(Excerpt from Catechism for Filipino Catholics: Chapter 2)

PART 1
GOD’S REVELATION

Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and him
whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. (Jn 17:3)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual blessing in the
heavens! God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the
mystery, the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be
carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in
the heavens and on earth into one under Christ’s headship. In
Him you too were chosen. (Eph 1:3,9-10,13)

“It pleased God, in His goodness and wisdom to reveal Himself . . . By this revelation,
then, the invisible God, from the fullness of His love, addresses men as His friends,
and moves among them in order to invite and receive them in His own company”
(DV 2). Christian life is based on the conviction that God has spoken to us and that
the central truths of our Faith are given in this revelation. The Christian Scriptures
attest that “in times past God spoke in varied ways to our fathers through the
prophets; in this, the final age, He has spoken to us through His Son” (Heb 1:1-2).

I. God Reveals Himself

A. In Creation
The first way God reveals Himself to us is through creation. “The heavens declare the
glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork” (Ps 19:1). In creation, man holds a
special place. God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gn 1:26).God
even gives us a share in His own creativity: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and
subdue it” (Gn 1:28). God creates the whole world for us, to support us in life and
reveals Himself to us through His handiwork. “Since the creation of the world. . .
God’s eternal power and divinity have become visible, recognized through the things
He has made” (Rom 1:20).

Natural Signs
For us Filipinos, then, the world and everything in it are natural signs of God __ the
initial way God makes Himself known to us. Yet in our everyday experience, we meet
not only love, friendship, the good and the beautiful, but also suffering, temptation
and evil. All creation has become affected by sin __“sin entered the world, and with
sin death” (Rom 5:12). The “natural signs” of the Creator have thus become
disfigured by pollution, exploitation, injustice, oppression and suffering. So God
chose to reveal Himself in a second, more intimate way, by entering into the history
of the human race He had created.
B. In Scripture, through Salvation History
The Bible records God’s entering into a special covenant relationship with His
chosen people, the race of Abraham, the people of Israel. “I will dwell in the midst of
the Israelites and will be their God” (Ex 29:45).

Biblical Signs
God revealed Himself in stages. In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself
through biblical signs made up of both deeds and words. He made covenants
with Noah, with Abraham, and with Moses. He performed great works for His
Chosen People, and proclaimed their saving power and truth through the
prophets’ words (cf. DV 2; CCC 56-64). Through chosen men and women __ kings,
judges, prophets, priests and wise men, God led, liberated, and corrected His people.
He forgave their sins. He thus revealed Himself as Yahweh, He-who-is-with His
people. He is “the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in
kindness and fidelity” (Ex 34:6). Today, through His inspired word in the Old
Testament, God still reveals Himself to us, and inspires us to respond to His
covenant.
Yet, even God’s revelation in history was weakened by the infidelities and
hardness of heart of His Chosen People. But God so loved the world, that in the
fullness of time, He sent His only Son to be our Savior, like us in all things except
sin (cf. Jn 3:16; Gal 4:4; Heb 4:15; CCC 65). Jesus Christ “completed and perfected
God’s revelation by words and works, signs and miracles, but above all by his death
and glorious resurrection from the dead” (DV 4). Thus the Risen Christ, prefigured
in the Old Testament and proclaimed by the apostles, is the unique, irrevocable and
definitive revelation of God.

C. In the Church
But God’s definitive revelation in Jesus Christ did not stop with Christ’s ascension to
his Father. Jesus himself had gathered around him a group of disciples who would
form the nucleus of his Church. In this Church, the “Good News” of Jesus Christ would
be proclaimed and spread to the ends of the earth by the power of the Holy
Spirit, sent down upon the apostles at Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:8). “What was handed on
by the apostles comprises everything that serves to make the People of God live their
lives in holiness and increase their faith. In this way the Church in her doctrine, life
and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is,
all that she believes” (DV 8; cf. CCC 77-79). PCP II summarizes this by stating that
Sacred Scripture and the living tradition of the Church transmit to us the teachings
of Jesus” (PCP II 65).
 Liturgical/Ecclesial Signs
God continues to manifest Himself today through the Holy Spirit in the Church. He is present
in the Church’s preaching the truth of Scripture, in its witness of loving service, and
through the celebration of its Christ-given Sacraments. Christ’s revelation in the
Church is “the new and definitive covenant [which] will never pass away. No new
public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord,
Jesus Christ (1 Tim 6:14; Ti 2:13)” (DV 4).

D. In Other Religions
But many Filipino Catholics ask if non-Christians receive God’s revelation. The
Church, in her prophetic mission of “reading the signs of the times and of
interpreting them in the light of the Gospel” (GS 4), discerns the seeds of the Word in
the history and culture of all men of good will. Thus, even non-Christians “who do
not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a
sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it
through the dictates of their conscience, may achieve eternal salvation” (LG 16).
For whatever is true and holy in non-Christian cultures and religions is
accepted by the Catholic Church since it “often reflect[s] a ray of that truth which
enlightens all men.” Filipino Catholics, therefore, should “acknowledge, preserve
and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians, also their
social life and culture” (NA 2).
PCP II provides guidelines for this inter-religious dialogue. It must be based
firmly on the fact that salvation in Jesus Christ is offered to all, and that the Church
is the ordinary means of salvation since she possesses the fullness of the means to
salvation (cf. UR 3). This makes possible “openness in understanding the religious
convictions of others. [For] ‘dialogue based on hope and love will bear fruit in the
Spirit’ (RMi 56)”[PCP II 112-13].