Varieties of Revelation, Varieties of Truth—A Comparative Ontological Study of Revelation through Music and Sciences

Abstract

Accounts of revelation and contemporary views of these are based on beliefs and historical citations. These accounts shall not be limited to the understanding and interpreting of historical and other events within writings but must present the possibility of an objective analysis of the nature of revelation as a phenomenon, an object of our sensory and mental conscious experiences. This paper approaches the act or phenomenon of revelation regardless of the revealer and its nature. Can we abstract the revealer and the revealed from revelation and have an ontological account of revelation solely focusing on the occurrence itself? The central part of the discussion is based on the object/property pair as ontological categories through which the means are analyzed. A comparative method is used where Scripture, musical writings, and mathematical/physical formulae (as potential means of revelation) are scrutinized. As a result, without any need to determine the revealer, revelation can be based on and described through pure properties (not tropes) in human experience, intellect, and understanding. The possibility of revelation beyond Scripture and Jesus Christ—following a type of liberal and general theory of revelation—presents itself in arts and sciences. The “true” of a musical work, when found and experienced during musical performances and scientific truths represented by the formulae, which describe the world and a meta domain, can be derived from the chains of signs and symbols as it is through Scripture. Human cognitive faculties present a universal natural limit to our direct experiencing of the transcendent, of the supernatural. A new dualist conception of logos as a metaphysical category marks the domain bridging the non-transcendent with the transcendent.