Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

I establish 1. It is beyond controversy that God can be seen clearly and intuitively by a mortal man, through His extraordinary power and a supernatural privilege; for all Catholic Doctors acknowledge that it was liberally granted to Christ the Lord by God the Father from the instant of His conception; why, then, could God not likewise, if He so willed, grant the same grace to another? Add that, as the Doctor says in 1. dist. 19. quaest. 12. n. 3., if there were any repugnance why this privilege could be granted to a mortal man, it would be chiefly either on the part of the agent, namely of God granting it, or on the part of the patient, namely of the man receiving it. But it is repugnant from neither part. Not indeed on the part of the agent, since God grants the blessed an intuitive vision of Himself in the other life, why could He not grant it to a man living a mortal life? Nor is it repugnant on the part of the man receiving it; for if it were so repugnant, it would be chiefly either from his nature, or from his state and condition of mortality: but from neither head is it repugnant. Not indeed from man's nature, otherwise man could nowhere receive a beatitude repugnant to his nature: nor from the part of the state; both because mortality does not conflict formally, but only effectively, with the state of beatitude, namely by reason of its effects, and hence both can by divine power be found at the same time in the same man. And because in fact Christ the Lord was at once mortal and blessed, a wayfarer and a comprehender. Therefore the present question is not moved about the possible, but only whether in fact intuitive vision of God was granted to some mortal man.

I suppose 2. Concerning the resolution of the present doubt, there is a celebrated controversy not only among the scholastic Doctors, but also among the holy Fathers, some of whom deny, while others affirm that intuitive vision of God was granted to certain pure men living this mortal life, especially indeed to Moses, St. Paul, Adam, St. Benedict, Augustine, and Francis: and this they gather, in the case of Moses and St. Paul, from various places of Sacred Scripture to be cited below: in the case of Adam, however, they infer it from that passage of Genesis 2: The Lord God sent a deep sleep upon Adam, in which sleep Adam was present at the assembly of the Angels, as St. Augustine affirms on that same passage, and St. Bernard, serm. 2. de Septuagesima, says: That he entered into the sanctuary of God, and had an intuitive sight of the unchangeable truth, and of the abyss of divine wisdom. Concerning the blessed Augustine they gather it from what he writes in lib. 9. Confessionum, cap. 10., that when he had stood at Ostia Tiberina with his mother, he had a divine vision together with her: Which if it were continued, he says, and other visions were withdrawn, so that eternal life might be such as was this moment of understanding for which we sigh, is this not, enter into the joy of your Lord? Concerning the blessed Benedict, they infer it from St. Gregory, lib. 2. Dialogorum, cap. 35., relating the vision by which St. Benedict beheld the whole world gathered as it were under one ray of the sun; and to persuade that this is easily believed, St. Gregory says: For to one seeing the Creator every creature is narrow. As if he would say that every creature is finite, and therefore could easily have been looked upon by one seeing the Creator. Finally, concerning St. Francis our Felix infers it from St. Bonaventure in the Prologue of Itinerarii mentis in Deum, and from St. Bernardine, tom. 1. Serm. 61. art. 2. c. 3.; whether all these things are true and supported by certain testimonies will appear below.

I suppose 3. That if it be established that the privilege of seeing God in this mortal life was granted to some man, this very thing is to be attributed by stronger right to the Most Blessed Virgin. For, as St. Thomas says, 3. p. q. 27. art. 1., it is reasonably believed that she who gave birth to the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, received greater privileges of grace than all others; or, as St. Bonaventure says in 3. d. 3. p. 1. a. 3. q. 5., what is read to have been conferred on others is not to be believed to have been denied to the Virgin. Indeed St. Antoninus, p. 4. tit. 15. cap. 17., expressly affirms, That at her very conception or birth there was given to the Virgin, for an hour, to see a mystery of this kind as in the homeland: just as Paul saw God in rapture. And Rupert, on that passage of Canticles: Your eyes are doves, says that the Blessed Virgin was rapt into the third Heaven, and saw the secret mysteries which it is not lawful for man to utter, more perfectly and more excellently than Paul. Hence in the present there will be no disputation about the Blessed Virgin; for although intuitive vision of God was never conferred on any mortal, I nevertheless judge that it is piously to be believed that it was granted to the Blessed Virgin herself, because of her most strict connection and affinity with her Son, God and man. Therefore let the disputation be only about the other men

First conclusion. — No pure man ever saw God intuitively in this mortal life. This is the more common and more certain conclusion.

Proof 1. By all those places of Sacred Scripture in which God is proclaimed invisible to mortals. Thus in John 1: No one has ever seen God. And in chapter 7.: Not that anyone has seen the Father, except him who is from God, he has seen the Father. 1. ad Timotheum 7.: Whom no man has seen, nor can see. From which I argue thus: Sacred Scripture is not to be twisted into any other sense than that which the words themselves bear, unless some contradiction to be resolved occurs, or some other necessity appears: but neither occurs here; for it is not a contradiction that God is not seen by a mortal man, and no reason appears why this should be affirmed against the express sentence of Sacred Scripture: and consequently, since God is proclaimed invisible to mortal man, it does not seem credible that He granted to anyone an intuitive vision of Himself.

