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General and Special Divine Revelation
Abstract
Anyone who reflects on divine revelation in the world, and permits himself to review the history of the Church and theology, quite naturally encounters a frequently expressed differentiation between general and special revelation. This differentiation has played an important role in eras of all kinds, and has even precipitated much discussion and strife. Quite understandably the question has often arisen whether theology, in pressing this distinction, has not gone beyond "what was written," and whether or not this differentiation permits a proper view of the wonder of the one divine revelation. I. THE PROBLEM Can we distinguish between various types of revelation? If so, do we do justice to God's revelation in its greatness and indestructible unity? Is this perhaps a subtle differentiation that can be reached only when the revelation of God has become merely an idea, and we are no longer under the overwhelming impression that divine revelation is always special, surprising, new and wonderful? Have we perhaps thereby arrived at that stage of scholastic thought which in every area distinguished between "general" and "special" and that now applies this distinction also to the revelation of God? To the question of terminology we must add still others. Must we not acknowledge that especially in the last centuries the special revelation of God has been attacked from the viewpoint of a much wider general revelation? Especially when the so-called "history of religions" school in the second (p.14) half of the nineteenth century called particular attention to the non-Christian religions, a plea was made for general revelation; scholars did not wish to cast aside these religions as false religions, but rather, wished to view them in connection with a general revelation of God. From this vantage point the so-called absolute character of Christianity was called more and more into question. The Christian confession of a special revelation in the history of Israel, in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the witness to Jesus Christ (the Holy Scriptures), was increasingly criticized from the viewpoint of "general" revelation.
The Corinthian church had many issues, among which the dissensions, as can be seen from 1 Corinthians 1-4. There are several theories concerning these dissensions. Some say that there are clearly four parties in the church, according to the slogans in 1 Corinthians 1:12. Others, go to the other extreme and talk about just disagreements among the members of the church, but no real schisms. Between these two extremes are those who seek to make sense of the slogan of allegiance to Christ, the role of Apollos in the dissensions, and ultimately the issue that the Corinthians had with Paul. There is probably some truth in all these theories and most likely the reality was that the Corinthians had preferences among their teachers, of whom the centre of attention were Paul and Apollos, the distinction made between the two were most presumably based on who played better into Corinthians’ social expectations.
Recent religious studies and international relations scholarship has highlighted secularism as a critical element in dominant modes of identity, power, and exclusion in global politics. Yet, the implications of these insights for global justice theory and practice have rarely been considered. This article suggests that the current dominance of secularism within global justice theory and practice risks undermining the global justice project. Specifically, I argue that secularism’s dominance constitutes an ontological injustice, where both alternative non-secular visions of the world and visions of alternative non-secular worlds are subordinated to secular ontologies. However, this argument raises a crucial question: if, despite secularism’s claim to neutrality and universality, the dominance of secular ontologies contributes to rather than ameliorates injustice, the question that remains is: what are the alternatives? The article concludes by exploring some preliminary responses to this question.
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