This study addresses Roger Scruton’s understanding of what he called “moments of revelation”.
In two short essays, both entitled “Effing the ineffable”, Scruton framed his discussion
of moments of revelation with reference to the medieval Christian mystical discourse.
Introducing the medieval discussion of this topic, this study provides an analysis
of Scruton’s approach to the theme. In tune with the traditional discourse on revelation,
his general aim was to demonstrate that there are ways of revealing important truths
about the supernatural, of the world “beyond the window”, that do not require words
to be pronounced. He calls our experiences of such phenomena moments of revelation
and identifies four different transitory sources of revelation. This study deals with
them one by one, after considering whether it is right to label such a revelation
transcendental. The four sources of Scruton’s moments of revelation are natural beauty,
the beauty of painting, the beauty of music, and personal encounters. The first three
examples are connected to his thoughts on art and beauty as a substitute of divine
revelation. Perhaps the most surprising of these is the last ones, moments of intersubjective
human relationships, “our knowledge of each other”. Relying on both Buber and Levinas,
Scruton makes the strong claim that it is in the other that we can experience that
world “beyond the window”. His phenomenological exploration of human encounters sheds
light on concepts like grace, shekhinah, or real presence and gift. He explains the
Christian understanding of the human–divine relationship as well along the lines of
the nature of interpersonal human relationship, both of them being in a certain sense,
he claims, transcendental. From grace, his account moves forward to self-sacrifice
and finally arrives at his idiosyncratic understanding of gratefulness for life. His
moments of revelation in art and interpersonal exchange turn out to be, indeed, late
and secular versions of the Christian understanding of revelation. In its summary,
this study claims that revelation, understood by Scruton as a form of general human
experience, allows to catch a glimpse of that which is beyond the window, by the direct,
sensually based experience of either the existence of another person or of the beauty
of nature and art.
