{508} (cont’d)

This actuality of revelation, like any other actuality that refers to the human being, can be considered from two points of view, as we indicated above. First, as actualization of natural potencies, and then, as I mentioned, the fieri is a movement, and its consequence a “fact”. In the case of revelation, it means it is an actualization of the human intelligence by the manifestation of divine reality (in one sense or the other). But the actualization may be understood from another point of view, as actualization of some possibilities; the fieri is then occurrence, and its result an “event”. And so, every possibility is rooted on a human condition according to which man is in every situation “super-posed” (Sp. sobre-puesto) to himself, and therefore, “put-before” (Sp. ante-puesto) that, which he is going to do in it, to the acts in which man is going to occur. Because of this, what we have called possibilities is something that has a double dimension. On the one hand, possibilities are those, which man has to make his own life, they are “his” possibilities. On the other hand, possibilities are those that things offer to him by reason of the “sense” they have by and for what man is going to make with them in his life. Therefore, possibilities belong to things, since things as such, through their real properties, offer possibilities for certain ways of occurring. It is not necessary to delve on the radical structure of the two aspects of possibility; suffice it to say that it is found on the “super-position” of man. By virtue of this, the offer of possibilities by things is rooted in the possibilities man has of confronting things in a certain way, so that only because man has possibilities of facing things in a particular way, these can offer to him their own possibilities. And since the actualization {509} of certain possibilities is an occurrence, it turns out that in the human act the reality of man occurs, but also the real things occur as moments of the human action.

In the case of revelation this means that, as pure manifestation of divine reality facing any intelligence, revelation would be nothing but a simple communication or notification of divine reality through an illumination of the intelligence. But in fact it is not the case of a pure intelligence, but of a perfectly individual intelligence, which has, therefore, a limited repertory of possibilities to perform this act of intellective apprehension of certain realities. Consequently, there is no possibility that at any time or in any man, any reality may be manifested to him, much less a divine reality. It is not the case I mentioned above, of revelation as possibilitating principle of the divine life in man, but of what possibilitates the intellective manifestation as such. The necessary possibilities for it are, above all, those that concern the use of intelligence in a certain way in the order of manifestation of divine reality. But in addition, possibilities that in this order and according to that “possible” use, the very manifest reality may be offered to be known intellectually in one “stage” of manifestation or another. By virtue of this, the act of manifestation as manifestation is at the same time actualization of human possibilities and actualization of possibilities offered by the revealed reality itself. In its unity, therefore, this act is an occurrence of the human intellection of this manifest reality. In other words, revelation is in itself a historical act; history is the revelation in concrete and ultimate act.

Of course, the possibilities in question do not always exist positively and formally; otherwise, there would not be any mystery for man that could be formally and essentially supernatural. {510} But in that case, the revelation of the mystery, besides the donation of the divine reality qua reality, involves the mobilization of human possibilities, a mobilization, which is a strict “elevation” to the order of divine reality qua manifest. The elevation consists, above all, in a “potentiation” of the naked intelligence, i.e., in its pure “illumination”. But it is also a “possibilitation”, i.e., the illumination of all the possibilities that intelligence had already acquired previously. Since the one cannot be given without the other, it turns out that, as concrete act, that illumination is a light internally qualified by the repertory of previous possibilities, i.e., an “historicized light”, a light that makes it possible to see the divine reality in a certain particular way. That is precisely the system of human possibilities of being able to move in the revelation. Therefore, revelation is a parte rei an occurrence of divine reality in that historicized light, something that occurs in ultimate concrete act.

Once revelation has occurred in the one that receives it directly, he transmits this revelation to the rest, and is transmitted in the same form it has been constituted. Hence, he is transmitting the possibilities in order to receive the actuality of the divine reality, in other words, collaborating so that God may grant him those possibilities through elevation. That way each transmitting stage is, at the same time, an occurrence of manifestation, and a production of possibilities for transmission. Therefore, the very transmission is not a repetition of enunciations, but “conduction” (ágesthai), introduction of men to the actuality of manifest divine realities; not only “shows” God to men, but “takes” men to God. It is not an economy of information, but an economy of “pedagogy” (paidagogía), as St. Paul said (cf. 1 Cor 4:15; Gal 3:24-25). History takes us to revelation precisely because it is the very way in which revelation occurs. And the constitutive characteristic of this {511} transmitting occurrence is to be “delivery”, parádosis, traditio, tradition. Actually, in the history of revelation, as I said, history is the revelation in act of this occurrence, inasmuch as manifestation as in transmission, in tradition.

