Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

The immediate vision of God as he is in himself is proposed and promised to us in revelation as our ultimate end.

« The revealed Word of God, set forth in the holy Scriptures and in the preaching and explicit declaration of the Catholic Church, clearly teaches that the intuitive vision of God, as he is in himself, constitutes in the present order the supreme beatitude of rational creatures. »

How God is necessarily the ultimate end of every creature, and in a special way of the rational creature, we shall explain in another, more fitting place, where we shall consider God as he is the supreme good; here we look only at the mode of knowing God through intuitive vision, which, as is clear from what has gone before, is supernatural, and to which God has willed to raise his rational creatures; this now is to be demonstrated from revelation.

I. We consider revelation as it is recorded in the Scriptures.

1° As an inheritance of sons, and as the fruit, reward, and crown of supernatural sanctification, eternal life is described: « you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life... But the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, D. N. » Matth. XIX. 29; XXV. 46; Marc. X. 30; Io. III. 16; VI. 40; X. 28; XVII. 2; Rom. VI. 22; Gal. VI. 8; 1. Tim. I. 16; Tit. I. 2; Iac. I. 12; 1. Pet. III. 22; Apoc. II. 20. etc. This eternal life is God himself, not only as efficient cause but also as beatifying object: « he has given us understanding that we may know the true God, and be in his true Son. This is the true God and eternal life » Io. I. 4; XIV. 6; Col. III. 4; 1. Io. V. 20. etc. The same eternal life is described as the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, in which God will reign glorified in all the saints as in his own image, and all will enter into the kingdom of God to possess the kingdom, reigning with God and in God, glorified by God through participation in his glory, so that God may be all in all: « then the just shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father; » « and they shall reign (βασιλεύσουσι reges erunt) for ages of ages; » « in Christ all shall be made alive... when all things shall have been subjected to him, then the Son himself (the head with all the members) shall be subjected to him who subjected all things to himself, that God may be all in all » Matth. V. 3. 10; VIII. 11; XIII. 43; XXV. 34; 1. Cor. VI. 9. 10; XV. 28; 2. Tim. IV. 18; 2. Pet. I. 11; Apoc. XXII. 5. Wherefore this life and this eternal kingdom is the glory of God in his saints, the eternal weight of glory, the unfading crown of glory, or the supreme glory of God, extrinsic in this order, through the glory of the sons of God which is intrinsic to them and shall be revealed in them: « our momentary and light tribulation works in us beyond measure, in sublimity, an eternal weight of glory; » « the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us; » « when Christ shall appear, your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory »¹; « and I (the Son of God) have given them the glory (τὴν δόξαν) which you gave me... I will that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may see the glory which you gave me » Io. XVII. 22. 24²; Rom. V. 2; VIII. 18; 2. Cor. IV. 17; Col. III. 4; 1. Pet. V. 4. This life, this kingdom, this glory, is the joy of the Lord, into which the faithful servants enter, the joy of the Lord remains in them full³Matth. XXV. 21. 23; Io. XV. 11; XVII. 13. Cf. XVI. 22. 24. This joy presupposes the absence of every evil Apoc. VII. 16. 17; XXI. 4. and is constituted by the fullness of all the goods of the Lord Matth. XXIV. 47; Luc. VI. 38. Under another image it is set forth as the marriage supper of the Lamb Apoc. XIX. 7-9; as the banquet at the table of the Lord, where they will be satisfied with blessedness; as the drink from the fountains of eternal life Matth. V. 6; XXVI. 29; Luc. XXII. 30; Apoc. VII. 17; XXI. 6.

2°. God himself is therefore the object whose participation, communication and enjoyment make all the saints live the blessed life, and reign, and are glorified, and rejoice with the joy of the Lord, and are filled with the abundance of good things and satisfied for ages without end. Now it is asked, how do they apprehend and possess God as the object of their full beatitude? The same revelation in which that eternal life is made manifest to us and promised also teaches us that the mode of possession and enjoyment is through the intuitive vision of God, as he is in himself.

