Revelation As Testimony

Our knowledge of God, according to the historic Christian tradition, is mainly testimonial: we know certain important truths about God and divine things because God himself has told them to us. In academic theology of late, however, this traditional view is often dismissed. But to do so is a mistake, says Mats Wahlberg, who asserts that the understanding of revelation as divine testimony is both intellectually viable and indispensable to Christian theology.Criticizing the currently common idea that revelation should be construed exclusively in terms of God’s self-manifestation in history or through inner experience, Wahlberg discusses the concept of divine testimony in the context of how any knowledge of God is possible. He draws on resources from contemporary analytic philosophy of testimony – especially John McDowell – to argue for the traditional view of revelation as divine testimony.