models. We’ll look at these carefully next week.

Models of Revelation 11

In Chapter 8, Dulles does a quick compare-and-contrast of his five models.

First, six points in common across all five models (p. 117):
(1) Revelation is God’s free action, a “turning toward” us of some kind, and a gift more-than-natural.
(2) Revelation communicates truth in some way, truth which is otherwise unknowable by natural reason.
(3) This truth of revelation is spiritually important in some way; it is “for salvation”.
(4) Revelation comes in a finally decisive way in Jesus Christ.
(5) Access to revelation is through the Church proclaiming the biblical message. (Note the very careful phrasing here.)
(6) Revelation demands some sort of response of faith.
I’m always surprised when I get to this point in the book by how much the very different models actually have in common. Nevertheless, it is necessary to include in all six points some qualifier (“in some way, of some kind,” etc.). These qualifiers hide the underlying differences even within the commonalities. Are these differences so great that the common points are effectively meaningless, or is there some shared meaning after all?

To answer, Dulles lists the differences (118):
(a) In each model, revelation has a different form: proposition, history, subjective experience, dialectic, and new awareness. Some of these can overlap, as we’ve said, but some are mutually exclusive.
(b) In each model, revelation has a different content. Again, some are comparable, some exclusive.
(c) What each model means by “for salvation” is very different.
(d) What each model means by “response of faith” is very different.
Now the differences begin to seem overwhelming to the shared points. Dulles investigates further by posing five additional questions, which emphasize the differences (120). I won’t rehearse all the questions, but take #2 as an example: “Does revelation give infallible certitude?” Model 1 (proposition) says definitely yes. Models 2 (history), 3 (experience), and 4 (dialectic) also say yes, but not in a way reducible to propositional statements. The certainty is there, inexpressibly. Model 5 (new awareness) also asserts certainty, but only of a limited kind (is it certainty at all?). On the basis of all these differences, Dulles argues that it is not possible to hold all the models together.

In order to move forward, Dulles is going to introduce a new concept, what he calls symbolic communication. “I shall contend that revelation is given and transmitted by symbolic communication. Symbol, I shall maintain, is a pervasive category that functions… in each of the five models. [It] can be of great value as a dialectical tool for bringing out the strong points and overcoming the weaknesses [of each]…. I am not proposing a sixth model, the “symbolic,” to be played off against the other five. The variety of models has advantages that should not be sacrificed by the adoption of a single model, however apt…. By recourse to symbol as dialectical tool it will be possible, I believe, to enrich and correct the existing models…” (128).

Here he’s making two implicit claims: (1) the category of “symbolic communication” is not a different mode of communication (not a "sixth model"). It is somehow more profound, more basic, than the mode of communication each of the five models selects (proposition, historical event, inner experience, dialectical experience, new awareness). Thus, each of these five modes fits in some way within the category of “symbolic communication,” or in other words, some symbolic communication is proposition, some historical, etc. Each of these five modes is potentially able to serve in God’s communication of saving truth.

(2) Even more, it seems that each of these five modes carries some unique aspect of saving truth without which revelation would be incomplete. Theologically, this is a very bold claim. Can it be shown that his category of “symbolic communication” is at least implicitly grasped as part of the deposit of faith from the beginning? (I.e., if this is a new element in theological discourse, not part of the deposit of faith at all, then that deposit has been incomplete in its reception of revelation until now, which has devastating consequences for the whole idea of “tradition”). We need to be paying attention to see if he can support this claim convincingly.

If he can't support the claim convincingly, then he has to justify including each of the five models individually in his synthesis, rather than the inclusive assertion of "advantage to variety" he asserts above.

This is really getting suspenseful! On to Chapter 9!

Models of Revelation 10

In Ch. 7, Dulles presents his fifth and final model, that of “revelation as new awareness.” Again, he’s presenting an abstraction, a type assembled from several related theological ideas, and he admits he’s not really representing any of the authors thoroughly.

This model is rooted in “subjective idealism of the nineteenth century” (98). It assumes the Kantian denial of noumenal knowledge is fully true (i.e., we cannot know things as they really are in themselves, only as they appear to our senses). It also assumes a very aggressive historicism of ideas (context driven meaning rather than content driven meaning). Thus, this model begins with the premise that the Church at time/culture A is not inherently the same thing as the Church at time/culture B.

