True, cornelis -- but the Christian seems to be the type of revelation that general_re has in mind. (He lets us know he doesn't think much of it.) It seems that both Plato and Aristotle had a Source from which they were able to draw their most profound insights into the nature of man, the structure of consciousness, etc. This does have the quality of revelation, for they recognized this Source does not lie within the field of existent things....
A lot of people think that Aristotle, unlike Plato, was little interested in "divine things." Yet without the divine, there can be no wisdom, which is "higher" than mere knowledge such as can be known through the study of existent things. Nichomachean Ethics is replete with references to the divine....
No, no - I try not to limit myself like that. Any sort of revealed truth, Christian or otherwise, suffices for my purposes here.
He lets us know he doesn't think much of it.
True. Look, even if I accept the existence of revelation, upon what basis do I evaluate the truth of that which is revealed to me? Well, I'm not really supposed to do that - revelation is true by definition, rather conveniently. And then I'm supposed to go forth and reason, based on revealed truths that I have no rational basis for accepting as true, except for a definition that dances right on the edge of tautology.
Well, if that's the case, that reason is predicated on axioms that I am expected to accept as true without any proof that they are true (which it is, of course), how do I know that revealed truths are a better basis for reason than axioms I invent myself, and which I also have no rational basis for believing to be true? Oh, wait - I know that revealed truth is better than my own bootstrapped axioms because it's...revealed. Or something equally circular.
And there's the problem. It's great if you already believe as Voegelin believes, but if you don't, the best anyone can come up with is "just take my word for it". Which is more or less exactly what Voegelin was saying in the bit I quoted in my very first post, and what I object to. Either reality and truth are objective, and objectively accessible to all men regardless of their particulars, or it they aren't, in which case the whole question of what reality and truth are is meaningless from the start, other than giving us the trivially true answer that "opinions will vary"....
Is that so, g_r?