The Problem of Supernatural Revelation
It is often argued by religious believers that without an authoritative source of supernatural revelation it is impossible to ground one's beliefs or ethics. But the Humanist responds that this is a confusion with law. Law obviously needs a powerful authority to behind it to provide sanctions and rewards for obedience and conformity and also a system of physical force behind it (an army and police) in order to enforce compliance. However, our beliefs and ethics are not like that. There is no self-evident law-giver and the belief that there is a law-giver and the belief that His laws are good and have been vouchsafed to humanity is a matter of interpretation.
Source of revelation
Consider the following ten sources of authoritative religious revelation:
(1) Theophany
(2) Vision
(3) Dream
A theophany is an external, objective manifestation of God, for instance:
● Moses and the burning bush: Exodus 3:1-6
● God appears to Ezekiel: Ezekiel 3:22-23
● Transfiguration of Jesus: Matthew 17:1-8
● God appears to Abraham at Mamre: Genesis 18:1-33
● The Lord appears to Isaac: Genesis 26:2-5
● Jacob wrestles with God or an angel: Genesis 32:24-30
● God appears to Moses in the burning bush: Exodus 3:1-6
● God descends upon Mount Sinai: Exodus 19:16-20
● The Lord passes before Moses: Exodus 34:5-8
In theory a theophany can be witnessed by multiple people at the same time because it is out there in the objective world while a vision is internal and personal, although visions can sometimes be shared. Dreams are obviously personal and private.
It is not always clear from biblical accounts whether an appearance of God is a vision, a theophany or a dream. Another ambiguity is the sometimes the 'angel of the Lord' appears to give a message and then the voice seems to switch to God's own voice. Angels seem to be a way of bridging the transcendence of God with his immanence and concern with human affairs.
Unlike mystical experience which is largely affective involving loving union with the Godhead, the revelatory experience of theophany, visions, and dreams have largely cognitive content. There is usually a voice as part of the experience informing or giving instructions.
(4) Miracle — Miracles are unusual events which appear to breach the laws of nature but they often contain a moral or message. For instance when Jesus raises the paralytic he appears to be saying that forgiveness of sins and healing the soul is more important than healing the body. And when Jesus calms the storm he upbraids the disciples for their anxiety and lack of faith.
(5) Providential event — Like miracles providence is the operation of an interventionist God in the natural course of events but it operates by natural means rather than supernatural. For instance a religious believer might interpret the Allies winning WWII against the Nazis as God ultimately guiding events without necessarily denying the explanation that would be given by a secular historian. The proximate naturalistic account of the war is seen as compatible with the ultimate or transcendent explanation.
(6) Profound intuition — For most believers guidance from God will come as an inner voice or just a strong feeling. Vocations to the priesthood for instance are rarely heard as a literal voice despite the origin of the word meaning "to call".
(7) Charismatic leader — Many will receive revelation of the Divine Will from a religious leader or prophet. It hardly needs pointing out that throughout history there have been many false prophets who have misled people, and even Jesus himself declared that false prophets would arise from within the ranks of his own followers. The test has often been that "you will know them by their fruits" but that is clearly a matter of interpretation and often by the time you have determined that the prophet is false, it's too late!
Modernist Buddhists often say that the historical Buddha claimed to be no more than a mortal man and that his discovery of the way to enlightenment and liberation was by purely naturalist means without any supernatural revelation. What they tend to omit is that deciding to trust to the Buddha's teaching is a matter of judgement and interpretation. Furthermore, there are dozens of alternative versions of Buddhism to choose from and so you are never simply following the Buddha but following one of many interpretation of his teaching.
(8) Sacred text — Christian fundamentalists and Moslems will point primarily to their sacred texts as authority for their beliefs but it is here, more than anywhere else, that differences of interpretation loom largest and are clearly unavoidable. There are literally thousands of different interpretations of the Bible and the Koran, not just amongst committed religious believers but also amongst secular scholars today.
(9) Religious hierarchy — In the Roman Catholic church it is the Pope and the Magisterium who control interpretations of doctrine and in Islam it is the Ulama, or Scholarly Class, although unlike the RC church it is not centralised. In Mormonism doctrinal authority is highly centralised and binding on all Mormons. In contrast some religions, such as ancient Greek and Roman religion and modern-day Rastafarianism have no central religious bureaucracy and are very diverse in their beliefs.
(10) Tradition — Long-term practices can by their very longevity be interpreted as being authoritative revelations of truth. For instance in Christianity there is no canonical statement that monogamy should be adopted as the standard practice and polygamy rejected, even though the Old Testament patriarchs were all polygamous for centuries. However, practice drifted towards monogamy by New Testament times, probably under the influence of the occupying Romans who considered polygamy vulgar. Likewise, there is no authoritative statement instructing Christians to move the Jewish day of rest, the Sabbath, to a Sunday, which was originally the day Christians commemorated Christ's resurrection. In both cases practice drifted into a regular pattern and after time established practice became interpreted as the will of God.
No human experience comes to us raw and immediate and all have to be interpreted through the lens of our previous experience and through the network of our existing belief-systems. Religious experience is first and foremost human experience. Labelling an experience a religious experience is unavoidably a matter of judgement and interpretation. It is not a matter of faith. Faith comes in later, as commitment, trust and risk, after you have made the judgement this this experience is revelatory.
It is open for us to view any experience as revelatory but it may also be interpreted as a creation of our own imagination or a misinterpretation. This is not a matter of faith but rather a matter of judgement so in this sense the religious believer and the secular Humanist are in exactly the same boat. Both have to interpret and make judgements about their experience. It is impossible to side-step this existential challenge and say 'I was acting under orders of an authority' even if you sincerely believe that the authority is God. Each of us has to decide whether the authority who is laying down the law for us is legitimate, whether what they are commanding me to do is right and good, and indeed if I am the one who is actually being addressed by that authority. Intensity of conviction is not enough.