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A modern dictionary of 5,679 Catholic terms (including abbreviations), both common and obscure. Find accurate definitions of words and phrases. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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Term

NECESSARY REVELATION

Definition

Supernatural communication of divine truth as necessary for the human race. There are two kinds of necessity corresponding to the two levels of human need, namely the absolute need of grace to reach the beatific vision and the relative need for help to overcome the limitations of fallen human nature. The human race would have needed revelation even if it had never sinned, once Christianity assumes that it has been elevated to a supernatural destiny. Otherwise how could anyone reach a destiny that is naturally impossible even to conceive? Moreover, humanity sinned. As a result the human mind is darkened, not completely but considerably. It therefore needs divine guidance, as revelation, to know what is not of itself beyond human discovery but what is difficult to attain clearly, certainly, and by everyone in the present state of the human race.