Paul explicitly declares this intuition in 1. Cor. XIII. 8-12, comparing it not only with natural knowledge but also with the knowledge of faith, such as is possible in this life. « Knowledge (of this present imperfection) will be destroyed⁴ (γνώσις καταργηθήσεται). It will be destroyed, however, not by privation of perfection, but insofar as it is imperfect, by elevation to perfect knowledge in another, higher order: « for we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away⁵. » This knowledge, which compared with the future is called imperfect (ἐκ μέρους), is all knowledge of this life, even supernatural and most perfect; for the Apostle calls knowledge thus imperfect and partial, even in the case of « if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith » v. 2. The imperfection of this knowledge and the perfection of the future knowledge, however, is intrinsic, from the very mode of knowing. For « now we see through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know, even as I also have been known⁶ ».

Three things are said about the knowledge of the present time. a) This whole knowledge of divine things, although supernatural, is through a mirror, that is, knowledge of things not immediate in themselves, but mediated through another medium. Hence, because all our knowledge of divine things is through a mirror, this mirror can be nothing but creatures previously known (cf. above th. II.XIV.). b) Therefore this our knowledge of divine things is in a riddle; that is, analogical, through likenesses of created things⁷, not knowledge of divine things as they are in themselves. c) For this very reason the knowledge is ex parte, that is, imperfect.

Over against these imperfections, in the other member, is set the perfection of the vision of God, which is promised to us for the future life. Over against mediated and analogical knowledge is set the vision face to face. This vision is evidently the immediate vision of God in himself, or intuitive, and for this very reason the vision of God as he is in himself. For a) this phrase, derived from Hebrew usage, face to face⁸ always signifies the immediate presence of one person to another. Hence to see face to face, or to see the face, signifies the immediate intuition of a person in himself, usually with the added sense of intimate familiarity and at the same time of grace, which is granted by the greater to the lesser. I have said that this is the meaning of the expression to see face to face; yet when the term face to face is joined with other verbs, it does not by itself signify vision, although it always expresses immediate presence. Thus « the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend » Exod. XXXIII. 11; nevertheless God declares to the same Moses: « you cannot see my face; for no man shall see me and live. » Cf. Irenaeus 1. IV. c. 20. n. 9. Thus another passage is also explained: « for I shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and plainly, and not through riddles and figures does he see the Lord » ⁹ Num. XII. 8.

But b) that in Paul that vision face to face is intuitive is still much clearer from the parallelism of the members; for this vision is opposed to mediated and analogical knowledge.

Above all, c) this sense is demonstrated from the other member. For to the present knowledge, which is ex parte, is opposed the future vision, by which we shall know God as we have been known by God. The comparison cannot be understood as an equality of perfection in our vision and in the divine vision; but nevertheless the perfection of our vision of God as he is in himself is clearly expressed, and therefore of the essence and of all the perfection that is in God. This is indeed understood also from the opposition to knowledge which is ex parte. Just as from the fact that the knowledge of the present life is mediated and analogical (through a mirror in a riddle), it follows that the same knowledge is ex parte: so in the fact that the future vision is face to face it is contained that through it we shall know God as also we have been known, that is, perfectly, as he is in himself. Necessarily, therefore, face to face in Paul is understood as the immediate vision of God in himself, or intuitive vision.

In the same sense, 2. Cor. V. 6-8., « to be on pilgrimage away from the Lord » and to walk « by faith » in the present life are opposed to what in the future life will be a perpetual « presence with the Lord » and the state of « vision »¹⁰.

In this intuitive vision Christ, God himself, teaches that both the end of blessedness and the supreme excellence of the rational creature are constituted: « Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God » Matth. V. 8; « I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father, who is in heaven » ib. XVIII. 10.

3°. Further, contained in this very vision as its formal resulting effect are the kingdom of heaven, consolation from all weeping and mourning, full satiety of hunger and thirst for justice, the perfection of the adoption of sons: « Blessed are they, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, a copious reward in heaven, for they shall be consoled, they shall be satisfied, they shall be called sons of God » Matth. V. This adoption as sons is already in this life through inner transformation and through participation in the divine nature, and thus through elevation to a supernatural likeness with God 2. Pet. I.4; Io. I.13;III. 6; Iac. I. 18; 2.Cor.V. 17; Gal.VI.15; Eph.IV.23; 1. Io. III. 9: but now it is still, as it were, hidden and not yet full in its effects; in the future we await it full and manifested in all its effects. « You have received the Spirit of adoption of sons... for the Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are sons of God; and if sons, then heirs. » Yet « the expectation of the creature waits for the revelation of the sons of God... and we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption of sons » Rom.VIII. 15-24. This full and manifest adoption and assimilation of the sons is in the beatific vision. « Now we are sons of God; and it has not yet appeared what we shall be: we know that when it shall appear (ἐὰν φανερωθῇ), we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is » 1. Io. III. 2.

