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How does God speak to us? The answer, it seems to me, lies in the more general question of how do rational beings speak to each other? The answer, of course, is language. Minds cannot communicate directly with each other, but rather communicate through words, speech, or symbols in order to get other minds to perceive what it is trying to convey. God communicates to us in similar fashion. In Psalm 19 we see the two principal ways that God communicates with us. The first is through the created order. The Psalmist says that "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night reveals knowledge" (Psalm 19:1-2). The selfish and sensual human mind rarely considers that Divinity is clearly proclaimed through the nature that depends on Him for its very being.
This knowledge is not properly understood through the sciences, in the same way that the meaning of human language is not understood through scientific analysis of the paper or ink that a book is written in or the paint and canvass of an artist. Instead, these things are only given meaning by the understanding of minds. Were there no minds, words would not be words. Therefore, the proper understanding of the Divinity presented of nature is through the contemplation of the mind. General revelation is not a science, but rather a discipline of the inner life. When we see the majesty and vastness of the heavens it communicates to us the glory and the infinitude of the Being we perceive to be behind it. The harmony and relatedness of nature tells us of the Trinity, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have related to one another in harmony for all eternity. The raging of the sea, the explosion of a star, or the clap of thunder speak to us of God's power. The rationality of the universe found in mathematics and the physical laws communicate to us Divine Reason, the Wisdom of God, Himself.
Yet because our hearts have become cold as stone and no longer desire to know God, we turn away from the contemplation of His immeasurable glory, or when we do look upon it our hearts darken our thoughts so much that what we see is a gross corruption of true Divinity. Most men are caught up totally in sensuality and the vain desires of this age. Therefore, to correct our hearts so that we might return to a true knowledge of God, the Almighty sent His Word to us, first through the Holy Spirit to the prophets and then ultimately in human form to the apostles. The Psalmist says of this Word, "The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the soul is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes" (Psalm 19:7-8). And this Word is Divine speech; in the beginning, by His Word, God created all things, and now by His Word God redeems all things. For we know that the Spirit of Christ spoke through the prophets concerning the coming of the Word of God (I Peter 1:10-12) and also that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Concerning the Word become flesh the apostles, after receiving authority and the Holy Spirit, proclaimed His message and committed it to writing in the Gospels and their Epistles. Therefore, the Word became flesh and also the Word became words. The Word of God is revealed to us in the writings of Scripture through the Holy Spirit, who is active both in the inspiration of the written word and in the conception of the Word made flesh. Just as the Divine Word took on the trappings of the flesh, so the written Word took on the trappings of human language.
Thus it through Jesus Christ, the Word of God, and the Scriptures he has give us through his Spirit that we receive a new language from God that might, by grace, reveal the mystery of our salvation and correct our corrupted understanding of God's original language in creation. Through the Word of Scripture we meet, in both testaments, the crucified and resurrected Word through faith. As St. Athanasius wrote, "Our Lord took a body like ours and lived as a man in order that those who refused to recognize Him in His superintendence and captaincy of the whole universe might come to recognize from the works He did here below in the body, that what dwelled in this body was the Word of God." Thus the Word of God condescended to meet us in the flesh and in human language so that we might know God truly.
