latourelle word testimony encounter

Questions to Guide Your Reading

René Latourelle, Theology of Revelation, “Revelation as Word, Testimony, Encounter”

* The following selection has three sections, as the title above indicates. The first is entitled “Revelation as Word,” the second “Revelation as Testimony,” and the third “Revelation as Encounter.” My questions will be organized accordingly.

I. Revelation as Word

1. According to Fr. Latourelle, what does St. Thomas Aquinas teach about speaking? Or, to put the question another way, what is speaking, according to Aquinas?

2. Fr. Latourelle thinks the scholastic view (in thinkers such as St. Thomas) is too “static.” That may or may not be a fair analysis of Aquinas, but either way, what would he (following De Lugo) like to stress in addition?

3. In this light, what does Latourelle say is the primary character of “word”? That is to say, as Latourelle points out, “man speaks of the world, but he does not speak to the world.” What follows from this observation?

4. According to Latourelle, when does our human word achieve its fullness of meaning?

5. Latourelle claims that “If God, through His word, enters into interpersonal relationship with man, this is not, this cannot be for a purely utilitarian intention. The word of God is word of friendship and love. The Word of God is a Word of Love.” Why does Latourelle come to this conclusion, and why does he claim at the end of this section: “Revelation through the word is consummated and sealed by revelation-action”?

II. Revelation as Testimony

6. In this section, Fr. Latourelle points out that revelation has at times been defined as “God’s speech as testimony” (thus the title of this section). He then distinguishes “the word of teaching” from “the word of testimony.” In “the word of teaching,” the hearer gives assent to the teacher’s explanation because of arguments whose intrinsic value he himself (the hearer) perceives. In the “word of testimony,” why does the hearer give his assent?

7. Why, according to Latourelle, are human knowledge and human fidelity always suspect, and indeed only God “can give an absolute guarantee to his word.” (This is another way of asking why we must never give the same sort of absolute, unconditional faith in any human word that we are called upon to give to God’s word?)

8. Fr. Latourelle admits that, when it comes to the world of material “things,” knowledge by testimony is inferior to knowledge by evidence. In what area is it, as he says, “in no way inferior”?

9. When it comes to divine testimony, Latourelle argues that divine testimony is not limited to the external manifestation that takes place through human language and signs. What is its “most profound dimension”?

III. Revelation as Encounter

10. In this section, Fr. Latourelle says this: “In revelation, God addresses man, seeks with him, communicates the good news of salvation. But there is really and full ane encounter between God and man only in faith. Only then does the world of the living God find acceptance and recognition in man. Faith is the first and free step of man towards God. Through His word, God invites man to an intercourse of friendship; through faith, man responds to God’s invitation. The first encounter between God and man, faith is the equivalent of that smile of friendship which begins a human conversation. When man opens his heart to God who speaks, shares in his thinking, lets himself be filled and directed by it, God and man meet each other, and this encounter develops into a communion of life. Revelation and faith are thus essentially interpersonal.” In the paragraphs that follow, Fr. Latourelle lays out three of the particular traits of this encounter between God and man effected by revelation and faith. Describe them.