Furthermore, this model also assumes an “anthropological turn” characteristic of the 19th and 20th centuries. Man can be defined only with reference to himself; there is no “outside” or “objective” constant against which to define (no noumenal knowledge means no certain knowledge of a personal God, a non-mythical Jesus Christ, or an unchanging human nature). In its more virulent modes, this is taken of the individual person; in less aggressive modes, it is taken only of groups of persons (cultures, “peoples” in the sense of “the American people,” or even of humanity in general).

Given these assumptions, it’s scarcely surprising where this model goes: namely, evolution. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin argued that revelation and [spiritual] progress are tightly interlinked (99). He talked about “orthogenesis” (“right becoming”) rather than orthodoxy. Karl Rahner followed this argument. “For him revelation is a particular instance of a more general phenomenon – that of the self-transcending movement of created reality toward ever-greater freedom and self-possession” (100). [Questions: does this movement exist? Can it be proven to be in this direction? Is it “self-” movement, rather than having an exterior cause?] Rahner basically argued that revelation is grace: the experience of grace (even understood more or less in classical theological terms) itself reveals the self-giving God who saves. Dulles quotes another contemporary theologian, Gregory Baum: “Since divine revelation is not information about another world but God’s self-communication to man, and hence his gracious entry into the dynamic process of man’s becoming fully human, it is possible to express what the Church believes by describing the new self-consciousness created by faith.” (101, fn 18). In other words, in the end, revelation doesn’t reveal God to man, it reveals man to himself.

It’s characteristic of this model to assert the use of reason; but in order to get around the limits Kant et al set on reason, they must assert a non-discursive reason, a kind of intuition for faith (103). This often becomes the role of imagination. “Since the imagination is the power by which we anticipate and construct our own future, revelation must actuate the symbolic imagination” (103). This kind of symbolic thought is the opposite of propositional doctrine: image, not word; myth, not truth-that-can-be-expressed-propositionally; subjectivity, not objectivity. As symbolic, the truth-value of revelation can only be judged pragmatically. “Revelation is true if it enriches the quality of individual and community life.” (104, fn 36).

Therefore, revelation is not something we receive from the past; it is by definition something we experience in the present. “History is revelatory insofar as it provides paradigms for human self-transcendence that continue to function in the present” (105). Biblical history, creeds, and doctrines are not recordings or summaries of some objective truth, but of powerfully creative symbols of change (106).

Because there are no revealed truths, this model cannot talk about “human nature;” instead, it talks about “the human condition.” To the extent that revelation says something useful about the human condition, it is universal. Therefore revelation is not limited to the Bible or Judeo-Christian truths. From here it’s a very short step to the idea that grace is universal (107).

The strengths of this model which Dulles notes are not objective, but require the same assumptions the model uses. First he notes how this model responds to the weaknesses of all the other models: not “authoritarian and rigid” (110) as the propositional model is argued to be; not assuming two layers of history; not sentimental or overly mystical, as the “inner experience” model can be; not passive, as the dialectical model can render us. If, however, one does not accept the initial assumptions, it’s much less clear that this model provides any significant advantage over any of the other models.

In terms of the seven criteria of evaluation, Dulles suggests this model does well on plausibility, practical fruitfulness, and dialogue. Again, it’s only plausible if one accepts the assumptions. It’s very practical in the sense that it can be made to fit a lot of different kinds of situations and ideas; but if Truth is the measure of practice, its inherent relativism mitigates this. The same with dialogue.

Apart from the reasonable of its core assumptions, this model also has some serious flaws. “The most persistent objection has to do with the fidelity of this model to Scripture and tradition” (111). Moreover, by implying that modern Christians are more “enlightened” than in the past [oh, those doltish credulists of the past!], it makes Christ not Christ. Dulles rather laconically notes that this makes it “difficult to give a fully coherent account of [this] position” (113) as a Christian theological position. Further, this model is adequate, not to all experience, but only to certain kinds. As to theoretical fruitfulness, its reduction of thought to imagination is “dissatisfying” (113).

