Search Results

The Christian belief that Christ is the epitome of God's revelation has led to the notion of the “end of revelation with the last apostle”. This notion has undergone significant historical development. From signifying merely that Christ is the most complete but not the last form of Divine revelation, it has come to imply a literal end of divine communication in the writings of some theologians, leading to the widespread denial of the feasibility or even possibility of Christian prophecy. A more detailed treatment of the “end-notion” leads to important conclusions with regards to prophecy; it is not at all clear when revelation should have “ended”: with Christ, with the last apostle, or with the closure of the biblical canon.

This chapter examines medieval and modern views about the meanings of reason, belief, faith, revelation, and truth, and the relationships between them. It provides moving testimony from a devout Christian of her sense of the presence of Christ in her life, which trumps rational doubt about the existence of God, and skeptics' reflections on reports of divine revelation and of personal experience of the divine. It discusses how religious apologists attempts to prove the truth of their belief in the divine authorship of the Bible or the Koran in the face of overwhelming evidence and logic against it. It challenges the claims of fundamentalists that the Bible and the Koran are paragons of ethics and morality, pointing to immoral or unethical teachings and ambiguities in them. The chapter then examines and critiques the Kuzari argument offered by Orthodox Jews to substantiate their belief that God revealed the Pentateuch to Moses at Sinai.

This chapter argues that the enigmatic ‘disciple Jesus loved’ in John cannot be identified, and that the evidence for his role as the founder and the leader of the Johannine group remains meagre. The Beloved Disciple is no doubt an ideal figure in John, but he is not necessarily portrayed as a paradigm of true faith to the audience. Rather, his major function is to authenticate the contents of the Gospel of John. While he is often compared to the Paraclete in John, his figure is more closely connected with that of Jesus. He is one link in the chain of the transmission of divine revelation: the Father supplied the beloved Son with this revelation, and the Beloved Disciple was needed to transmit it to future generations.

This chapter uses radical and ontological metaphor to illustrate the different senses of the possible. It compares theology to a cartography that creates maps to plot a course towards divine revelation and the discovery of God. As Gregory affirms, the progressing along various chosen ways to God, always occurs over rugged topography with steep grades. Yet, if theological maps are drawn and read in the dark, then the journey takes on an even more problematic character, given that reading and writing in the dark results in a dimming of hermeneutical lucidity. In other words, as Charles Winquist insists, theology addresses the knowledge of God by engaging language about God, which in turn demands interpretation. Theological language may strive to realize more specificity or rigor, but it always remains a second-order vocabulary dependent upon the first-order religious language of avowal, that is, the language of faith, testimony, and attestation.

The Qumran scrolls present the exegesis of the Torah and consequently the halakhic decisions that stem from it as the product of divine inspiration. However, the rabbinic writings treat it as an open-ended process of human exegetical activity. This chapter argues that this aspect of the relationship between early sectarian and later rabbinic halakhic discourse is best explained by the developmental model. This is because the early Jewish literature, very much like the Dead Sea Scrolls, strongly tends toward attributing a divine origin to halakhic biblical explanations. On the contrary, later generations tend toward embracing human activity as a source of authority that is rooted in the exegetical process. Parting of the ways between early sectarian writings and later rabbinic literature is especially evident in the procedures that the two groups employ for making legal decisions. This is best illustrated by their opposing treatment of the biblical injunctions concerning the false prophet, on the one hand, and the status of the high court's decisions, on the other. Rabbis, due to the lack of appropriate means, treated the false prophet as a sage; the Qumranites took the opposite tack.

A passage from the Book of Numbers, where two explorers come back from the land of Canaan, bringing with them a pole from which hangs a cluster of grapes, in addition to the fruit of the pomegranate and the fig-tree, helps us throw some light on some important questions such as: What relationship does Christian faith see between Israel and the Catholic Church? What is the reason for the significance and the continued relevance of Israel for the Church? This chapter examines three elements of continuity together with discontinuity between Israel and the Christian Church: the eschatological character of divine revelation in the First Testament and in the New Testament; the community-oriented notion of salvation, determined by the founding principle of the covenant between the eternal God and His people; and the messianic significance of the two peoples, of the one who waits as well as of the one who contemplates the fulfillment of the promises.

While writing the last stages of the Grammar, John Henry Newman was distracted by the drama unfolding at Rome. There was an attempt to define the Pope as infallible in matters of faith. Newman had always believed in papal infallibility, but opposed the church's declaration of it. He warned that the church was not ready for the Pope's infallibility. Newman continued to explain and interpret the dogma to the people who wrote to him for advice and information. For Newman, the only infallibility the Pope possessed was the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike the Apostles, it was a negative gift. The Popes were not inspired but merely protected from error. He also stated that definitions involving infallibility did not come from divine revelation “but of human means, research, and consulting theologians”.

