'A God embarrassed at the prospect of possession': exploring divine revelation

Abstract

Divine revelation is the term Christians use to express the process whereby God discloses God’s self in history, a process that begins with creation and climaxes in the person of Jesus Christ. Christians understand God not only to have created the world, but, from the very beginning, to have freely chosen to relate to that world. According to Christians, God freely enters into a self­giving relationship with the whole of creation, and more profoundly and personally, with humankind. The purpose of this chapter is to try to understand something of the nature and dynamics of divine revelation, and of the process whereby humans experience it and seek to respond to it. I will begin by discussing the nature of the God who reveals, and then proceed to sketch how some theologians have attempted to speak of divine revelation.