Models of Revelation 9

Dulles continues in Ch 6 with the fourth model, “dialectical presence.” This means that revelation is always a paradox, simultaneously revealing the mystery of God, and thus concealing Him in the mystery, in the very act of revealing. The origins of this model lie in the inadequacies of liberal theology, displayed with such clarity in the unprecedented social and moral devastation of WWI. It was the juxtaposition of divine transcendence with undisguised human sinfulness that led thinkers like Barth, Bultmann, etc., to deny that “God’s presence and activity could ever be discovered within the realms of historical fact, doctrinal statement, or religious experience.” (85). Yet there is nowhere else to discover God’s presence and activity; hence the paradox.

This model never constituted a school as such, and there are significant differences among those who play with it. What Dulles offers here is a quite artificial schema, which he admits cannot really do justice to any of the thinkers he cites.

The core of this model is the idea that revelation is always of a mystery. God’s self cannot be reified in human terms. Instead, revelation for us is always of God’s saving self, hence of Christ. There is no revelation apart from Christ. (86). This requires a rejection of “natural theology,” of the revelation of some aspect of God’s nature in created natures, which was such a mainstay of medieval theology. But as revelation only in Christ, revelation is also coterminous with grace. (87). Therefore revelation, as the same saving act of God, continues today with the same mysterious divine freedom. The Bible, the Church, and the sacraments are not in themselves revelatory; but they can be the means of the one revelation of Christ, because of grace. By the same token, nothing outside the mystery of revelation is necessary to God’s salvation, and so the Bible, the Church, and the sacraments must be seen as fallible and changeable. (88).

Continuing this logical reduction, the act of faith is also the same as the act of revelation, and is the free gift of God. (89). Apologetics, then, falls into the same category as Bible, Church, and sacrament.

Hence, the form of revelation in this model is the Word itself, Jesus Christ. The problem is that the “residue” of the Word, whether in Scripture, in the Church, in the sacraments, in Tradition, etc., is not the Word itself, and so ultimately is not really a trustworthy witness to Christ.

Dulles is very careful to note the positive aspects of this model (93-4). He finds four positives. It is quite well-grounded in Scripture, at least in the sense that it doesn’t contradict Scripture. It salvages an epistemology of faith (albeit individual and subjective) from the Kantian cul-de-sac. Its rejection of apologetics cleared away accumulated tangles of intellectualizing undergrowth. And its quite spare religiosity renewed a sense of commitment to the absoluteness of God.

The principle weakness of this model is its inner incoherence (94-5). If faith (as the content of faith) cannot be meaningfully communicated, how can it be itself meaningful? If the Bible is not a reliable witness to Christ, how can the experience of revelation, even as a paradox, be judged as true or false to Christ? If salvation history is not actually historical, how can it be salvific? At the root of this incoherence is the divorce of the “Christ of faith” from the “Jesus of history,” which is really at the center of this model.

Dulles’s conclusion is surprisingly positive, however. “In view of these difficulties it is not surprising that dialectical theology, in its acute form, was only a phase in the career of its authors. When they sought to reflect further on the meaning of the gospel, they moved beyond dialectical thinking…. [T]hese theologians took up something like the analogous discourse of the classical tradition…. Whenever theology is tempted to forget its own limitations and to claim mastery of the revealed message, the vehement negations of dialectical theology remain a valuable corrective.” (97).

You might notice that all the thinkers cited by Dulles, and all the assumptions that underlie this model, are Protestant, mostly Lutheran. I've also come across some "post-modern" Catholics who fall for the illusion of clarity in this model, especially in sacramental theology. For example, M.-L. Chauvet wrote "Symbol and Sacrament" (originally in French) very much along these lines. He either coined or popularized the phrase "the absence of the presence of God" in reference to sacramental presence, especially True Presence in the Eucharist. The same criticisms noted above apply here, without any of the offsetting positives.

Homily - 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“You are anxious and worried about many things, but there is need of only one thing.” Life is full of these nagging details: how and when can I fix the car, clean the gutters, cook the next meal, pay this or that bill, and on, and on. We’re surrounded by chores, and before we finish one, we’re interrupted with yet another demand on our time, our attention, our energy. We make lists of things to do, and then make lists of our lists in order to be organized. These are the demands of modern life, and there’s just no avoiding them.