Consequently, because it is tradition, revelation continues seizing men in their historical unity. Since history is a process, each man seized by revelation is like a new moment in the seizure of humanity by revelation. This gives rise to a progradient pressure on intelligences, but with an original quality. Tradition is, actually, the delivery of the manifest reality as possibility of manifestation, and of divine life to a social body (in order to simplify, I leave aside the fact that tradition is transmitted not only to one, but several social bodies more or less independent among themselves). Through tradition, revelation continues to seize men not only personally and individually, but also in their connection either inter-individual or social. This empowers and qualifies the inexorably consecutive progress to seizure. The pressure exerted by the seizure upon a person turns eo ipso into pressure of the intelligence of this person on the intelligences of the rest who had been previously seized individually by revelation, and exerted pressure over them. Hence, the pressure that the seizure exerts on each one is composed of his own and individual appropriation, and of the pressure that reaches him through the appropriations of the rest. Progress has been empowered and modulated; as such it is a progress in the social body.

But there is more to be considered. Because, when revelation is delivered it is delivered in the concrete form it has taken on in the social body. Consequently, the seizure is happening through time, and the consecutive progress {512} acquires a historical character. The progradient efforts, which revelation produces constitutively are also taking on a form, which is constitutively historical. Of course, progress is not produced at the same time and equally in its three dimensions (apprehensive, theologic, dogmatic-real) in any time and place. That would be a fantasy. Progress has the slowness of historical time. Like any effort, it continues to be produced with a different rhythm in each dimension. It is not produced homogeneously in all men and all societies. When progress is lacking or despite little progress in some men, in some locations, and at certain times, inexorably, there will be some progress sometimes, at some places, and in some men. Where and how and in who is a secret that belongs to Providence. The only thing important to our question is that revelation is constitutively progradient, and that this progress is historical. Because revelation is seizing men in the processual unity of their history, i.e., because the history of revelation is in this respect the revelation in act and this act is constitutively progradient. In other words, revelation is constitutively progradient because it seizes men under the form of tradition. Tradition is revelation historically seizing all men.

In order to avoid false interpretations from now on, we must now make the characteristics of tradition more precise as act of revelation.

Tradition has three dimensions whose unity is its essential structure.


I. Constitutive tradition. Tradition is above all, revelation, the manifest reality insofar as it is constitutively something to be “guarded”. Insofar as manifest reality, and nothing more, revelation is “posited” truth; it is a positum. But insofar as “guarded”, so to speak, {513} revelation is formally something different; it is not a positum, but a depositum, something that has to be guarded and protected. It is what we shall call constitutive tradition, the constituting dimension of tradition. Its constituting formality is, in one form or another, “fixation” into deposit. And this is more complex that it might appear at first sight. Revelation (positum) and fixation (depositum) are really distinct moments. But actually, since every revelation is fixated and has been realized in fixation, it turns out that both moments constitute only one real fact. Because of this, we shall take this fact as a single unit and will refer to it inasmuch for what it has of revelation as for what it has of fixation.

1) In the first place, the formal characteristic of fixation into deposit. While revelation as mere positum, regardless how public it may have been, is always granted to an individual and received by him, the fixation into depositum, i.e., as something that has to be guarded and protected, requires its own organon. Since Jesus Christ it is the Church in its hierarchy. It is the Church who is formally the depository of tradition. But “depository” is not the title of a merely passive and extrinsic relationship of the Church towards the deposit that has been left to her care. Just the opposite, it is an intrinsic relationship. The way revelation has been deposited in the Church is most precise. It has been deposited forming a body with it. The depositing as such is an action of Christ in the Church through which he made manifest not only what he revealed, but maintains it as positively manifest in the Church by the fact of being incorporated to it as its mystical body. As such the deposit is the actual and active presence of the “donating-God” through intellective manifestation. Thus, the action of Christ and the action of the Church are in a certain way only one action. And this is what being deposit is. For this reason, whatever we may say {514} about the dogmatic-real progress, it does not occur and cannot occur except “through” the hierarchical Church, but it occurs “in” the mystical body of the entire Church, and in a certain way, in Christ himself as present in its mystical body.

