REVELATION AND BELIEF

Revelation

1. What is revelation?

Revelation is God's communication of himself, by which he makes known the mystery of his divine plan, a gift of self-communication which is realized by deeds and words over time, and most fully by sending us his own divine Son, Jesus Christ. [glossary, 68*, 50].

2. What did God accomplish by revelation?

By revelation God provided the definitive, superabundant answer to questions that man asks himself about the meaning and purpose of his life. By this revelation God wishes to make men capable of responding to him, and of knowing him, and of loving him far beyond their natural capacity. [68*, 50-53].

3. What were the stages of revelation?

God provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities. God has revealed himself to man by gradually communicating his own mystery in deeds and in words. He manifested himself to our first parents, and after the fall, he promised them salvation (cf. Gen 3:15) and offered them his covenant. God made an everlasting covenant with Noah and with all living beings (cf. Gen 9:16). God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and with his descendants. By this covenant God formed his people and revealed his law to them through Moses. Through the prophets he prepared them to accept the salvation destined for all humanity. Finally, God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant for ever. The Son is the Father's definitive Word, so there will be no further revelation after him. [69*-73*, 54-64].

Our Response to Revelation - Belief

4. How should we respond to what God has revealed?

We should respond by accepting and believing the revelation. We respond by having faith in it. [176*, 143].

5. What are we obliged to believe?

We must believe in God, in the Trinity, in the role of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, in the scriptures, and in everything that the magisterium or teaching authority of the Church proposes for our belief. [176*, 178*, 182*].

6. Where can we find a summary of what we are to believe?

The creeds such as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed summarize our main beliefs. [186-87].

7. What is a creed?

A creed is a brief, normative summary statement or profession of Christian belief. The word comes from the Latin word Credo meaning "I believe", with which the creed begins. [glossary].

Faith

8. What is faith?

Faith is both a gift of God and a human act by which the believer gives adherence to God who invites our response, and by which the believer freely assents to the whole truth of what God has revealed. St. Paul tells us "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb 11:1). [glossary, 176*, 143, 150, 1814].

9. What type of virtue is faith?

Faith is one of the three theological virtues which have God as their object. The other two theological virtues are hope, and love or charity. [glossary, 1842*, 1814-16].

10. What does St. Anselm say about faith?

St. Anselm says that "Faith seeks understanding". It is intrinsic to faith that the a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to know better what has been revealed. A more penetrating knowledge will, in turn, call forth a greater faith. [158].

11. How is science related to faith?

Though faith is above reason, there can never be any discrepancy between faith and reason. Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, without overriding any moral laws, can never conflict with faith, because the things of the world and those of faith all derive from the same God. [159].

Tradition

12. How has divine revelation been transmitted to all generations?

Christ commanded his apostles to preach the Gospel, and the Gospel was at first handed on orally by their preaching and by the institutions that they established. Then it was handed down in writing by those apostles and their associates who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing. To preserve the full and living Gospel the apostles left bishops as their successors, and gave them their own teaching authority. [96*, 74-76].

13. What is Tradition?

Tradition (written with a capital T) is the living transmission of the message of the Gospel in the Church. The oral preaching of the Apostles, and the written message of salvation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (the Bible), are conserved and handed on as the deposit of faith through the apostolic succession of the Church. Both the living Tradition and the written Scriptures have their common source in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. [glossary, 97*-98*, 75-82].

14. What are local traditions?

There are theological, liturgical, disciplinary, and devotional traditions (written with a lower case t) of local churches which both contain, and can be distinguished from, the Apostolic Tradition. [glossary, 83].

15. Is revelation complete?

Yes. No new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the world. Yet even if Revelation is complete, it has not yet been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of centuries. [66].

16. What is private revelation?

Throughout the ages there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but rather to assist one to live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Christians cannot accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment. [66-67].