Philosophy and Natural Theology paint a complete picture of the role of gestures in human life, and yet we are free to wonder if the role of gestures stops there. What if the Creator of our soul took it upon Himself to make Himself known to His Creatures? Discovering the existence of God from an analysis of our experience, from our experience of love, does not give us a very satisfying knowledge of who or what God is. According to the knowledge of God that we can grasp in the extension of our experience, even our affirmations are qualified by a kind of negation. All the good things we've ever experienced contain some kind of limit. We have no experience of an infinite and perfect good - and at the same time we recognize that what is good is not limited in essence, that though we experience only limited goods nothing about the nature of goodness implies a limit. We are all looking for a perfect good at some level, some are looking for the perfect house, others the perfect man, others perfect health, others the perfect religion. How we deal with the fact that we never experience a perfect good will impact our happiness, so it is pretty important. At any rate, goodness is not limited in itself, it is always limited by something else: by conditions imposed by matter and the material world.
If there were some way to know God more personally we would certainly benefit from it. The knowledge of God that a philosopher can have is poor, but already something wonderful. If God were to reveal Himself, what He is expecting from us, why He created us, etc. the philosopher would certainly be intrigued. There are different religious traditions, but each claims to have received some kind of revelation - by a prophet, or an experience, or an illumination, or a voice. The Christian faith is no different. The Christian faith stands upon the reception of the living Word of God as received and transmitted by the Apostles. The Bible is filled with divine words, words whose primary source is God Himself. According to St. Augustine, the Holy Spirit is the voice of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is the presence of God we recognize when we hear the Word of God - opening our minds and hearts to receive the Word of God Himself into our hearts and our lives. So the revelation of God is God speaking directly to the hearts of those who "hear with the heart" as it were. The revelation of God is the illumination of the human intellect by the light of the Word of God by means of the human word. The word of God is not simply information about God, the Word of God is God: and when I receive the Word of God as it truly is, the light of God Himself enlightens me. So every word of God recorded in the bible is able to establish communion between my intellect and the divine Logos, every word of God is essentially capable of revealing the mystery of God, His mysterious presence. Hearing the Word of God allows me to come into a living contact with the mystery of God.
It is for this reason that the primary exercise of Christian faith is contemplative. The Christian life is primarily a personal encounter with God through His Word. So God's revealing Himself through his Word is certainly a gesture, and it is like a gesture of quality time and presence. Even though this gesture, as such, indicates that God is truly interested in His creatures enough to engage with them, the actual content of what God says and reveals is not simply, "I love you," or "You are precious to me." The Word of God cannot be reduced to merely the words of affirmation it contains - the Word of God and Revelation are much more diverse than that in terms of content. The Word of God appeals to our intellect first and foremost, referring or directing our minds to the one who is speaking, who compels us to open our hearts and listen deeply. The order in Revelation is from truth to love, with each revealed truth aimed at a growth in love. But each truth must be welcomed and accepted before it can cause a growth in love. It is by a gesture that the ultimate dimension of God's love is exposed. In the Old Testament there are passages that indicate God's relationship with Israel using human gestures. In the New Testament, in Jesus Christ the Word made flesh, the gestures of God are both fully human and fully divine. So, ultimately, the gestures of God in Jesus Christ reveal the extent of God's love for us. Jesus' death on the cross is not just the fulfillment of divine justice, it is a revelation, a gesture, of extreme love. And following this gesture are the words of Jesus, "I thirst," which reveal how much further Jesus' love goes even beyond the laying down of his life for us. As though even His death, the handing over of His life to us, could not express the full extent of His love.
In the life of Christ, there are gestures that Jesus himself explains - the washing of the feet at the Last Supper for example - and there are gestures that do not come with an explanation - when Christ lowers himself to write in the sand with His finger for example. The first has a revealed meaning which comes from the Word Himself, whereas the second has its meaning straight from the Word made flesh, the incarnation. This second aspect of revelation by the gestures of Christ is specifically New Testament. In The Old Testament, the gestures of prophets that have a divine meaning rely on the word of God in order to communicate/reveal this meaning.
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