Page 4 - Moravian Messenger April 2019

Is the Qur'an Divine Revelation?
Introduction
In the previous article in this series we concluded by saying it is not enough to say that a claim to revelation, which a religious community makes, is false. We have to say why it is false by using the same criteria that we use to conclude that another claim to revelation is true. In short, the claims to revelation in the Qur'an and in the Bible have to be assessed on the same basis. What basis can we use? This is the question we now seek to answer.
Criteria to Determine Divine Revelation
In developing his approach to finding a basis for assessing claims to revelation made by different religious communities, there were three important movements that Comenius made. The first was to outline the criteria for recognising divinely inspired scriptures. The second was to show that there must be harmony between the three arenas of revelation and the harmony between sense, reason and faith. The third step was to show harmony within each arena; that is to say, something that is unveiled in revealed scriptures had to be in harmony with what is revealed in the human mind and in the physical. These three steps are at the centre of Comenius' approach assessing claims to divine revelation. Once he gets into describing the criteria he goes into great length and with significant detail because he considered unity in the world and the human community an issue of great import and that no effort should be spared to be fair and respectful. He believed that everyone who claims to have heard from God should be heard.
With strong Trinitarian bent is his orientation, the criteria Comenius developed is a series of three, each with three subdivisions as shown in the diagram below:
would not allow them to deceive the world with fictitious claims. Their simplicity means they do not even know how to invent revelations. Accordingly, it is clear proof of the divine origin of the revelation when they come from vessels that are normally incapable of producing them, as when God used infants to confound the wise. i
The second sub-type of the external criteria he termed verifiability of the revelation. Appearing to rely on the biblical evidence of Jesus' assertion of power over demons, Comenius believed that miracles verify the credibility of revelation and put them beyond doubt. The third external characteristic relates to the transmission of the revelation from one generation to the next. For Comenius, the transmission of the testimony is sealed by martyrs who fearlessly submit to violence or even death at the hands of sinners who reject the word of God. Here Comenius parts company with traditional catholic doctrine, which would have held that the transmission of the revelation was guaranteed by office of the bishop in communion with the See of Rome. No doubt he would have had in mind the martyrdom of Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake during the Council of Constance in 1415.
To match his external criteria, Comenius named a second set of criteria that he called the internal characteristics, which he also sub-divided in three types. The first type relates to the nature of the events to which the revelations refer. According to Comenius, true revelations refer either to events that precede the existence of the world, events that will come to pass after the end of the world, or events that will happen in this world but in circumstances that we could not possibly predict. With his mind evidently on 1 Cor 1:18, which emphasises the apparent foolishness of the things God uses to confound the wise,
Comenius' Criteria for Assessing Divine Revelation
External
Internal
Intimate
Witnesses
Verifiability
Transmission
He divided the criteria into three sets: the external, the internal and the intimate. The first criteria, the external, can be further divided into three sub-types. The first of these is the character of the witnesses; those who bear the revelation and committed it to writing as foremost. Evidencing complete trust in the character of those who committed the revelation to writing, Comenius argued that their piety and spiritual discernment
Comenius believed that the less elaborate the revelation the greater the likelihood of its authenticity.
The second aspect of the internal characteristics is the progressive nature of the revelation to which the divinely inspired book refers. For Comenius genuine revelation involves a gradual process of ever-increasing enlightenment. The gradual movement in revelation is similar to what obtains in the
Nature of the Events
Progressive Nature of the Revelation
Agreement between the Revelation...
Enlightenment
Bringing about a conversion
Communicate the strength of the Holy Spirit
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