Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation: The Mediation of the Gospel through Church and Scripture
Overview
How do human beings today receive divine revelation? Where and in what ways is it mediated so that all generations can hear the fullness of the gospel? In this volume, distinguished theologian Matthew Levering shows that divine revelation has been truthfully mediated through the church, the gospel, and Scripture so that we can receive it in its fullness today. Levering engages past and present approaches to revelation across a variety of traditions, offering a comprehensive, historical study of all the key figures and perspectives. His thorough analysis results in an alternative approach to prevailing views of the doctrine and points to its significance for the entire church.
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Key Features
- Discusses the history of divine revelation to man
- Provides a perspective including the record of Church history
- Incorporates liturgy in the discussion of God’s communication to man
Contents
- Introduction
- Church
- Liturgy
- Priesthood
- Gospel
- Tradition
- Development
- Inspiration
- Philosophy
- Conclusion
Praise for the Print Edition
Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation possesses all of the qualities that readers have come to expect from the work of one of the liveliest contemporary theologians: wide historical learning, theological discrimination, clarity of thought, and spiritual vigor.
—John Webster, professor of divinity, St. Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews
Revelation first arrives as our liturgical response to it. By articulating so well this paradox, Matthew Levering undercuts sterile arguments as to the respective weight to be given to revelation or tradition, pure doctrine or cultural mediation in Christian theology. The ‘liturgical turn’ suggests rather that tradition and mediation were strangely there from the very outset. Since God is not just another creature speaking to us but the transcendent Creator of all things and all utterances, he can only be heard through our invocation and replies, if we take these as participations in the Trinitarian Word that belongs to God himself and the Trinitarian Spirit of his own eternal self-interpretation. Levering both articulates and performs in writing this liturgical reality.
—John Milbank, research professor in religion, politics, and ethics and director of the Centre of Theology, University of Nottingham
Matthew Levering’s latest book is an extended argument against the thesis of the ‘ecclesiastical fall’, according to which the pristine revelation offered in Jesus Christ has been distorted by an all-too-human church incapable of bearing it. His trenchant observation is that such a thesis amounts to a rejection of the missions of both the Son and the Holy Spirit. Anyone interested in the issues of revelation, inspiration, ecclesiology, biblical hermeneutics, and Trinitarian theology ought to read this searching, thoroughly researched, and beautifully written study.
—Fr. Robert Barron, Mundelein Seminary, University of St. Mary of the Lake; author, Catholicism and The Priority of Christ
About Matthew Levering
Matthew Levering is the Perry Family Foundation Professor of Theology at Mundelein Seminary, University of Saint Mary of the Lake, in Mundelein, Illinois. He previously taught at the University of Dayton. Levering is the author of numerous books, including The Theology of Augustine and Ezra & Nehemiah in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. He is the coauthor of Holy People, Holy Land. He serves as coeditor of the journals Nova et Vetera and the International Journal of Systematic Theology and has served as chair of the board of the Academy of Catholic Theology since 2007.