Revealed knowledge of God's existence

Revealed knowledge of God's existence

Revealed knowledge can be either direct or indirect or, immediate and mediate. Immediate revelation refers to examples of God making himself known to humans directly e.g. the apostles who walked with Jesus whilst he was on Earth. Mediate revelation is when people learn about God indirectly e.g. those who learned about Jesus from others who had met him.

The necessity for revealed theology encompasses two schools of thought. The first is that in a postlapsarian state, humans are at an epistemic distance from God. The natural world, as a result, cannot communicate knowledge of God alone as fallen humans rely on God's direct intervention to gain full knowledge of him. The second school of thought is the epistemic chasm (difference) that exists postlapsarian. This idea, propounded predominantly by the Catholic Church, is that one of the effects of sin can be seen in "religious ignorance or indifference" within society. This indifference to religion may block or obstruct the desire for God as revealed through nature hence the requirement for revealed theology as a source of knowledge of God.

Revealed knowledge through faith and God's grace

📎 Faith is understood to be a belief in something that evidence does not necessarily support, described in scripture as "confidence in what we hope for and assurance in what we do not see" It is potentially this alone that distinguishes knowledge of God from other types of knowledge. Knowledge of God's existence requires within it, an element of faith.

Unformed faith refers to the belief of a person who can intellectually accept another person's faith in God but, cannot accept it as true for themselves whereas formed faith is a faith in which a person accepts what they believe rationally through the intellect, concluding that it is true. Here we can see that is using reason alone one could arrive at unformed faith and it is only through faith and reason that one can gain knowledge of God. Reason, according to Aquinas can only take us so far & faith, in contrast, is volitional and gives a stronger connection with God.

John Calvin

Calvin describes faith as the "firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence towards us" given to "anyone who is willing to accept it". He claims that it is not just a cerebral moment but an emotional and spiritual experience of assurance that has belief in God "sealed upon our hearts".

Despite this, Calvin holds that the firm knowledge of God that comes from faith is only possible as revealed by Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

Thus, for Calvin, faith requires the grace of the holy spirit – and so too does knowledge of God, we cannot achieve truth in faith on our own. More information on Calvin's view on how we can obtain knowledge of God can be found below in the 'revealed through Christ' section.

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, taking inspiration from Aquinas, describes faith as the free submission and obedience to what has been heard. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes God's grace as the gift of the Spirit and the "free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call and become children of God". In this, we can see that Calvin, Aquinas, and the Catholic Church hold that God's grace is required to strengthen the faith of humanity through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the aspect of god that works in the world today. Christians believe that the Holy Spirit inspires and guides people, gives them faith, and strengthens them to live good Christian lives.

Overall then, this view is that faith is a gift given to humans as a result of God's grace that in turn, through the work of the Holy Spirit, helps people to gain knowledge of God. This view can be seen emulated in the scripture

"For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith and this is not from yourself but through the gift of God".

Richard Dawkins

Famously anti-theist, Dawkins is of course going to reject the notion that faith can lead to knowledge of God. Describes faith as "the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of evidence". Dawkins holds that given the impossibility of empirically testing faith, it is impossible to argue against, hence for him it is the ultimate cop-out as there can be no further discussion. Once a person refers to faith, then all reason is defunct, and intelligent discourse is over – all subsequent debate would result in the death of a thousand qualifications.

Douglas Hedley

Contemporary scholar Hedley argues that faith is to religion what imagination is to philosophy. Philosophical investigations and subsequent progression rely on intangible, intentional and conscious imaginative thought experiments such as Plato's cave. So, much like the thought experiment is not strictly real, but helps us to understand philosophy, faith has no tangible relation to the real world but helps us to understand religion and God. This is a small point that you might make to overcome a weakness if your line of argument focused on the role of faith in gaining knowledge of God & the weakness discredited the value of this.

Revealed knowledge of God in Jesus Christ

John Calvin

In Institutes, Calvin writes that "the knowledge of God, which is clearly shown in the ordering of the world and in all creatures, is still more clearly and familiarly explained in the Word". He posits that natural theology would be an adequate means of gaining knowledge of God 'Si integer statist** **Adam' (If Adam had remained upright). If that were the case then we would have remained in a 'primal and simple knowledge of God'. Since Adam did not remain upright, the only true way to gain knowledge of God is through faith in Jesus.

Not dismissing the role of the sensus divinitatis completely, Calvin recognizes the innate ability to gain knowledge of God in this way, however, proposes that if a person is to gain specific knowledge of God, they must take a Trinitarian approach.

The Trinity and Calvin

Arguing that the three elements of the Holy Trinity working simultaneously is what allows humans to gain knowledge of God. As previously noted, for Calvin, the Son is the crucial component of the Trinity in relation to gaining knowledge of God. Jesus, for Calvin, is both the mirror and mediator for God. He is the mirror in that he reflects the qualities of God (love, compassion, mercy, etc.) and is the mediator between humankind and God. Jesus is the vessel by which sinful humans are reconciled and brought into a relationship with God. Beyond this, for Calvin the only true knowledge of God comes in salvation which again is accredited solely to Christ.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther proposed that God cannot be known in any way except through Christ. It is through Christ that God declares his favor and mercy to humanity, in Christ we learn that God is not an angry master but a gracious and kind father. Much like Calvin, Martin Luther also extends the metaphor of the mirror to Christ arguing that he alone is the mirror through which we see God and know his will.

Revealed knowledge of God in the life of the Church & the Bible

Calvin

By seeing everything through the lens of Christ the mediator, Calvin sees the Bible as a required component to understand God's work on Earth.

He holds that it is through scripture that we can fully understand all of the other points of contact that we encounter since God does not communicate with us directly but that scripture is a recording of what God has "been pleased to consign his truth to perpetual remembrance".

With reference to the life of the Church, Calvin believed it to be the body of Christ – the group of believers united by placing Christ at its head. Thus, for Calvin the church is the result of the coming of the mediator, it's function is to draw back the believer to Christ.

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church sees God as the author of Scripture and the contents of the Bible as being written by the breath of the Holy Spirit, but, it also highlights that Scripture is not all there is to know about religion because religion is a living entity and not a book – it is through the life of the church that scripture is understood. The life of the church helps Christians to understand the Bible and therefore Jesus and it is through this approach that full and perfect knowledge of God is obtained.

Rowan Williams

Arguing that the Bible is a form of mediate revelation, former Archbishop Williams holds that the Bible is a sort of parable in which God is saying 'This is how people saw me, heard me and responded to me, this is the gift I gave them". Here he argues that God is providing us with guidance on how he wants us to act and through his scripture, we can develop a better understanding of ourselves and God.