[W]e, being who and what we are, cannot know unless we are taught by that which is other than we, and that means by the Spirit of God, albeit in diverse mediations. Though nature is relatively passive under our enquiry… it remains true that knowledge of her comes as fit, and is therefore a species of revelation…. If there is revelation of the truth of the world, it is because the Spirit of truth enables it to take place. To put it another way, the creator Spirit brings it about that human rationality is able, within the limits set to it, to encompass the truth of creation. We therefore neither control nor create our knowledge, even though the concepts by which we express it are in part the free creations of our minds. Does it not then follow that all knowledge depends on disclosure or revelation?
Colin E. Gunton, A Brief Theology of Revelation
knowledge, revelation, spirit