In Models of Revelation Avery Dulles explores the doctrine at the very center of Christianity: that Christianity is based on the word of God as given to the church. Following the format of his earlier Models of the Church, Dulles derives five models of the character of this much-neglected theme of revelation. He considers revelation as doctrine, as history, as inner experience, as dialectical presence, and as new awareness. "To some readers the disputes about revelation may seem excessively abstract and arid," writes Dulles. "[But] revelation is the source and center, the beginning and end, of the theological enterprise."