Proof 2. From the holy Fathers, very many of whom, especially Irenaeus, lib. 1. cap. 37.; Origen, Homilia 1. in Isaiam; Nazianzen, Oratione 31.; Cyril, lib. 1. in Ioannem, cap. 22.; Tertullian, lib. 1. contra Marcionem, cap. 22; Ambrose, on the first chapter of Luke, and many others, expressly affirm that intuitive vision of God was not granted to Moses. The same is thought about St. Paul by Chrysostom, Homilia 5. De incomprehensibili Dei natura, Nazianzen, Tertullian, and in general all the praised Fathers, who, while denying that intuitive vision of God was granted to Moses, affirm in general that no pure man ever saw God in this mortal life.

It can also be proved by a twofold argument, which the Doctor has in 1. dist. 19. q. 12. n. 1. et 5, where he proves that beatitude cannot consist with the state of mortality: which he proves first, because the sensitive appetite in a mortal man is born to draw the intellective appetite along with itself to anything delightful that is disordered and contrary to right reason: but beatitude does not tolerate this disorder, since it is itself a most perfect order: and consequently beatific vision cannot subsist with the mortal state.

Secondly, he proves from repugnance. Because, he says, although the body is not beatifiable with beatitude properly so called, according to Augustine, Epistola 36. ad Dioscorum, which beatitude namely consists in the act of the intellect and of the will, nevertheless it is beatifiable in a certain respect, whether that beatitude of the body be immediately from God, or from the superabundance of the beatitude of the soul; since therefore the beatitude of the body cannot stand with mortal life, it is repugnant that the effect of perfect beatitude be in mortal life. Whence he concludes: That without a miracle beatitude cannot be in mortal life, and not only is it a miracle in this, that beatitude is given, which is supernatural, but also because a natural thing is impeded from its naturally consequent effect. Hence in n. 7. he says: Concerning Christ it must be said, that it was always a miracle until death that beatitude and mortality were in Him, because of the repugnance of the effects: therefore he judges that neither that beatitude, nor consequently intuitive vision, was granted to any wayfaring man. I confess, however, that these arguments do not press. Therefore

I prove 3. Individually, concerning each of those set forth in Note 3, namely by showing that none of them saw God intuitively. And first indeed concerning Moses: for in Exodus 33., when Moses had begged the Lord: Show me Your glory, and the Lord had answered: I will show you all good, He immediately adds: You will not be able to see My face; for no man shall see Me and live, that is, no man shall see Me in mortal life.

Nevertheless, so that He might console Moses with some sign of the future beatific vision, He adds: While My glory passes, I will place you in the cleft of the rock, and I will protect you with My right hand, until I pass; and I will take away My hand: and you will see My back parts; that is, you will see the back of the assumed body, namely with the cloud that shaded it removed; and since these back parts of the body had a light more tempered than His eyes and face, they could for that reason be looked upon more easily, but not the face itself, namely because of its excessively radiant splendor. Whence God adds: You will not be able to see My face.

By which it clearly stands that Moses did not see God intuitively, but only either the Angel of God acting in His place in an assumed body, as St. Stephen affirms, Actorum 7.; for where in Exodus 3. the Lord is said to have appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, St. Stephen says: There appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai an angel in the flame of fire of the bush.

Or he saw the divine Word, which appeared in an assumed body to the Prophets and Patriarchs, as Tertullian affirms, lib. 1. adversus Marcionem: He Himself, he says, then appeared with the angels to Abraham in truth indeed of flesh, but not yet born, because not yet to die, but already learning to converse among men.

Nor does it matter that in the same chapter of Exodus it had been said before: And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend: for by 'face' there is not understood there an intuitive knowledge of God, which St. Paul calls facial, saying: We now see through a mirror, and in an enigma, but then face to face; but there is only designated the almost daily apparition of God, by which namely He made manifest to Moses His will, and His decrees and judgments toward the Jewish people, namely in that familiar manner in which among men a friend sets forth and declares to his friend all the concepts of his mind and all the secrets of his heart.

Add. That even if Moses saw intuitively, face to face, him with whom he spoke, it does not however follow from this that he saw the divine Essence, and that he clearly intuited God; since, as we have said, he was only speaking with the Angel, who acted in God's place and was His messenger to Moses, to signify to him the divine will, as St. Stephen again expressly brings out, adding: This is Moses, who was in the Church in the wilderness with the Angel, who spoke to him on Mount Sinai.

