Talk:Special revelation

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[edit] NPOV

A request was made to explain the problems with the current version so it can be fixed. Here goes:

  • It assumes that God exists, which is disputed.
  • It assumes that God has a gender, and that this gender is male; that's disputed, too. The compromise on God is to use only gender-neutral terms like "God" and "the deity" unless you are referring to a particular conception of God.
  • It fails to distinguish the theology of the LDS church from that of other denominations.
  • It fails to clarify what "Orthodox Christianity" is; that page is a disambiguation page.
  • It should couch whatever explanation it makes in terms of third-party claims; it shouldn't sound like Wikipedia itself is saying these claims are true or false.
  • Who are these vaguely defined "Christian theologians"? This doctrine does not appear to be universal.
  • It would be interesting to see explanation to any denominations or theologians who have specifically denied this doctrine, if any.
  • The necessary antecendents of "salvation" are disputed; this article should make clear which sect's conception of salvation it is referring to.

General comments:

  • It should not use the second person - e.g. "we" and "us".
  • It would be useful to have the explanation about general vs. special vs. direct early on.
  • Revelation cites the book of Timothy; it would be good if this article more explicity describes the source(s) of the doctrine.
  • It would be useful to give specific notable examples, and to discuss the circumstances in which special revelation is believed to have occurred - after prayer? At times of cosmic significance? Can anyone be a recipient? Etc.

-- Beland 03:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I am removing the NPOV tag. It looks like there have been two editors who have cleaned up the 'we' language and gender language. The article as written doesn't make Wikipedia-unique claims of truth but attributes them to theologians, some of which are cited in footnotes. If Beland or others want to improve the article, I definitely agree that improvement is in order, but I don't see that the flaws of this article are particularly POV right now. MPS 16:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

I am finding it difficult to find proper sources to rewrite this article. Most stuff I can find is ultimately somebody's personal opinion, any ideas? Sam Hayes 23:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)