I cannot help but wonder how many of you who have been following these blog posts about the Doctrine of Revelation ever dreamed there is as much to this subject as there is! I pray that these blogs have helped you to appreciate how important this matter is.
Let’s consider two other views of Revelation and Inspiration.
First, the Roman Catholic View. Vatican II (1962-65) contains the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation. The Roman Church teaches that there are two sources of knowledge: reason and faith, which correspond to general and special revelation. However, the Roman Church, underestimating the effects of sin, gives too much weight to reason, or general revelation. Further, when explaining their understanding of special revelation, the Roman Church places too much emphasis on the authority of the church (the Roman Church), and too little upon the scriptures. The Roman Church places Scripture and their own church tradition on level ground. They do not even see the two as two sources of revelation, but as two aspects of one revelation. This is grave error. Further, the Roman Church continues to assert that the leadership of the Roman Church alone is sufficient to correctly interpret Scripture.
Second, the Neo-orthodox View. Championed by Karl Barth,[1] this view has two subcategories. (1) There is no general revelation, because this would lead to a naturalistic theology. (2) Special revelation is in Christ alone. The scriptures are not so much revelatory, but we each receive revelation via a “dynamic encounter” as we read them under the influence of the Holy Spirit. This kind of subjectivism removes the objectivity of the Bible as the only reliable and authoritative source of special revelation.
Note:
[1] While Karl Barth (pronounced, ‘Bart’, 1886-1968) was aberrant in some of his views, leading to subjectivism regarding scripture, it is unlikely that he had this in mind. It seems more likely that while he was seeking to counter the liberalism of his day, he incorrectly estimated the outworkings of some of his theology.