Vatican II’s Theology of Revelation

Abstract The centrepiece of Vatican II’s teaching on revelation, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum), presents revelation as primarily the self-communication of God (which calls forth the personal response of faith) and secondarily the disclosure of hitherto unknown divine truths (or propositional revelation). It understands revelation to be inseparably salvific and sacramental (coming through words and deeds). God’s revelation reached an unsurpassable climax in the past (with Jesus Christ). It happens today: among the present means of revelation, Vatican II names the liturgy, the Scriptures, tradition, missionary activity, the saints, and the signs of the times. Revelation will reach its definitive communication with the Second Coming of Christ. Other documents of Vatican II fill out significant aspects of revelation: its mediation through the prophetic role of all the baptized; its correlation with the human condition and its disclosure of human nature and destiny; and its reaching, through the Holy Spirit and the universal presence of the risen Christ, all human beings.