Is Revelation so Self-evident as it Seems? Meditating on Avery Dulles’ Typology

Abstract

An innovatory typology of the paradigms of understanding Revelation offered by Cardinal Avery Dullles wherein its interpretations as (1) the body of propositions, (2) the sacred history, (3) a specific inner experience, (4) the encounter with the transcendent and (5) a new awareness are juxtaposed and compared in this paper in detail. The author of the paper differs between two approaches to theories of Revelation, those from the points of view of philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. In the first case, already sufficiently mastered, these theories are estimated mostly against the background of the Christian belief system, in the second one, presented by the author of the paper, these theories are examined according to their correspondence to the very semantics of the notion of revelation. The upshot is that the notion under discussion (revelatio) could be more coherent if some of the senses attributed to it would be transferred to adjacent notions, those disclosing along with it different modalities of communication between God and man (communio).