The self-revelation of God
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| Samuel Harris |
Samuel Harris’s The Self-Revelation of God is structured as a philosophical and theological exploration of how human beings come to know God — not through abstract speculation alone, but through lived experience, consciousness, and revelation. Let me break down the chapters you’ve listed into their key themes:
📖 Chapter I: Religion (pp. 15–29)
- Christianity vs. ethnic religions — Harris contrasts Christianity with other world religions, arguing that Christianity uniquely embodies the true God’s self-revelation.
- Religion as response — Religion is defined as the spirit of man responding to God’s presence.
- Obscure beginnings — The idea of God starts vague and defective, but develops progressively.
- Two essential elements — Harris identifies core traits necessary for any concept of divinity.
- Degeneration of ethnic religions — He critiques non-Christian traditions as having fallen away from the true idea of God.
📖 Chapter II: God Known in Experience or Consciousness (pp. 30–47)
- Definition of experience — Harris clarifies what he means by “experience” and “consciousness.”
- Intuition of God — He argues that elements of the idea of God are given intuitively, entering consciousness directly.
- Deeper meaning of consciousness — Consciousness of God is:
- Reasonable and probable
- Essential to religion’s reality
- Presupposed in all religions
- Rooted in moral and scientific awareness
- Presupposition in proofs — Harris insists that proofs of God’s existence already assume belief in God.
📖 Chapter III: God Known by Revelation (pp. 48–58)
- Nature of revelation — Revelation is essential for knowing any being, not just God.
- Revelation of environment — Just as we know the physical world through revelation, so too with persons and God.
- God reveals Himself — The climax: God’s revelation is not merely information, but His own self-disclosure.
Big Picture
Harris’s argument is that religion is not human invention but human response to God’s presence. Consciousness and intuition provide the groundwork, but revelation completes the process by making God personally known. Christianity, in his view, is the fullest realization of this self-revelation.
details :
Author: Samuel Harris
Publication date: date 1892,
Remark the author defends the idea of God against atheists and agnostics
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It may seem needless to add another to the many treatises on what we have been accustomed to call Natural Theology and the Evidence of. Christianity.
Except from The introduction
Certainly, there is no need for it. a mere repetition of the familiar arguments. But God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself presents himself anew to the people of every generation to be received or rejected as their re- deemer from sin, and his kingdom of righteousness and good-will * to be sought or refused as the progressive and only realization of the true wellbeing of man.
And while the reasons for believing in God and seeking first his kingdom are always, in essence, the same, the apprehension of them by men of successive generations must vary in accordance with the progress of knowledge and civilization and the changing condition, opinions and development of man. Hence in every generation, the claims of God in Christ to the faith and service of men must be examined anew.
The old truths, more precious than rubies, will never change, but they must have a new setting in the knowledge and life of the time. In our day scientific discoveries and industrial inventions have enlarged our knowledge of the universe and of the application of its material and forces to the service of man.
And since the universe itself is the manifestation or revelation of the ever-present God, this enlargement of knowledge presents new evidence of his existence and new revelations of what he is. Also, the progress of knowledge as to the physical, political and social well-being of man presents new tests and confirmations of the reality of God's revelation of himself in human affairs and pre-eminently in Christ, and of the necessity of his redemption of men from sin and of the progressive realization of his kingdom of righteousness and good-will on earth to the renovation and the true progress and wellbeing of man.
Philosophical thought, .also, is finding a broader and firmer basis for theistic belief. On the other hand, the intense energy and wide range of human thought, its great discoveries, the great increase of knowledge and its wide diffusion bring us to new points of view, open new ranges of investigation, and so necessarily raise new questions, difficulties and objections as to the existence of God and the reality of his revelation of himself in the universe and especially in Christ. These are forced on us from the spheres of physical science, social and political economy, and of philosophy. For example, while the Kantian philosophy in one line of its development has been helpful to theism, in another line it has issued in a diversified progeny of phenomenalism, agnosticism and pantheism.
Thus the thinking of the present day on God and his revelation of himself to man, on the part both of sceptics and believers, has an earnestness, vigour and depth, a breadth of range and a general prevalence never before surpassed. Butler's Analogy, Paley's Natural Theology and Evidences of Christianity, the Bridgewater Treatises, and similar defences of Christian Theism in the last and the. earlier parts of the present century are not now sufficient.
The evidence that they present is as valid as ever, but they fail to present the new evidence and to meet the new questions and objections now urged on our attention; their method is open to criticism; and some of the principles which they assume are now the very points in question.
The author of The Self-Revelation of God is Samuel Harris (1814–1899), an American theologian and educator who wrote extensively on Christian philosophy and theism. He was a professor at Yale Divinity School and published multiple influential works on religion and theology.
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