6 - Revelation, historical continuity and the rationality of tradition

Summary

The purpose of this chapter is to bring the problematic of revelation into relationship with the problematic of critical theory. Revelation is considered as a distinguishing feature of the Western religions, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all of Semitic or Near Eastern origin, in contrast to the Eastern or Asian religions. That means that revelation is linked to belief in a personal God. The God who reveals and is revealed is conceived as a personal agent who acts and who speaks. Revelation is, therefore, understood as a communication from a personal God to human persons as persons, that is, as beings capable of an intelligent and free response to a divine communication.

It is useful here to apply the distinction made by Gilbert Ryle between achievement verbs and task verbs. Achievement verbs express success in attaining some goal; task verbs express the activities or process required to reach that goal. ‘The athlete won the race’ – ‘win’ is an achievement verb; ‘The athlete ran the race’ – ‘run’ is a task verb. We do not observe the distinction rigidly, often borrowing achievement verbs to express the process leading to the achievement. For example, we speak of a runner winning a race while still running. But it makes for clarity to be aware of the difference in logical behaviour between the two classes of verb. ‘Reveal’ is best understood as an achievement verb. It expresses the accomplishment of a communication between God and the recipient of the revelation. It affirms the completion of a communication, while allowing that the processes leading to the achieved communication may be many and various. These processes will be expressed by a variety of task verbs.