- published: 11 Jan 2011
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In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity(s). Some religions have religious texts which they view as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired.
Some people hold that God can communicate with man in a way that gives direct, propositional content: This is termed verbal revelation. Orthodox Judaism and traditional Christianity hold that the first five books of Moses were dictated by God in such a fashion.
The Aristotelian scholastic philosophers of the medieval era held that revelation was the discovery of absolute truths about God, man, and man's place in God's universe, as discovered through logical philosophical inquiry. A prophet's connection to God was held to be the only way that a person could reach such a state of pure reason.
Some people believe that God reveals himself through his creation, and that at least some truths about God can be learned by studying nature, physics, cosmology, etc. Adherents of this belief often dismiss the idea of divine texts or "scriptures". For, if one accepts that truth can be determined through the study of nature, physics, cosmology, etc., then that truth has evidently existed longer than any divine text or scripture; it has been true, longer. Thus, natural revelation would be empiricist. In contrast, adherents of idealism find support in Biblical verses such as "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1-4).