scholarly journals Communal Knowledge and the Beatific Vision

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-46
Author(s):  
Joshua Cockayne
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Shared Vision ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
Perfect Knowledge ◽  
Vision Of God

In this paper, I will consider what role, if any, our communion with the saints plays in our knowledge and communion with God. By considering recent work on the epistemology of personal knowledge and epistemology of religious ritual, I argue that our communion with the saints in some way enhances our knowledge of God. This conclusion has implications for our understanding of the beatific vision. According to Thomas Aquinas, those who are saved will receive a vision of the divine essence and thereby come to perfect knowledge of God. In attaining this perfect knowledge, Aquinas maintains, a human being will be perfectly happy. Thus, on Aquinas’s picture of the doctrine, communion with the saints is not necessary for perfect happiness or perfect knowledge of God. I suggest that there are two solutions to this problem. First, following Christopher Brown, we must say that whilst perfect happiness cannot be improved upon it can be somehow more extensive. Or, secondly, we must say that, in some sense, the beatific vision is communal in nature. Whilst God remains the object and source of perfect happiness on such an account, our vision of God is a shared vision.

S'UNIR À L'INTELLECT, VOIR DIEU. AVERROÈS ET LA DOCTRINE DE LA JONCTION AU CŒUR DU THOMISME

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-247
Author(s):  
Jean-Baptiste Brenet
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Body ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Conceptual Coherence ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
Vision Of God

AbstractThe article examines the relation that Aquinas' theory of the beatific vision maintains with Averroes' noetics as presented in his Great Commentary on the De anima. Starting with his Commentary on the Sentences, in which the young Thomas Aquinas offers an explicit transposition of the philosophical intellection of separate substances into the Christian theological order, through to his later works where no mention of it is found, we will endeavour to present the exact nature of these borrowings and to evaluate their accuracy by questioning the conceptual coherence of Aquinas' gesture: could Aquinas base his conception of a vision of God by essence on a noetic construction which was originally part of a system judged both erroneous and contrary to faith? Can one concede theologically, concerning the relation between divine essence and intellect, what one refuses philosophically, concerning the relation between the separate intellect and the body? Although Aquinas and his followers, in the incipient quarrel, assert it to be so, we will indicate how the original paradoxical borrowing maintains something conceptually problematic at the heart of Aquinas' thinking.

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas on the Beatific Vision: A Christological Deficit

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-147
Author(s):  
Hans Boersma
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
John Owen

This article argues Aquinas’s doctrine of the beatific vision suffers from a twofold christological deficit: (1) Aquinas rarely alludes to an eternally continuing link (whether as cause or as means) between Christ’s beatific vision and ours; and (2) for Aquinas the beatific vision is not theophanic, that is to say, for Aquinas, Christ is not the object of the beatific vision; instead, he maintains the divine essence constitutes the object.  Even if Aquinas were to have followed his “principle of the maximum” in the unfinished third part of the Summa and so had discussed Christ’s own beatific vision as the cause of the saints’ beatific vision, he would still have ended up with a christological deficit, inasmuch as Christ would still not be the means and the object of the saints’ beatific vision.  For a more christologically robust way forward, I draw on John Owen and several other Puritan theologians, who treat the beatific vision as the climactic theophany.

Thomas Aquinas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Brent
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Beatific Vision

Although Thomas Aquinas is perhaps known best for his natural theology and arguments for the existence of God, he thought that there were manifold ways of knowing God available to human beings. This chapter distinguishes and identifies within Aquinas’s thought seven such ways. One can know God (1) by a general and confused knowledge, (2) by a philosophical wisdom, (3) by divine revelation, (4) by faith, (5) by mystical wisdom, (6) by theological wisdom, and (7) by beatific vision. The chapter discusses the epistemic nature, properties, and limits of all seven. The main point is that Aquinas’s thought is rich enough to accommodate and account for all seven ways of knowing God. Such a comprehensive overview of Aquinas helps move past polemical contexts in which Aquinas is charged with reducing the knowledge of God to natural theology or failing to prioritize the Word of God.

On Knowing an Ineffable God Personally: A Study in the Joy of the Saints

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
David Worsley
Keyword(s):  
Infinite Number ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Beatific Vision

What might it mean for a person’s joy to be ‘complete’? Granting that such conditions obtain at the beatific vision, I suggest beatific enjoyment requires a specific kind of knowledge of God; namely, fundamental personal knowledge. However, attaining such personal knowledge necessitates the divine gifting of a special grace, that is, a power to know God’s infinite essence. Furthermore, this power, and so, this knowledge, can come in an infinite number of degrees. Granting this, one saint could come to a greater degree of fundamental personal knowledge of God than another, and therefore, one saint might experience a greater intensity of joy than another. Despite this difference in intensity, however, both saints may have their joy ‘complete’. 

scholarly journals The Vision of God: St. Thomas Aquinas on the Beatific Vision and Resurrected Bodies

Perichoresis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-26
Author(s):  
Robert Llizo
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Central Dogma ◽  
Substantial Form ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
Vision Of God

Abstract The beatific vision is central to St. Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of the soul’s enlightenment. In its vision of the essence of God, the soul/intellect achieves its telos, its highest goal. But the resurrection of the body is a central dogma of the Christian faith, so the main question of this essay concerns the manner in which the resurrected body of the blessed benefits from the soul’s apprehension of the beatific vision. For St. Thomas, the physical eyes do not see the beatific vision, since they can only see magnitude and proportion, and God is beyond both. The soul is the body’s substantial form, and a person is not fully a person without the union of soul and body. As the body’s substantial form, the soul/intellect has the beatific vision as its substantial form. The result of the enlightened intellect with the resurrected body will be that the physical eyes will be able to see more readily the glory of God in creation and in redeemed humanity, and more supremely in the incarnate Christ himself.

