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Ordinary speech and theological usage more or less coincide in understanding ‘reveal’ to mean ‘allow to appear’, ‘disclose’, ‘display’,

‘divulge’, ‘make known’, ‘manifest’, ‘show’, or ‘unveil’ (suggested by the Latin re-velare or ‘remove the veil (velum)’). ‘Revelation’ is, primarily, the act (sometimes startling act) of revealing and, second-arily, the new knowledge made available through this act.

1On revelation, see W. J. Abraham, Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006), 58–111; D. Brown, Tradition and Imagi-nation: Revelation and Change (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999); R. Bultmann, ‘The Con-cept of Revelation in the New Testament’, Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann, trans. S. M. Ogden (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1961), 58–91;

A. Dulles, Models of Revelation (New York: Doubleday,1983); G. Mavrodes, Revelation in Religious Belief (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); S. L. Menssen and T. D. Sullivan, The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007); H. R. Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (New York; Macmillan, 1941); W. Pannenberg, ‘The Revelation of God’, in Systematic Theology, trans. G. W. Bromiley, i (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), 189–257;

K. Rahner and J. Ratzinger, Revelation and Tradition, trans. W. J. O’Hara (London:

Burns & Oates, 1966); P. Ricœur, ‘Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation’, Harvard Theological Review, 70 (1977, 1–37); M. Seckler, ‘Der Begriff der Offen-barung’, HFTh ii. 60–83; R. Swinburne, Revelation: From Analogy to Metaphor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); G. Wiesner et al., ‘Offenbarung’, TRE xxv. 109–210;

N. Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on Claims that God Speaks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Commentaries on Vatican II’s Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum (the Word of God), have much to say about revelation; for a bibliography on Dei Verbum, see G. O’Collins, Retrieving Fundamental Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), 178–217.

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Immanuel Kant famously remarked that two things make human beings think of God: the ‘starry skies’ above and the ‘moral law’ within their hearts.²Without using the term ‘general revelation’, he pointed to (1) the way in which the natural order and beauty of the created world display the divine wisdom and power and so manifest God to human beings everywhere. Kant, somewhat like John Henry Newman a century later, also (2) recognized how the moral law written on human hearts (see Rom. 2: 14–15) makes known the will and character of God. Thus two basic features of the universe, ‘out there’ in visible, created reality and ‘in here’ within the moral conscience of human beings, disclose something of God and the divine nature, character, and purposes.

All human beings have access to this general revelation of God mediated through the beautiful and orderly works of creation and through their own, inner spiritual reality. The author of the Book of Wisdom concentrated on the former, when criticizing any nature worship that took ‘the luminaries of heaven’ or other natural forces to be ‘the gods that rule the world’. Delighting ‘in the beauty of these things, people assumed them to be gods’. They should have known

‘how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them’. ‘If the people were amazed at their power and working’, Wisdom goes on to say, ‘let them perceive from them how much more powerful is the One who formed them’. The argument reaches its climax with the statement: ‘from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator’

(Wisd. 13: 1–9). We do not detect here a natural theology that argues from the world to the existence and attributes of God. Wisdom envisages no such argument, but rather an experience of the created world through which human beings should acknowledge the divine presence and enjoy a living contact with God.

Centuries before the Book of Wisdom was written, the order and beauty in the world which God has created and continues to sustain inspired the vivid hymn that is Psalm 104. Other psalms also praised creation’s beauty and harmony (e.g. Ps. 19: 1–6; see Job 38–9) and

2 I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1997), 133: ‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and steadily one reflects on them, the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me’ (italics his).

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poetically celebrated the Creator’s power and intelligence that can be experienced and recognized in the natural world.

Before leaving the Old Testament, we should note that the Israelite experience of nature was subordinate to their experience of history.

An ancient confession of faith summarized the saving history through which the people had experienced YHWH’s concern and favour (Deut.