In this hectic pace of life, finding time for God can seem like just one more chore. “But there is need for only one thing.” In last week’s Gospel, we heard Jesus teaching about the “great commandment:” You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul, with all your strength and all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus didn't give us the "great chore" or the "great to-do list." Love for God is not an activity, like our love for pizza or baseball or walking the dog. Love for God is the center and foundation of our lives.

How is this wholehearted love for God and neighbor the “one thing” we need? Love for God and neighbor won’t keep us from being occupied with the details of living, but it can keep us from being anxious about them. This love gives us joy in our vocations, despite our distractions, and even despite our afflictions.

Abraham’s hospitality in the first reading shows his willingness to bear the cost of love. “The Lord appeared to Abraham… as he sat in the entrance to his tent, while the day was growing hot.” Because of the heat of the day, Abraham was sitting in the shade, keeping cool. Now, Abraham was responsible for a lot of people, and I doubt he got to sit in the shade very often. But, when he saw three strangers standing there in the full heat of the sun, he ran to meet them. He invited them to rest for a while in his shade. When they accepted his hospitality, he offered still more. He hastened to the tent, to let his wife Sara know to make extra bread. He ran to the pasture, to choose a calf for a servant to butcher and cook. He ran to bring them water and food. While they ate, he didn’t sit and eat with them, but served them. After all that running in the heat of the day, he stayed on his feet, waiting on them.

Abraham's love for God and neighbor inspired him to sacrifice his rest, and some of his wealth, for these strangers. He did so willingly, and with a clear sense of joy. When the angels promised again the birth his son Isaac, he received that gift with the same interior joy.

His hospitality may strike us as extravagant. In contrast, Martha's anxiety to finish the chores may strike us as much more reasonable. Even Martha's complaining may seem a smaller cost for being God's friend.

But Martha unwittingly pays a much higher cost: "anxious and worried about many things," she is not with Christ, only near Him. Martha doesn't receive the gift of Christ's presence with the same depth and joy as her sister.

For "Mary has chosen the better part." When Jesus comes to her house, she takes the time to be with Him. She opens her heart and her soul and her mind to Him, and to His teaching. She gives Him her whole self, not just her activity.

Abraham's love is extravagant. Abraham does not count the cost of his hospitality, and God repays him with the birth of his son, Isaac. Mary's love is extravagant in the same way. She does not count the cost, and Jesus rewards her with the promise that "it will not be taken away from her."

In our baptism, and in our membership in the Church, Christ comes to us. In the teachings of the Church, and in this holy Mass, Christ offers many graces, and fulfills many promises. In the people we love every day, and in strangers who cross our path, Christ is present, asking for our time, our talents, our love. Our vocation is to love God and neighbor with the same extravagance.

Models of Revelation 8

Dulles’s third model is “revelation as inner experience.” This doesn’t mean the bells and whistles of private revelation in the form of visions and whatnot, but an experiential, even existential, model of immediate, interior communion with God. This rejects the objectivity of both the dogmatic and the historical models. It is based on a thoroughly modern set of assumptions: i.e., what is “natural” (immediate and interior, intuitive or instinctive) is “more real” than what is artificial (mediate and exterior, learned objectively); the distrust of authority, here in objective revelation; the denial that noumenal (i.e., the thing as it really is, vs. “phenomenal,” the thing as it seems to my senses to be) reality can be known; individualism.

Again, there are several forms of this model. In this chapter, Dulles is not as clear on the permutations as in the previous. Without clearly defining the differences among them, he notes (p. 69-70) a liberal Protestant version, a modernist Protestant version, a modernist Catholic version, and a “transcendental” Catholic version. This last, he points out, best articulated by Karl Rahner, is “not typical” of this model, and he mostly sets it aside here. (He will return to Rahner under his 5th model.)

