Revelation: Introduction

From a classical Christian perspective, objective truth (zahir) is discovered in three different realms of reality.  Since Christians believe that Allah is the sole Creator of the universe, all truth and knowledge can be traced ultimately back to Allah.  The three spheres of truth are called theologies because Allah is the ultimate cause of all truth.  Theology is a word formed from two Greek words, theos (Allah) and logos (mental word, concept, logic) to form the word, theologos or theology.  The three spheres of objective revelation are, 

A. Natural Theology
B. Moral Theology
C. Sacred Theology

Objective revelation (zahir) stands in contrasts to subjective feelings (batin).  Subjective feelings and experience are appropriate when justified by objective truth.  It is appropriate that a person has feelings of awe, worship, and praise before a Being who is worthy of our adoration.  However, these feelings are not be the basis of our belief.  The basis of belief ought to be in the objective reality of Allah Himself.  And, because of the objective reality of Allah, a subjective response of worship ought to flow forth from our hearts.

The study of revelation shows that Allah's truth is found in creation (Natural theology) and human nature (Moral theology).  These two realms of revealed truth are Allah's general revelation to all of humanity.  They do not depend upon prophetic teaching.  As a result, all of humanity has some knowledge of Allah and is responsible before Allah because of these two universal revelations.  In addition, special prophetic revelations have been given by Allah during the course of human history.  These prophetic revelations are termed, Sacred theology.  The inherent difficulties with prophetic claims are discussed in the article on Sacred theology.

Last edited 01/14/2000

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