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7. Revelation is the removal of a veil. When the discovery of truth is made by our natural powers, it is called natural revelation. By it man can easily know the existence of God as the First Cause and Master of all things, the Rewarder of good and evil; the survival of the soul in another life of happiness or misery; the principles of the moral law, in particular the duty of worshipping and serving God; etc. These truths have been known in all ages by all men who had the full use of reason. St. Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, speaking of the ungodly, writes: "The invisible things of Him (of God), from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also, and Divinity: so that they are inexcusable. Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified Him as God, nor given Him thanks' ' (I, 20, 21). And of the moral law he says that even the gentiles have the law "written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them" (II, 15). Many other truths concerning God can be known by reason; as is proved in Natural Theology, a division of Metaphysics.

8. The word "revelation" is however more commonly used in another meaning; and it is in this latter sense that we shall take it throughout this book; namely, to