Editor’s note: This post was originally published on August 15, 2013 as part of a series called To the Heights. The entire series can be found here. Father Edmund McCollough was ordained to the priesthood in May 2017 and teaches at St. Hubert Catholic High School for Girls in Philadelphia.

Father Edmund McCullough, O.P., speaks about divine revelation (CCC, 50–53):

By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

—Catechism of the Catholic Church, 50

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Image: Caspar David Friedrich, The wanderer above the sea of fog