2) In the second place, concerning that, which is fixated. We mentioned it above. Revelation is not primarily a set of true propositions, but of true realities, i.e., of manifest realities insofar as real. That is what is fixated, and once fixated, forms the constitutive tradition. It is not only the case of propositions or historical fact insofar as mere documentary or folkloric confirmations or liturgical rituals or private and public devotions. Tradition certainly encompasses all this and does not exist nor would be able to exist without it; but it does not consist in this formally. All that is nothing but modes of fixation; but fixation as such is about the manifest realities on all that, regardless of the mode of fixation. What tradition fixates is the presence of the divine realities facing human intelligence for the whole man.

Let us immediately add that there is an especially important mode of fixation, scripture. Its importance justifies a few comments about it. The character of scripture, as a mode of fixation of the deposit, is formally “inspiration”; it is a motion, an illumination and a divine assistance so that the hagiographer may conceive and write without error everything and only what God wished to be written. By virtue of this, and only because of this, God is the author of the book. That is essential. The author, in the sense of being the one who composes the book is the hagiographer; inasmuch as he is inspired, the notion of author is transferred to God, but only in the sense of being the inspiring author. To reverse this, to start from God as author of the book would be practically to make of the hagiographer, not a true author, but a mere scribe of the divinity.

{515} Clearly, inspiration is not revelation. Revelation is fountain of knowledge and teaching. Formally, inspiration is mere fixation; it is not fountain of knowledge; knowledge is acquired by the hagiographer by purely human means often laborious, sometimes with poor results, as the Biblical text indicates (cf. 2 Mc 2:19-32; 15:37-39). It is not formally a teaching; it could be, but it is not so necessarily. It could simply be the fixation of traditions, including legends, the remembrances of natural and supernatural things, of mediocre ideas about God, which point to the vicissitudes of the stepping march of revelation. In other words, it might be simple information or, at best, a kind of “lesson” the historical experience gives to us. Therefore, inspiration is quite different from revelation. Not everything that is inspired is revelation; as a matter of fact, only the smallest part of the Bible is revelation. Not every revelation is necessarily consigned to the inspired book; it may be consigned to the organ that is the depository of revelation, to the Church. With respect to our question, let us limit ourselves to Biblical revelation. From this perspective, Sacred Scripture has two functions that must be carefully distinguished. One is just to be that, scripture. As such, it is only “one” mode, without doubt an excellent one, but only one mode of fixation of revelation. The other is formally fixating, so to speak, which is the naked presentation of manifest reality in the writing, and through the writing, but independently of the mode of fixation. And this is its primary and radical function with respect to revelation. Consequently, Sacred Scripture is only one moment of the constitutive tradition. So much so that it is the Church and only the Church that was given the responsibility to decide which of the religious writings were inspired, i.e., which ones were “sacred” scripture.

3) In the third place, the intrinsic historical characteristic of revelation and its fixation into deposit. I already anticipated this; {516} historicity is the concrete act of revelation; for revelation, history is revelation in act. It is such as simple manifestation or as tradition. Since we are going to use the term profusely it may now be convenient to avoid confusion and equivocation, to explain that “historicity” is used at least in three senses, whether it refers to “reality”, to the “narrative” or to the “narration” itself. In the first place, “historicity” designates a characteristic of “reality”, that characteristic we call occurrence through which “historical” reality is distinguished, for example, from “natural” reality. It is a mode of reality. In the second place, “historicity” may designate the characteristic of a “narrative”. We say that a narrative is historical when that to which it refers is true. Here, historicity is not a mode of reality, but a characteristic of the narrative, its truth; historicity is “veracity”. Finally in the third place, “historicity” can signify a characteristic, not of the narrative, but of the “narration” itself in which it is narrated; it is that characteristic, which the narration possesses, as a function of the men of an era, of the mentality with which they write, talk, etc. This triple characteristic of historicity as “reality”, as “truth”, and as form of “narration” is essential. To make this clearer, and anticipating what I am going to explain next, I should say that the historicity of the initial revelation as characteristic of reality that occurs is “transcendence”. The historicity of the “narrative”, its written fixation, is what I shall call “circumstantiality”. Historicity in the sense of veracity is the supposition of all this investigation, since it is the divine veracity.