II. As this intuitive vision of God is revealed in the Scriptures, so its truth, lest any doubt be possible about the sense of Scripture, has been explicitly defined by the Church. It is worth the greatest attention, however, that there was no controversy about the truth of the intuitive vision itself, but only about the mode or the time of attaining to it: so universal and constant, indeed, was the consensus on the truth itself, clearly expressed in the Scriptures. On the occasion, however, of the condemnation of errors of this kind, the intuitive vision of God itself was declared more distinctly.

1°. The doctrine is most plain in the dogmatic Constitution of Benedict XII. « We define... that (all the blessed), after the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen and see the divine essence by intuitive and even facial vision¹¹, no created thing standing in the reason of the object seen, but the divine essence immediately showing itself to them nakedly, clearly and openly, and that, seeing thus, they enjoy the same divine essence; and also that from such vision and enjoyment the souls of those who have already departed are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest » etc. Constit. Benedictus Deus (Bullar.Roman.T. III.P.II.p.214; Raynaldi Annales ad ann.1336. n. 3. Confer ibi n. 4. seqq. tractatum ipsius Pontificis Benedicti de eodem argumento).

Shortly after this definition, the same Pontiff, among the errors which he ordered the Armenians to abjure (in the year 1341), records this as the eighth: « What the Armenians say, that the souls of baptized children and the souls of very perfect men..... will not see the divine essence, because no creature can see it; but they will see the brightness of God, which flows from his essence, as the light of the sun flows from the sun, and yet it is not the sun...¹² and in this they say that the blessedness of the holy perfect men and of baptized children consists » (apud Raynald. anno 1341. n. 51.). The Armenians, at a council of 29 bishops and of some masters of the Church, abbots and archpriests, although they denied that most of those errors were theirs, nevertheless condemned them as heretical. About this eighth error they speak thus: « what he says, that they will not see the essence of God, etc., is contrary to the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, in which the Church of the Armenians believes » (they cite the texts Matth. XVIII. 8. sqq.; 1. Cor. XIII. 8. sqq.; 1. Io. III. 2., and their liturgical prayers, in which the vision of God is asked for). Moreover they say: « because we shall see his essence, greatness, brightness, wisdom and goodness, which are all God in God; yet not so much as he himself sees... Although we posit various degrees in the vision of the divine essence, yet not in the brightness, which is not God (that is, in the vision of a brightness distinct from God), as he seems to say in the article; because the brightness of God, and everything that is essentially in God, is God. And we speak of the difference of degrees of the vision of God thus: since the essence of God will be seen and loved more intensely by one than by another, because just as the intellectual power of one will be more perfect with the light of glory than that of another, so much the more will one see the one and same God; just as in sensible things too the one and same sun is seen by many more and less according to the measure of visual power » (Mansi XXV. p. 1196. sq.).

Before Benedict XII, at the Council of Vienne, the universal Christian profession of this intuitive vision of God is presupposed, when the error of the Beguards is condemned: « that the soul does not need the light of glory elevating it to see God and to enjoy him blessedly » (Clementin. l. V. tit. 3. c. 3.). The same presupposition, and an explicit doctrine, is found in the Council of Florence in the decree of union. « We define that their souls (who incurred no stain of sin after baptism, and souls perfectly purified) are received at once into heaven, and see clearly the triune and one God himself, as he is¹³, yet with a difference of merits, one more perfectly than another. »

