Second Natural Revelation of God

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. We have accomplished the first Natural Revelation of God. Now it is time for the Second Natural Revelation of God. The First Natural Revelation consists in a proof that God exists and that God is reasonable and certain to believe in. The Second Natural Revelation consists in the significance of God or Existence towards our lives. As a hint, the Natural Revelation of God is the most significant truth as the peak of Natural Revelation is indeed God.

We can know the significance of God by remembering what God is precisely. He is Existence, Power, Awareness, and Goodness Himself. As He is Goodness, then He is also the path towards Goodness. As Goodness is our primary life orientation, then God is precisely our primary and sole life orientation. We must direct our lives to God and only to God, in other words, we must worship God in order to obtain God. It is an exchange of being, we give up our being to obtain the Being that is God. However, Natural Revelation can only reveal so much about God before our natural reasoning is exhausted.

God clearly has a relationship with the world, He is the world’s eternal Actualizer and Sustainer, thus in past writings I call Him the Sustainer Actualizer. However, does He reveal things to us? If He does, what shall He reveal to us? The answer can be known by understanding why God does anything. God’s action is actually singular just as He is One, that action is bringing actual existence, which He has in fullness, to other beings and essences. This action is also called actualization and I shall refer to it that way for simplicity.

Therefore, He either actualizes or He does not actualize. The first things He actualizes is like a program, it leads to other things being actualized by Him through the things He created. So the question is why would He actualize the world? In theological terms, why does He create the world out of nothing? The simple answer is He wants other things to share in His actual existence, but the reason behind that is still unknown in the perspective of natural reason. It is important to remember as well that when we say certain things of God, it is mostly analogous, that is He does not possess desire or thought as we humans do, rather there is something analogous to that within the Existence of God.

Since God is Simple, then God’s Intellect and Will are not separate properties of Himself, rather they are actually just His Existence. He is both Intellect and Will in Existence. He is that Will to create and actualize things and persons. Now let us return to the question, why does He want to create things? It seems that He also created us humans which are personal like Him, we possess an intellect and a will. Then the only reason He wants us to exist is He wants us to share in Himself, that is of Existence and we interpret it as Goodness. Thus in actual existence we grow, develop, evolve, and move towards God.

Now God must reveal Himself to us in order for us to be able to be fully actualized like He is. Of course as finite beings we can never possess the fullness of God as only God can possess Himself. However there is a certain threshold where we will be with God and similar to God, in a perfect eternal evolution towards God, there we shall possess ever evolving happiness. Revelation here still is general, that is in general God must reveal to us Himself and the path to Himself such that we can know that path and follow the path to Him. This Revelation is obligatory as everything is created by God thus everything is revealed by God to us for our goodness.

For that reason, the nature of God’s Revelation or Speech to us has been ascertained. It is in general, the Revelation of Himself and the Way to Himself. So Revelation contains either God or the Way to God. Whatever is not God that is contained in the Revelation must be the Way to God, or something that can help us get to God. Now we move towards the distinction between Natural Revelation and Supernatural Revelation. Since all things are eventually of God, why is there such distinction?

What is natural can be said to be what is initially created and sustained through the laws of the universe including ourselves. As such what is revealed to us through those is considered natural revelation. Since our reason or intellect is also part of natural revelation, the aspect of our intellect which is of the initial creation and sustenance of the universe is called natural. What is supernatural is then what is not part of that initial created and sustained universe, otherwise a direct act or intervention by God. All direct acts of God are Supernatural Revelation, therefore the first Creation is a Supernatural Revelation, but indirect acts are Natural Revelation, that is perhaps a good distinction.

Now Supernatural Revelation is not necessarily unreasonable, but it may require God to enhance our reason by His own Act to be able to accept Supernatural Revelation through a Supernatural Intellect, not a Natural Intellect. The Supernatural Intellect accepts God’s Supernatural Revelation by the basis of Natural Revelation. The content of Supernatural Revelation is generally the same as Natural Revelation, that is Himself and the Way to Himself. Now while we know by natural reason what is God that is Goodness, we still do not know what that Goodness is and the Way towards that Goodness. Perhaps we can naturally reason towards that, but there are still aspects of it which are mysterious and unclear, as such Natural Revelation is insufficient to obtain God in His fullness. There is a need for Supernatural Revelation by God to us.

As such, since Supernatural Revelation is necessary for us to reach God, then there must have been Supernatural Revelation which exists in the world that is directly and genuinely of God. The question is how do we identify which claim, that is religion, to Supernatural Revelation is true? The answer is simple, we identify the being that gave the revelation by its claims about itself, that is as what God has revealed to us in Natural Revelation. So if the Supernatural Revelation matches Natural Revelation, then we can have trust in that Supernatural Revelation as having come from God. Otherwise, it is a false revelation and it does not come from God.

There are many religious claims in this world. However, there is only one religious claim which makes an explicit claim that God revealed Himself to be exactly the same as His Natural Revelation, that is the God of the Judeo-Christian Tradition. This is recorded in Scripture, precisely in Exodus 3:14, “God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you.” That is God is He who Exists, His Essence is His Existence. The next problem is how do we know that the entire Tradition of Judeo-Christianity is a united Tradition of Revelation?

The answer is by miracle and prophecy, or again, Supernatural Revelation. Prophecy is the announcement of a miracle, and miracle is the fulfillment of a prophecy. For they are all Supernatural Revelations of God. In God, there is only One Revelation He gave to all of creation, be it Natural or Supernatural, these distinctions are simply of our mind. The Supernatural Revelation must match the Natural Revelation, it is this coherency within the Revelation System of Judeo-Christianity that proves that it is a single Tradition of Revelation from God and this culminates in Christ which is the Miracle of every past Prophecy in the Old Testament, with the Final Prophecy of Christ being John the Baptist’s Prophecy.

Now the specific and particular coherency within the Supernatural Revelation of God in Christianity is much deeper and complicated, what I present is a brief summary. Anyway, Christ acts as our anchorpoint in ascertaining the authentic origin of His Revelatory System. As He is the fulfillment of all prophecies, He is also the summit of Revelation. Christ is Goodness and Christ is the Way to Goodness. Now within Christianity there are numerous traditions, which tradition is the authentic Tradition of Christianity?

This is also brief, but in my understanding, the authentic Tradition of Christianity is Catholicism. As the collective Revelation of Christ is precisely the Catholic Faith and only the Catholic Faith. Other Christian traditions are united to the Faith in a spiritual way but not in a full way which reaches the material union as well. Some traditions are united more closer to the Catholic Tradition, but even then they still lack some things the Catholic Faith possess. This is seen in the direct coherency between the Catholic System of Revelation and the Judaic System of Revelation, which other traditions of Christianity lack.

Now the essential Natural Revelation is completed. What is required is to comprehend the sufficient or essential Supernatural Revelation that God has given to us and to synthesize that we Natural Revelation. As I am a Catholic, I will comment exclusively on the Catholic Tradition, and explain it according to the Natural Revelation which is accessible to everyone. Once the essential foundations of Revelation has been established, there shall be a deepening of understanding for both Revelatory Systems, Natural and Supernatural. In the next writings I shall begin with a deep dive into Catholic Teaching, beginning with a recommended Catechism by a friend, that is “My Catholic Faith”. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.