This chapter illustrates why it is important to include women in narrative histories of Puritanism and why examining the experiences of both women and men changes our historical understanding of Puritanism. It highlights Puritan attitudes toward divine revelation and witchcraft by focusing on how Puritans accused women of being witches and denigrated their religious experiences. The chapter views Puritanism in New England as a strongly gendered faith that offered women spiritual equality in theory only and suggests that gender often created a double standard about knowing God's secrets. It also considers the ways that women and men were expected to express their spirituality in Puritan England. Finally, the chapter demonstrates how gender shaped Puritan perception and judgment with respect to salvation, wonders and revelations, and witches and angels.

This chapter offers some brief comments on significant elements of Newman’s vision of divine revelation with respect to the issues in epistemology and theology that have emerged in light of his vision. In today’s terminology, Newman deployed an externalist vision of reason that sees human agents as complex truth-detecting organisms that can rightly rely on intuition or on cumulative case arguments that are not amenable to formal articulation. The chapter covers not just positive receptions but also important misreadings of Newman, such as the claim of scepticism. The chapter ends with some reflections on the radical differences of opinion in the assessment of a figure of the stature of Newman, especially from those doing historical research.

This chapter examines the meaning and purpose of miracles in Judaism. Miracle stories in Jewish tradition express confidence in God as the original creator of the world, revealer of moral law, and champion of justice in human history. Biblical stories of Exodus and Sinai are interpreted as miracles performed on behalf of those with whom God entered into covenant. In the subsequent history of Israel, God worked miracles through prophets, rabbis, and masters to recall the Jewish community to their responsibility for restoring the world to justice through obedience to Torah. Miracles served the purpose of confirming the authority of divine revelation, defeating the persecutors of the Jewish people, and demonstrating God's faithfulness to his covenant with Israel in the most extreme circumstances.

This chapter explores why a divine revelation, in particular the Torah, was given if destiny is defined in terms of intellectual perfection and involves knowledge of the sciences and metaphysics. It talks about Gersonides' whole enterprise of showing the philosophical provability of the fundamental truths of metaphysics, which pertains to true happiness and reveals his complete confidence in the powers of reason. The chapter describes one of the earliest Jewish theologians to confront the issue on the contrast or conflict between human reason and divine revelation head-on, Sa'adiah Gaon. Sa'adiah Gaon was quite confident in his own rational powers and throughout his book engaged in philosophical argument to show that Judaism was a religion wholly compatible with human reason, albeit revealed through prophecy. It points out how divine revelation, according to Sa'adiah Gaon, provides supplementary information that aids in applying the general teachings of the Torah to the specific circumstances of everyday life.

Chapter 3 tried to explain some of Aquinas's basic (or metaphysical) views, ones that we need to understand in order to follow him when it comes to his approach to God and evil. They are not theological views. They are ones that Aquinas thought defensible by reasonable argument without recourse to divine revelation. This chapter adds to the account of such views by turning to what Aquinas thought in general about “goodness” and “badness.” These are terms that always feature prominently in discussions of God and evil, but how did Aquinas understand them? He did not do so by drawing on beliefs about God. Rather, some of his beliefs about God depended on what he thought of goodness and badness without reference to God, thinking that formed a critical backdrop to his overall position on God and evil. That is why we need at this stage to be clear as to what it amounts to.

Many of our sources pertaining to 2^nd Temple Judaism, including the Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, and Philo, were preserved by Christians, leading Robert Kraft to warn against assuming that they were originally Jewish despite the presence of biblical allusions. Several of these works, such as those associated with Enoch, are pseudepigraphic and retell biblical stories. Others demonstrate the development of wisdom teachings and apocalyptic ideas, with accounts of heavenly ascents, divine revelations, and symbolic visions like those found in earlier texts from this genre.

This chapter considers experiences of mystery and miracle. It states that miraculous experiences help reassure people that there is more to life than meets the eye, and presents several examples of people who believe they have experienced some form of divine revelation. It some data on the number of Americans who believe in angels and who believe that they have had some form of divine encounter. It explains why Americans are drawn to the miraculous, and notes that religious organizations are less in control of spirituality. It shows how interest in miracles and other supernatural phenomena can be merged with the highly advanced scientific knowledge that is also characteristic of American culture. Finally, this chapter studies the interplay between spirituality and secularity.

This chapter explains why Noahide law is an appropriate starting point for Jewish philosophy today. Most philosophical reflections on Judaism have not only avoided Noahide law as a starting point, but have avoided halakhah in general. This is because of a basic misunderstanding in Jewish philosophy. This misunderstanding is based on the assumption that the systematic structure admitting philosophical analysis is evidently deductive. Since halakhah is not a process where first principles are set down and thereafter specified, it seems to elude philosophical analysis. The chapter then considers how Noahide law functions as a criterion of the possibility of divine revelation to humanity; as a criterion of human potentiality for knowledge of God; as a criterion of the possibility of revelation; and as a criterion of human potentiality in relation to revelation.