2°. The ancient Fathers had to defend against the Eunomians the eminence of the divine essence as it is in itself, beyond the natural knowledge of the created intellect, and the absolute incomprehensibility of God beyond every exaltation of a creature; but there was no controversy with heretics about the supernatural intuitive vision of God in the heavenly homeland. Hence it is that among the Fathers we find that eminence and incomprehensibility of God demonstrated with deliberate effort and with manifold arguments; but on the other hand they presuppose the intuitive vision of God, clearly expressed in the Scriptures, in the common Christian profession, and speak of it almost only incidentally and mostly in the very words of holy Scripture. Unless one attends to this different state of the twofold question in Christian antiquity, one will easily fall into the error of interpretation, so that the Fathers who deny the comprehensibility of God seem to deny absolutely the intuitive vision; for in fact, since the question had not yet been raised, speaking more safely they were accustomed to designate comprehension by the name of perfect vision, and to deny it both to angels and universally to every creature; of which doctrine of the Fathers we shall speak presently. Thus Vasquez was deceived, who, not sufficiently attending to the aim of the holy Fathers, ascribed to many of them this error of denying the intuitive vision of God (Vasquez in 1. P. disp. 37. c. 1-4.).

But the Fathers, above all before the controversy about the incomprehensibility of God held with the Eunomians, profess with common consent the intuitive vision of God in eternal life as the reward and crown of the merits of faith; and they expressly call it the vision of God in himself, beyond every even supernatural and most sublime knowledge which is granted in this life, and which they say was had by Moses himself and by the prophets not as a vision of God in himself, but in symbols and according to analogies. Irenaeus l. IV. c. 20. al. 37. n. 5-11; Theophilus Antioch. ad Autolyc. l. I. n. 7. (Galland. T. II. p. 82.); Recognit. Clementin. l. III. c. 27. 29. 30. (Galland. ib. p. 257.); Clemens Alex. Strom. V. p. 548; Origenes in Io. tom. I. n. 16. (Opp. T. IV. p. 17.); Cyprian. ep. 56; de Exhortat. martyrii (ed. Baluz. p. 94. 273.); Novatianus Trin. c. 18. al. 26. (Galland. III. p. 301.).

Moreover, those Fathers who defended the incomprehensibility of God more distinctly against the Eunomians, or at least wrote when the Eunomian error was already known, taught the intuitive vision of God no less explicitly than the preceding ones, whenever the occasion offered. Basilius ep. VIII. n. 7. (T. III. p. 85. 86.); de Spir. S. c. 16. n. 38. p.33; de imper. et potest. n. 3. (from the lost sermon on the incomprehensible, T. III. p. 525.); Gregor. Nazianz. or. 28. al. 34. n. 4. 17;.or. 32. al. 26. n. 15; Gregor. Nyss. or. de Meletio T. II. p. 1025. 1026; Chrysostomus in 2. Cor. hom. X. n. 2. 4. (T. X. p. 508. 512.); in Phil. hom. III. n. 3. (T. XI. p. 216.); ad Theodor. lapsum paraenes. I. n.10. (T. I. p. 17.); Cyrillus Alex. in Io. l. X. (T. IV. p. 827.); Hilarius in Ps. 118. litt. 8. n. 7. 8; Augustinus ep. 147. (where he also brings forward and declares the doctrine of St Ambrose on the same matter, n. 24. sqq.); ep. 148. (where in n. 7. he appeals to the opinion of St Jerome); de Civ. Dei l. XI. c. 29; XXII. c. 29; Trinit. XIV. c. 16. and elsewhere; Fulgent. ep. XIV. ad Ferrand. q. III. n. 33; most clearly St Gregory the Great, Moral. l. XVIII. n. 90-93; in Ez. l. I. hom. 2. n. 20.

