"Without revelation, the people perish."  Translated as the first part of Proverbs 29:18 in the King James version of the Bible, these few words say volumes about the state of reality.  From the Bible's standpoint, revelation is communication, communication from God.  Revelation describes the fact of God, presents the words of God; revelation discloses who God is.

    Without revelation, as the writer says, we miss the point.  We live in a closed world, a terminal system.  We cannot see beyond ourselves.  Revelation is the higher ideal, the greater meaning without which we cannot make sense of who we are.  Absent revelation, we wallow in the speculations of our finitude, even while we remain fully aware of our tendency to look beyond it.

    Despite the efforts of so-called "anti-foundationalists" to prove that we do not need any guiding ideal to function rationally, we all need a higher vision to make sense of our lives.

    So whose revelation is right?  All of them?  None of them?  If we strip religion of its supernatural dimensions, we are left with a revelation of ourselves and our ideals, ideals which we and ourselves, and only we and ourselves, assess and judge.  And how do we ultimately know?  It seems that revelation and greater vision are most meaningful if they reflect the vision of a reality out of which this present one comes.