Revelation, History, and Truth

“As a Protestant theologian I have been surprised to see how, in the best modern accounts of the doctrine of revelation, all roads lead, if not to Rome, at least to Vatican II’s Dei Verbum. On display in that document are all the crucial issues relevant for a constructive Christian account of divine revelation. Eduardo J. Echeverria’s book is an interpretation of Dei Verbum, but not the kind that remains satisfied with just parsing the text. He places the council’s Lérinian hermeneutics of retrieval in dialogue with historical consciousness, traces its connection to the nouvelle théologie, and draws the conclusions for an account of the development of doctrine. There is much here to inform and stimulate theologians of any confession. I especially appreciated how conversant Echeverria is with Protestant thinkers like Berkouwer and Vanhoozer; how nimbly he dismantles the false dichotomy between personal and propositional revelation; and how well he illuminates the distinction between the deposit of faith and the mode in which it is expressed.” —Fred Sanders, Professor of Theology, Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University