Revelation
communication from a deity
Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entities in the view of religion and theology.
Types
Individual revelation
Medieval Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas believed in two types of individual revelation from God: general revelation and special revelation. In general revelation, God reveals himself through his act of creation of the universe, such that at least some truths about God can be learned by the empirical study of nature, physics, cosmology, etc., to an individual. Special revelation is the knowledge of God and spiritual matters which can be discovered through supernatural means, such as scripture or miracles, by individuals. Direct revelation refers to communication from God to someone in particular.
Though one may deduce the existence of God and some of God's attributes through general revelation, certain specifics may be known only through special revelation. Aquinas believed that special revelation is equivalent to the revelation of God in Jesus. The major theological components of Christianity, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, are revealed in the teachings of the church and the scriptures and may not otherwise be deduced. The teachings of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, are also of this nature. The holy book of Muslims, the Quran, is the product of a special revelation from God to Muhammad, which led to the emergence of the last divine religion, Islam.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Revelation” is communication from a deity. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Revelation, communication and deity, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “communication from a deity” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q192906. The Library of Congress control number is sh85113412. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Revelation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.