Special Revelation Research Paper

A revelation is when God shows himself to believers. A revelation can be categorised as either a general revelation or a special revelation. A general revelation is when God makes himself known through ordinary, common human experiences, for example experiencing God through prayer and worship. A special revelation is when God makes himself known through direct personal experience or an unusual specific event, an example of special revelation is enlightenment.

Revelations may prove the existence of God in the eyes of a religious believer as for example, God is seen in the holy books of different religions, such as the Bible in Christianity, and this leads religious to believe this proves the existence of God as words in the book are believed

Some religious believers think that there is evidence of Gods existence by communicating with God through prayer and meditation as they are speaking to God and listening for his reply. Not only do revelations help prove the existence of God, other religious experiences such as miracles and conversions also help prove the existence of God too. Miracles help prove the existence of God as if someone is cured of a disease they may believe that it is an act of God. Conversions also help prove the existence of God as people believe that they have been contacted directly by God to believe in God or change their beliefs about God. St Paul experienced a conversion as he was originally a Jew who wanted to kill Christians but on his way to Damascus he had a religious experience that caused him to convert to Christianity. Religious believers accept that some revelations are genuine as they

Miracles are extremely difficult to prove as science cannot explain miracles. Another problem is that theists want miracles to happen, so they may lie about events that could be classed as miracles, some miracles are fake and made up by individuals that want fame and money for the event that they are said to have experienced. If the miracle is the curing of a disease, it may be that the doctors wrongly diagnosed an illness and the person was cured naturally. It is difficult to prove whether a revelation actually happened or not, especially special revelations. Special revelations occur to specific individuals or groups so they are therefore difficult to prove, scientific testing cannot prove whether a revelation actually occurred or not. Although general revelations are available to everyone, there are conflicting interpretation of them between the different religions and within individual religions, therefore making it impossible to determine which different claims about revelation are true. Atheists consider any revelation to be an illusion for a number of reasons, the first being that it is a false experience brought on by alcohol and drugs. Some believers are so desperate to have a revelation that they believe that they have had one, when in reality they haven’t. People claiming to have had revelations may be suffering from a physical or mental illness that makes