“Transcendence” is a structure of revelation, which has three moments.

The first is a moment of “manifestation” of the divine truth. It is a manifestation made according to certain concepts with which the man who receives the revelation intellectually understands {517} the reality. To be manifest according to these concepts is what constitutes what I have called the concrete characteristic of revelation; revelation is a concrete manifestation of the divine truth.

The second is a moment of “support”. The mind that receives the concrete manifestation of divine truth has, on the same line of the concepts with which he intellectually understands reality, his own limitations and imperfections. These, without ever contradicting what God is going to manifest, however, reduce him and diminish him. Hence, God not only “permits” these limitations, but also “supports” himself on them expressly and formally. In such a way, that scholastically we might say assertive sed non exclusive, so as to lead men to the fullness he wishes to manifest. To transcend is not simply to replace a truth by a superior one, but to reach for the latter through the former. And this reaching for is not merely a “conceptive” structure, but is a strict “being-lead-to” (Sp. “ir-llevando-a”) in the form of an occurrence; it is a structure with a processable characteristic, historical. It is a moment of transcendence insofar as it leads us to a superior terminus. But, insofar as it is a formation or capacitation of the very man to access this superior terminus, it is what St. Paul called “pedagogy”. Revelation in act, as any full human action, presupposes, as we saw above, not only potencies, but also possibilities. Therefore, each stage of revelation, not only leads to the next superior stage (transcendence), but also in order to accomplish it, supplies the possibilities for reaching that superior stage. This dialectic of possibilities insofar as possibilities is “pegagogy”; its actualization, i.e., the apprehension of manifest reality in a superior mode, is an occurrence, and this occurrence is “transcendence”. Transcendence is the actualization of pedagogy as effective apprehension of divine reality.

{518} The third is a moment of “elevation“. In the fullness of manifestation the limitations remain not actually abolished, but rather overcome, absorbed into the superior truth; they are preserved through “elevation”. Transcendence is not only that the superior truth may contain the inferior, it is also a special mode of containing it. It is not necessary, actually, for the inclusion to be formal, i.e., for the inferior to be a mere particular case of the superior or only an aspect of it. It is the case of a relationship between two formally different modes of being, in such fashion that the inferior is realized in the superior, but in a different way, in a precisely “superior” way. It is a relationship of two formally different modes of being, but where one is “richer” than the other one, which is “poorer”. It is a relationship of richness to poorness, not of aspect or particular case to totality. By its richness the superior contains, through virtuality and eminence, whatever the poorer reality formally is. This mode of inclusion is what I call “elevation”.

Manifestation, support, elevation, these are the three moments whose structural unity is what I understand as transcendence. It is not a merely relative quality, the mere superiority of one thing over another, similar to saying, for example, that the religion of Israel transcends other religions. It is a quality intrinsic to the very revelation in act. It is only because it has transcendence in itself, in the sense I have explained that it can have transcendence in a comparative or relative sense. In order to avoid confusion let us observe that many times I shall call transcendence a potiori only to the “elevation”, i.e., to the third moment of the whole transcendence. The whole transcendence understood as such is the structure of the historical concretion of the initial revelation; it is the initial revelation as concrete historical act. In such fashion that historicity is not an external vicissitude of the initial revelation, but the concrete act {519} in which it occurs, its own mode of constitution. This act is the transcendence. When revelation is already constituted, its progress is historical, but historicity is not necessarily transcendence. On the other hand, transcendence is the historical concretion of the initial revelation. In order to justify this affirmation let us analyze from this point of view, the constitution of revelation in the Old and New Testaments.