I shall quote the words of Basil from ep. VIII, not only because Basil is one of those Fathers whom Vasquez (1. P. disp. 37. c. 4.) accuses of denying the intuitive vision, but chiefly because the sense of the holy Doctor seems to me not to have been rightly explained by the editors, but in such a way as to show a manifest contradiction in that explanation. Basil there interprets, by a somewhat Origenian exegesis, that saying of Christ by which he said that he did not know the day of judgment, Marc. XIII. 32. The sum of the doctrine is this. The Apostles were asking about the supreme blessedness (τὴν ἐσχάτην μακαριότητα), and the Lord says that this is unknown to the angels and to himself. In what sense, then, is that not knowing to be understood? To know and not to know in God amount to the same as to be and not to be; hence « God is said to know what he himself is, and not to know what he is not: God is said to know justice and wisdom, insofar as he is justice itself and wisdom itself; but to be ignorant of injustice and malice, for he is not injustice and malice ». Now « our Lord¹⁴ according to the consideration of the humanity and the cruder teaching (that is, if one regards him solely insofar as he is man, and generally according to our present knowledge) is not the supreme good (τὸ ἰσχατον ὁρεκτον): thus our Saviour does not know the end and the supreme blessedness (that is, he is not himself, according to his humanity, the supreme blessedness and end of goods). But neither do the angels, he says, know. That is (since from what Basil has said above not knowing is taken in that sense in which it is said not to be), neither is the contemplation which is busied about the angels, nor the doctrine about their ministries, the supreme good; for even the knowledge of these things is crude in comparison with that which is face to face¹⁵. For the Father alone, he says, knows. Since indeed he himself is the end and the supreme blessedness; for when we shall no longer know God in mirrors and through other things, but shall attain to him himself as to the one and only (by immediate vision), then we shall know the supreme end (the end of goods) (by enjoyment). For they say that the kingdom of Christ (in this earthly life, before he hands over the kingdom to God and the Father, 1. Cor. XV. 24–28.) is all knowledge through material things, but that the kingdom of God the Father is immaterial (not through other things and sensible ones) and, as one might say, the vision of the deity itself .¹⁶ Moreover the Son too is the end and supreme blessedness by reason of the Word. For what does he say in the Gospel? And I will raise him up on the last day; calling resurrection the transition from knowledge through material things to immaterial vision, and calling the last day that knowledge after which there is no other. For then our mind rises and is lifted up to blessed sublimity, when it shall see the unity and monad of the Word. But since our mind, being cruder, is bound to the earth and mingled with mire (the body), and cannot attend to pure vision; hence, led by the hand through beauties akin to its body, it considers the works of the Creator, and meanwhile knows these divine things from their effects, so that thus, gradually increased, it may at some time be able to attain to the naked divinity itself. »

The opinion of Chrysostom must also be set before our eyes, since doubt about him is usually greater on account of other passages, in which he impugned the comprehension of God asserted by the Eunomians (Vasquez 1. P. disp. 37. c. 3.). Speaking of the vision of Christ's glory at his transfiguration, Chrysostom says: « For if Peter, seeing a certain obscure image of things to come, straightway threw everything out of his mind because of the pleasure aroused by such a vision: what will be said when the very truth of things shall be present, when, with the royal halls opened, it will be permitted to behold the King himself no longer in a riddle nor through a mirror, but face to face, no longer through faith but through sight (vision) » ad Theodor. laps. n. 10. Consistently he sets over against each other the knowledge of faith in this life and clear vision in the other, obscure thought and manifest experience itself in the kingdom of heaven (ἡ ἐννοια ἀμυδρα – αὐτη ἡ πειρα ἡ σαφης); presence with God here as in the courtyard and through faith, there face to face¹⁷ ll. cc.

Since after Augustine, St Gregory the Great expounded the doctrine also polemically and therefore more distinctly, it must not be omitted here. First he proposes and resolves a doubt about the intuition of the divine essence itself. « It must be known that there were some who said that God is seen even in that region of blessedness in his brightness indeed, but in his nature not seen at all. These were misled, surely, by a lesser subtlety of inquiry: for to that simple and unchangeable essence, brightness is not one thing and nature another; but to it its brightness is its nature, and its brightness is nature itself. For since this wisdom of God sometimes showed itself to its lovers, he himself promises, saying: he who loves me... I will manifest myself to him (Io. XIV. 21.); as if he were plainly saying: you who see me in your (human) state, it remains that you see me in my (divine) nature ». Then, the testimonies Matth. V. 8; 1. Cor. XIII. 12. having been adduced besides, he explains the difficulty from 1. Pet. I. 12: « into which the angels desire to look »; whereas on the other hand Christ testifies: « their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father, who is in heaven » Matth. XVIII. 10. The reconciliation of both truths is this: « For the angels both desire to see God, and thirst to behold, and behold.... For lest there be anxiety in desire, they who desire are satisfied; and lest there be disgust in satiety, they desire to be satisfied: and so they desire without labor, because satiety accompanies desire; and they are satisfied without disgust, because satiety itself is always kindled from desire. So too we shall be, when we come to the very fountain of life: thirst and satiety will be delightfully impressed on us together » Moral. l. XVIII. l. c.