St. Augustine excellently confirms this very thing, tract. 3. in Ioannem, where, weighing those words: No one has ever seen God, he says: What did Moses see? Moses saw a cloud, saw an Angel, saw fire: all that creature bore the type of its Lord, it did not exhibit the presence of the Lord Himself. A little after: Therefore, most dear brethren, an Angel bearing the type of the Lord spoke with Moses: and all those things which were so done through the Angel promised that future grace and truth.

You will say. Moses seems to have obtained the intuitive vision of God which he had asked for in Exodus 33., for in Numbers chapter 12. the Lord, addressing Aaron and Miriam, said: If there be among them a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him through a dream: but not such is My servant Moses... for I speak to him mouth to mouth, and plainly, and he sees the Lord not through enigmas and figures. Whence one may argue thus: otherwise

Moses saw God, than the other Prophets: but the other Prophets saw Him in an enigma through figures, and only by the benefit of the Angel addressing them, and did not truly behold His essence clearly and intuitively: therefore, since Moses saw God in a more excellent way, the consequence is that he saw Him intuitively.

I distinguish the major. Moses saw God otherwise than the other Prophets: that is, he beheld His divine essence clearly and intuitively, I deny: that is, God manifested Himself to him in a nobler manner and by a more excellent light, and namely indicated His wills to him more clearly, and conversed with him with greater familiarity, I concede. Nor does it matter that the Septuagint Interpreters read the cited passage of Numbers thus: I will speak to him mouth to mouth in a species; he saw the clarity of the Lord, not through enigmas. For apart from the fact that the Latin Vulgate version alone is authentic, and hence the only one to which we owe faith; it can be answered that by 'species' is understood the species and image of the assumed body; and by 'clarity,' that sensible light which the Angel had in the assumed body, in which namely he spoke to Moses in God's place. — Secondly: the same is to be said of St. Paul: for although he himself affirms in 2. Corinth. 12. that he was rapt up to the third Heaven, namely the seat of the blessed, which third Heaven is so called with respect to the sidereal and ethereal or aerial Heaven, and which he therefore also calls Paradise, and heard secret words which it is not lawful for man to utter; yet from these words it can in no way be inferred that he intuited the divine essence; for to hear secret words is not to behold God intuitively, but only to perceive certain great things exceeding human sense: which Paul not only heard, but perhaps also saw in that ecstasy, in which he affirms that he was rapt to the third Heaven. Add that St. Paul himself testifies in 1. ad Timotheum 6. that God is invisible to mortals, Whom no man, he says, has ever seen: but certainly he would not speak truly, if he himself had intuited God: therefore it is a sign that he did not see the divine essence, which is especially true in the opinion of those who think that the ecstasy and rapture of St. Paul up to the third Heaven happened at the time of those three days in which, at the beginning of his conversion, he was at Damascus, neither eating nor drinking. Whence, since he afterwards wrote in Epist. ad Timotheum that no man has seen God, the consequence is that St. Paul himself did not see God in that ecstasy of his. — Thirdly: the same is clear concerning St. Benedict: for although St. Gregory affirms that he saw the whole machine of the world in a heavenly ray, he does not however say that that ray was some splendor of the Divinity itself, in which all creatures shine. Nor does it matter that he brings forward: To one seeing the Creator every creature is narrow: for by it he intends only that God granted St. Benedict some supernatural light, in which all these things were represented; and since that light was a certain participation of God, for that reason St. Benedict, by beholding it, is said to have looked upon God. — Fourthly: concerning St. Augustine, it is clear from his own testimony that no mention is made of the beatific vision; for he only compares the sweetness of that contemplation which he had with the sweetness of the beatific contemplation, of which that one seemed to be a certain participation and communication: whence he says of that sweetness: Is this not, enter into the joy of your Lord? As if he would say: is this not similar to the joy of the Lord, into which the blessed enter? — Finally, concerning St. Francis, it is clear that he indeed saw a Seraph bearing the image of the Crucified, and agitating him into an ecstasy of divine love; but he did not see God Himself. Nor did St. Bonaventure mean anything else in the place cited by Felix; for there he explains the vision of St. Francis in terms of his supreme contemplation.

For by the six wings of the Seraph, he says, can rightly be understood the six suspensions of illuminations, by which the soul is disposed as by certain steps and journeys, so that it passes over to peace, through the ecstatic excesses of Christian wisdom. But it is not so, except through the most ardent love of the Crucified, which so transformed Paul, rapt to the third heaven, into Christ, that he would say: With Christ I am nailed to the cross: I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me; which so absorbed the mind of Francis, that the mind showed through in the flesh, while he carried the stigmata of the most sacred passion on his body for two years before death.

By which it is clear that he is speaking not of an intuitive vision of God, but of the supereminent contemplation which the Seraphic Father Francis had, when at the sight of the Seraph he burned with the most ardent love, and was rapt into the most sweet contemplation of the suffering Christ the Lord.