Is the Bible really the Word of God? What makes the Bible different from the texts of other religions, and how can we know that Scripture is truly inspired by God? Dr. Sri explains Divine Revelation and how we can have confidence that, through Sacred Scripture, we encounter God speaking to us.

Shownotes

God Reveals Himself to Us

• Christianity is not simply about humanity searching for God—it is fundamentally about God searching for us.
• God freely chose to reveal Himself and give Himself to humanity so that we could know Him and share in His life and love.
• The word revelation comes from the idea of unveiling: God unveils Himself to us and shows us His face.
• Divine revelation is ultimately about relationship with God, not simply learning a list of rules or doctrines.

What Can We Know Through Reason?

• Human reason allows us to discover many truths about the world, morality, and even the existence of God.
• However, reason alone cannot reveal the fullness of who God is or His plan for humanity.
• Certain truths, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, Christ’s saving death and Resurrection, and the sacraments, are mysteries of faith that must be revealed by God.
• These mysteries go beyond what human reason could discover on its own, but they are not contrary to reason. Once revealed, we can use our intellect to deepen our understanding of them.

Why Would God Reveal Himself?

• St. Thomas Aquinas argues that it is fitting that God would reveal Himself to humanity.
• Revelation allows us to know truths that surpass human reason.
• It also allows everyone—not only the intellectually gifted or those who have spent years studying philosophy—to know important truths about God and how we are called to live.
• Through Scripture and the teaching of the Church, we can know these truths with greater speed and confidence.

What Does "Inspired by God" Mean?

• The principal author of Scripture is God, yet God also worked through human authors.
• The biblical writers were not simply taking dictation from God. They used their own faculties, personalities, writing styles, perspectives, and abilities.
• At the same time, God worked through them so that they wrote what He wanted written and no more.
• This means Scripture possesses both a divine authorship and genuine human authorship.

The Incarnational Nature of Scripture

• Just as Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine, Scripture has both a human and divine dimension.
• Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul each wrote in their own distinctive styles and emphasized different things, yet God was truly at work through each of them.
• The mystery of biblical inspiration is therefore not about God replacing the human author, but about God working in and through the human author.

Encountering God's Word

• When we encounter Scripture at Mass, in Bible study, or in personal prayer, we can have confidence that we are encountering more than merely human words.
• Scripture is the Word of God in the words of men.
• The Bible is an invitation to encounter God Himself—to allow Him to unveil His face and reveal His love to us.
• Rather than approaching Scripture simply as a rulebook, we are invited to approach it as a place where God speaks to us and draws us into deeper communion with Him.

Key Catechism References: CCC 1, 50, 105–106