Reason and Revelation

Sanctus 1 Reason Revelation

We were looking at the way we perceive our faith this week, do we rely more on reason or revelation? After defining the terms: reason being our thoughts and understanding and revelation being something unexpected revealed by the divine, we individually marked on this line where we thought we fitted, I was towards the middle but a bit more towards revelation.

Lectio Divina gave a way to allow God to reveal something to us through the story of the angel telling Mary she was to have a baby (Luke 1: 26 -38) - some members of the group automatically started bringing reason in by asking 'how is this possible' type questions but we focused in on the word 'favoured' which appears twice in the passage and though about how we felt that God favoured someone.

For reason we looked at part of the prophecy of Isaiah (11: 1-9) - speaking of a vision of a future kingdom where a lion shall lie down with a lamb; again some people automatically responded emotionally to the passage by saying how it made them feel. Our reasoning skills allowed us to consider what prophecy is and the context in which the passage was written - for a nation facing national annihilation a vision of a peaceful future would be very meaningful.

How can prayer be understood by reasoning and how does revelation expand our understanding of what prayer is and how to pray? Reason might mean thinking about how to pray for a situation whilst revelation could be sitting still and quiet in the presence of God.

We finished with a time of communion, reason reminds me of the first last supper while revelation means I can become aware of God's presence with me during this time.

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