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Friday, July 14, 2006

Dei Verbum 6
God's choice, God's grace to transcend the flawed human condition and reveal himself in intellectual ways:

Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of (humankind). That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind. (First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 2, "On Revelation:" Denzinger 1786 (3005).)

As a sacred synod has affirmed, God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the light of human reason (see Rom. 1:20); but teaches that it is through His revelation that those religious truths which are by their nature accessible to human reason can be known by all (people) with ease, with solid certitude and with no trace of error, even in this present state of the human race. (Ibid: Denzinger 1785 and 1786 (3004 and 3005).)

I think we can eliminate gnosticism, the notion that God reveals himself to an individual for the benefit of the community. I mean this in the obvious sense of a person granted special revelation, claiming to pass it on for the good of all. God's revelation can be known by all. And the "all" portion is manifested by the accumulation of tradition as well as the community's discernment with and of any individual's input.


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