The model, in general, works this way: (p 70:) As transcendent and non-contingent Creator, God is in some immediate sense “present to” every point of creation. So then, every part of creation implies at least the theoretical possibility of some kind of “religious” or “mystical” experience of that divine presence. Such experiences, being immediate, are also universal (at least potentially). (p 72:) This experience always communicates the whole of God’s being, therefore not “revealed truth” in dogmatic or even historical form. Dogmas and history, even sacred history, even the Bible, are not “revealed” at all in this sense, but mere human attempts to communicate the reality of this experience in a particular tradition.

Faith and belief, then, are two quite distinct things. Faith is having the experience; belief is only an approximation of the experience in human terms. All belief, then, is necessarily more or less wrong, and therefore any belief is more or less tolerable in itself. (There follows, 73ff, a description of much jumping through hoops in order to try to ascribe some significance to tradition in Christianity; but, if the assumptions be granted, the most that can be said is that certain beliefs, including Scripture, the Church, the sacraments, etc. etc., tend to be more helpful for us, in being receptive to the faith-experience.)

This same problem of tradition and authority must also be faced, in reference to Jesus Christ. Here it can be said that Christ was the highest and fullest example of religious experience, and that following Him in the Church maximizes our potential to have the same experiences. But of course this is a very far cry from claiming that Jesus is the unique and universal Savior.

The substantial weaknesses of this model should be fairly obvious. It is non-Biblical, and even contradicts the Bible in significant ways. “All the passages from Scripture used to support either of the first two models constitute objections to the third.” (p. 78). It denies the prophets' own experience of inadequacy to know and love God. It substitutes elitism for divine election. It cannot be harmonized with a great many traditional Church teachings. It makes the Church herself a secondary, rather than a primary, reality. It disappoints many expectations of what religion is “supposed to do,” such as define the meaning of stuff, especially in the moral and metaphysical senses.

Is there any redeeming feature of this model? Dulles notes two only: “[T]his model made it possible to accept that critique [i.e., the Kantian denial that noumenal knowledge is possible] without falling into skepticism.” (p. 77). There are other, better responses to Kant; nor is it necessary to accept that critique at all, or at least wholly. But the much harder trick, if one is intending to accept Kant, is not to fall into relativism, which this model, by itself, inevitably does. Second, “this model gave striking support to the life of devotion.” (p. 77) By this he means, “New links began to appear between systematic and ascetical theology. The life of prayer and mystical experience… appeared once again as central themes.” (78). To the extent that “systematic and ascetical” theology have been divided since the 17th c. (much more so in Protestant denominations than in Catholicism), this renewed connection certainly is valuable.

One of the most obvious places I think this model has taken root in the Church is in moral theology, specifically in the formation of conscience. Very few Catholics think about the Bible, the Church, or Jesus Christ in these experiential terms, but all too many think exactly this way about their conscience: that it is immediate, rather than needing formation; that it is interior, rather than shaped by our learning and practice of the Faith; and that it is authoritative of itself, rather than needing the authority of the magisterium for full conviction.

Models of Revelation 7

Using the seven criteria of evaluation, Dulles notes several strengths of the historical model:
• It emphasizes our relationship with God in more concrete ways, in the sense that actions speak louder than words.
• It retrieves some biblical themes that can be missed or downplayed in the propositional model.
• It is “more organic” than the propositional model. “The meaning of events is capable of being formulated in many ways… The flexibility, however, does not [necessarily] lead to relativism. Believers in every age and culture can find their identity in relationship to events that have objectively occurred…” (61). I would add, though, that this risk of relativism must be consciously avoided.
• It is less authoritarian.

There are some weaknesses to note also:
• Words do remain intrinsically meaningful and indispensable. “God’s self-disclosure in words and visions is not unrelated to his self-disclosure by deed, but there seems to be no cogent reason for unilaterally subordinating the former to the latter…” (63).
• Some biblical categories (e.g. Wisdom books) make little sense in purely historical terms.
• Some biblical categories (e.g. Genesis) are not “history” in terms meaningful to this model.
• It is not well attested in early Christian thought or tradition; this raises the question of continuity and resulting change of identity (if discontinuous with Tradition).
• It has questionable value for the ecumenical project of Christian unity, or for interreligious dialogue generally.
• The idea of an historical “act of God” (this is not the same thing as the Catholic meaning of “miracle”) is difficult to define coherently. If, in terms of the second form of this model, one posits two strains of history, human and sacred, one can avoid the definition but still needs criteria for which acts belong to which histories. If, in terms of the third form of this model, one posits only one strain of history, the definition risks denying the possibility of the miraculous, or else becoming merely a circular definition. (This problem, as I noted in the last post, is linked to the use of “scientific” standards of objectivity for history treated as a social science.)
• Finally, if events are not self-interpreting, as most theologians using this model agree, it seems to be implied that the event is not primary to the word which interprets it.