26: 5–9). What had happened historically counted for more than any divine self-manifestation in nature. Even the ‘account of origins’ sup-plied by the opening chapters of Genesis fits into the larger context of Israel’s salvation history. Those chapters show us how the Israelites, in the light of specific experiences of God in their own history, pictured poetically the origins of the world and the human race. The stories found there responded to the question: what must the beginning have been like for our past and present historical experience to be what they were/are? The subordination of everything to the experience of salvation history went so far that even the feasts that dealt with creation and nature were tied to Israel’s history. The feast of the unleavened bread (originally an agricultural festival which took place at the barley harvest in the spring) was converted into a celebration of the exodus from Egypt (Exod. 12: 14–20; 13: 3–10; 23: 15; 34: 18). A harvest feast at the end of the year, the festival of the booths, commemorated the time of wandering in the desert (Lev. 23: 42–3). The Passover feast itself, which seemed to have begun as a spring festival of nomadic herders, was drawn into the story of the exodus from Egypt (Exod. 12: 1–28) and eventually combined with the feast of unleavened bread. For the Israel-ites the experience of God through history took precedence over any divine self-manifestation through the seasonal events of nature as such.

Like other peoples, the Israelites associated clouds, thunder, lightning, smoke, and earthquakes with the presence of God. They

‘historicized’ these phenomena of nature by linking them with the presence of God during their wandering in the wilderness (e.g. Exod.

19: 16–19). Such natural phenomena accompany a theophany inserted into the story of the exodus from Egypt.

When we turn to the New Testament, we find Paul reflecting on what we can call general revelation. He observes about human beings in general: ‘what can be known about God is plain to them, for God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made’

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(Rom. 1: 19–20).³In the next chapter the apostle moves to the inner witness of the conscience, exemplified by some who do not possess the law of Moses, morally sensitive and responsible Gentiles: ‘When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature (instinctively) what the law requires, these, while not having the law, are a law for themselves (behave as the law commands)’ (Rom. 2: 14). The honourable and praiseworthy conduct of some Gentiles prompts Paul to draw the conclusion: ‘they show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience bears witness’ (Rom. 2: 15). Their conscience, or ‘natural’ moral sensibility, lets them know what is right or wrong. Hence the apostle expects that such Gentiles will not be condemned in God’s final judgement. They have lived responsibly and avoided actions that went against their conscience (Rom. 2: 15–16).⁴ The obedience of the heart shown by such admirable Gentiles has existed and even flourished. They will be justified by ‘the law’ which has been ‘written on their hearts’—with ‘heart’ understood biblically as the personal centre that receives knowledge and divine revelation and is the seat of the emotions and will.

Whether or not he consciously intended to do so, the language of Paul in Romans 2 extends to Gentiles the promises made to the Israelites about the law ‘written on their hearts’ and the ‘new heart’

and ‘new spirit’ that will enable them to observe the divine ordi-nances (Jer. 31: 33; Ezek. 11: 19–20; 36: 26–7). The divine law, written on their hearts, enables the Gentiles also to know, instinctively and without being taught, what they should do.

The metaphor of writing implies a writer. This observation does not extend falsely the metaphor in question, but attends to what we find earlier in Jeremiah (who includes a writer in his metaphorical talk of writing) and elsewhere in Paul. In the passages we have just cited, Jeremiah envisages YHWH not only as the present ‘Speaker’ but also as the future ‘Writer’ on human hearts, just as Ezekiel envisages God as the ‘Implanter’ of new, responsive ‘hearts of flesh’. In Romans 2, Paul presumably has in mind a divine ‘Writer’ as the one who writes on the hearts of Gentiles; the writing does not involve any human agent.

Although the apostle does not here precisely identify the divine Writer,

3 See J. D. G. Dunn, Romans1–8 (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 56–8; J. A. Fitzmyer, Romans (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 273–4, 278–81.

4 On Rom. 2: 14–16, see Fitzmyer, Romans, 306–7.

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his use of a similar metaphor, which involves ‘writing’ on the hearts of Christians through ‘the Spirit of the living God’ (2 Cor. 3: 2–3),⁵could encourage us to interpret Romans 2: 15 in terms of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of Gentiles to support them ‘in the witness of their conscience’ and empower them to put into practice the essential requirements of the law. Whether or not we link the passage in Romans 2(about Gentiles) with that in 2 Corinthians 3 (about Christians), the former passage indicates that the praiseworthy conduct of Gentiles witnesses to the divine activity at work in their moral conscience. Thus Paul’s teaching in the opening two chapters of Romans yields support for Kant’s observation about the created universe and the moral conscience operating in human hearts to manifest the work of God in the world.