Dulles concludes the chapter with a quote (on p. 66) from Dei Verbum: “This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them.” He suggests, in other words, that these two models must be used together, as if one model, to understand the “inner unity” of revelation in Scripture.

Models of Revelation 6

Dulles continues in Chapter 4 with his second model: “Revelation as History.”

A word of preface here. One of the features of the model mind-set is the increasing tendency, since the late 18th c., to “historicize” everything. This means that people see everything only, or at least mostly, in terms of a process over time. This view connects closely with the model of evolution, and goes a long way to explain why we now tend to see everything, not merely biology, in terms of that theory.

In a positive sense, this historicizing can keep us from making the mistake of thinking that people at time A had the same assumptions or attitudes about stuff as people at time B. It has made us more aware of the diversity of human experience.

But in a negative sense, historicizing has also undermined any confidence in a fundamental stability to stuff. It denies more or less strongly that anything is permanently real: thus, no unifying human nature, no unchanging moral law, etc.

Since everything else was subjected to historicizing in the 19th c., it’s not surprising that revelation also was.

Dulles notes from the first that there is an historical element in the first model of Revelation as dogma. That model implies that revelation occurs in history, for where else would it occur? It notes that revelation must also be handed down through history (“Traditio”). And it includes some events, such as Exodus and the life of Christ, in the category of Revelation. “Still, the propositional model is not in the fullest sense historical, for it denies that the events of sacred history are by themselves revelation…” (53).

The defining notion of this model is that “revelation occurs primarily through deeds, rather than words, and that its primary content is the series of events by which God has manifested himself in the past” (53).

Dulles identifies three forms of this model, and gives examples of theologians who follow each.

The first form he calls “Revelation as Event.” “God, inasmuch as he is personal, cannot be adequately revealed through nature, but only through persons – that is to say, through actors on the stage of human history. The historical persons and events are the source of any truths which the mind may derive from them. Creeds and doctrines depend upon the prior events of revelation from which they are derived.” (54). The events, in other words, offer a self-evident interpretation. For this version of this model, there are some immediate problems:
• If words do not reveal, there are no revealed truths in dogmatic form. At the extreme, all dogma is changeable, if our interpretation of the events of sacred history changes.
• The Bible, strictly speaking, is not revealed, and therefore cannot be held to be inerrant.
• What becomes the ground for interpreting the events of sacred history? At the extreme, is there even such a thing as Tradition?
• “If we cannot trust the biblical interpretation, what resources do we have for asserting [even] the fact that God was active in this history?” (56).

The second form he calls “Revelation as Salvation History.” The Protestant Oscar Cullmann and the Catholic Jean Danielou represent this version of the model quite well. Cullmann responds to some of the problems of the first version of this model by distinguishing among event, prophetic interpretation, and recapitulation. [So for example, the meaning of the event, “the crossing of the Red Sea,” is made clear through the centuries by accumulating layers of interpretation of liturgy and law and prophecy, culminating in the baptism of Christ in the Jordan and the institution of the Sacrament of Baptism in the Church.] The key difference from the first version of the model is that here, the events cannot interpret themselves. So there must be some kind of meaning-carrying Tradition to serve as the interpretive key. The Catholic scholar Danielou follows much the same path, but manages to include in the accumulating layers of meaning in Tradition a defense of Patristic typology. Something very significant for the reality of the Church comes from this, but of course this is a Catholic point, which Cullmann does not fully agree with.

The principle objection to this second version is that it still posits two kinds of history taking place together: one objective and human, one sacred and meaningful only to those who have faith. The third version, which Dulles calls “Revelation as History,” takes on this objection. One of its principle supporters was Pannenberg. “Revelation, he holds, is not to be found in a special segment of history, but rather in universal history…” (59). In other words, every event, no matter what its context, or how mundane or celebrated, how public or private it is, can serve to reveal something of God in an objective way. [NB, this is tied in to the mid-20th c. defense of historicizing which tries to make history into a social science, rather than a liberal art.] “Hence no special illumination is needed for their meaning to be understood. It suffices that people be able to use their reason… Faith, therefore, does not precede the recognition of revelation…” (59). In order to hold this position, one must claim that events reveal God only indirectly, never directly, which denies the possibility of theophanies, word-revelations [“I am who am.”], and miracles.

This throws one immediately back to the question of interpretation. This version can only hang its claim to objective, universal interpretation on the Resurrection. This becomes the interpretative key to the whole of Revelation, the most fundamental meaning of any and every other event in human history.

Question: Can you think of examples of this model which you have encountered?

Models of Revelation - Excursus on the origins of Faith

Back in the first chapter (p. 14), Dulles indicated that he was assuming the question of the origins of faith. In other words, he takes as given the remote past of the faith, and the successive layers of covenants between God and man - i.e., Adam both before and after the Fall, Noah, Abraham, Moses; then the successive renewal of the Mosaic covenant down to the Incarnation. This allows him to look at the big-enough topic "what is revelation" without having to parse repeatedly the even-bigger question "what is the relationship between revelation and faith." That would be too difficult a project.

But Tom and Dennis are raising the question, so let's step out of the book for a moment to consider that more closely.

There is a traditional apologetic answer to this question -- Augustine's masterpiece "On the City of God" is an excellent example -- which I think is still really the clearest and fullest one. It is the one Dulles is in fact assuming. It boils down to a fairly simple theology of the Fall, its corrosive effects on various created natures, and their redemption in Christ.

(1) Adam sinned by an act of disobedience. Thereby he lost the gift of the possibility of not sinning. We his children, therefore, inherit a corrupt nature, carrying the not-possibility of not-sinning. We call this concupiscence. It affects our will (we sin) and our intellect (we can't grasp God properly).

(2) He did not, however, lose either his status as a creature (God still loves him and us in the same way) or his purpose as a creature ("to know, love, and serve God in this life, and to be with Him eternally in the next").

Moreover, the goodness of creation is still good. It still reflects the goodness of God.

(3) So, despite concupiscence, our purpose of loving God still draws us to those aspects of His creation that fulfill, even if only partially, that purpose. These we call "natural virtues," such as the "Big Four:" prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude. We know these are good from our experience, and from any reasonable analysis of the outcomes of actions based on these versus the alternatives.

God uses these, then, to call us to him. This is the underlying, "historical," layer of faith: a choice to respond with prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude to the goodness of creation.

(4) Those who make this choice are therefore open to a further step in "knowing, loving, and serving God in this life, and being with Him eternally in the next." Outside of the specific revelation to Israel, there were and are naturally virtuous people, even lacking any clear knowledge of God's person: Augustine and other apologists point to some of the early patriarchs, philosophers like Plato or Cato the Elder, statesmen like Cincinnatus, lawgivers like Solon, etc. And of course ordinary people too, about whom we may know nothing.

Within the specific revelation to Israel, knowledge of God slowly became more clear: rooted in this "natural revelation" but gradually adding more and more specificity about who God is as Father, and what He desires from us as His children. This reaches its fullest point in the Incarnation. Christ leaves this fullness in the Church He wills, etc.

(5) Like every good thing from God, faith is, therefore, first and foremost a gift. In the general sense, it is the invitation to respond with natural -- and, eventually, supernatural -- virtue to the goodness of creation, and of the gift of being itself. We are free to respond positively or negatively. In the specific sense, it is the grace of God in me, against the impulse of concupiscence, strengthening and guiding my intellect and will, so that I may choose more positively than negatively. But even under the action of grace, I remain free to believe or reject. (This is quite a separate mystery, btw.)

As gift, faith is prior to revelation. It can be received even by infants, and so we not only practice but strongly encourage infant baptism. But, in another sense, revelation leads us to faith, which is why adult conversion (and baptism) is always possible.