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas, the Beatific Vision and the Role of Christ: A Reply to Hans Boersma

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-167
Author(s):  
Simon Francis Gaine
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
The Relationship

This article continues a conversation with Hans Boersma on the role of Jesus Christ in the beatific vision enjoyed by the saints. In his book Seeing God, Boersma maintained that there is a Christological deficit in Thomas Aquinas’s account of the beatific vision. In response I suggested that Aquinas held that Christ’s beatific vision is forever the cause of that of the saints. In his reply to me, Boersma more or less accepted my conclusion, but claimed there was still a Christological deficit because Aquinas mentions the thesis only rarely. He then drew attention to a second, more important factor in the alleged deficit, namely, Aquinas’s identification of the divine essence rather than Christ as the vision’s object. The present article responds to both elements of the alleged deficit, arguing against Boersma on the basis of the Summa Theologiae’s structure that there is no such deficit in Aquinas. While Boersma, after finding against Aquinas, moves in conclusion “towards a theophanic view of the beatific vision,” in my own conclusion I sketch out an alternative, Thomist account of the relationship between the beatific vision and heavenly theophany.

Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rik Van Nieuwenhove
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Theology And Philosophy ◽  
Key Questions

Contemplation, according to Thomas Aquinas, is the central goal of our life; yet a scholarly study on this topic has not appeared for over seventy years. This book fills that obvious gap. From an interdisciplinary perspective this study considers the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the contemplative act; the nature of the active and contemplative lives in light of Aquinas’s Dominican calling; the role of faith, charity, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in contemplation; and contemplation and the beatific vision. Key questions addressed are: What is contemplation? What is truth? How can we know God? How do faith and reason relate to one another? How does Aquinas envisage the relations between theology and philosophy? What role does charity play in contemplation? Throughout this book the author argues that Aquinas espouses a profoundly intellective notion of contemplation in the strictly speculative sense, which culminates in a non-discursive moment of insight (intuitus simplex). In marked contrast to his contemporaries Aquinas therefore rejects a sapiential or affective brand of theology. He also employs a broader notion of contemplation, which can be enjoyed by all Christians, in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are of central importance. This book should appeal to all those who are interested in this key aspect of Aquinas’s thought. It provides a lucid account of central aspects of Aquinas’s metaphysics, epistemology, theology, and spirituality. It also offers new insights into the nature of the theological discipline as Aquinas sees it, and how theology relates to philosophy.

New Evidence of the Controversy About Whether the Humanity of Christ Can Contemplate His Divinity

2019 ◽  
pp. 250-264
Author(s):  
Максим Глебович Калинин
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Positive Answer ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Church Of The East ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Church

В статье опубликован фрагмент анонимного комментария на «Главы о ведении» раббана Афнимарана, восточносирийского мистика VII века. Этот фрагмент представляет большой интерес, поскольку содержит новые сведения о богословской полемике, развернувшейся в Церкви Востока в VIII в. Эта полемика, сопоставимая по масштабам и значимости с паламитскими спорами в Византии, касалась проблемы границ богопознания и прежде всего вопроса о том, способна ли человеческая природа Христа созерцать Его божественную природу. Сведений об этой полемике сохранилось относительно мало, что делает новое публикуемое свидетельство особенно ценным. После краткой характеристики «Глав о ведении» раббана Афнимарана в статье предлагается перевод комментария на главу 90 и анализ этого текста. Особое внимание уделяется термину yaddūʕtānā, «знающий», который раббан Афнимаран использует применительно к человеческой природе Христа. Комментарий на главу 90 - важное свидетельство того, что тезис о способности человеческой природы Христа созерцать Его Божество был характерным для восточносирийского мистического движения (или, по крайней мере, для одной из монашеских традиций внутри этого движения). The aim of the present paper is to introduce new data concerning the polemic that took place in the VIII century C.E. and was related to the mystical movement in the Church of the East. This data are provided by an anonymous commentary on «Chapters on the Knowledge» which belong to rabban Aphnīmāran, an 7th century mystical writer. Among the problems the aforementioned polemic was related to, was the question on whether the humanity of Christ can see His divinity. For the positive answer on this question, John of Dalyāthā, a prominent mystical writer of the 8th century, was condemned by Catholicos Timatheos. In the commentary on the 90th chapter of rabban Aphnīmāran, an anonymous interpreter claims that the vision of God is the knowledge of God. As rabban Aphnīmāran calls the human nature of Christ «knowing» (yaddūʕtānā), the humanity of Christ inevitably knows His divinity, the author of the commentary concludes. In the present article, the text of this commentary is published and analyzed. One may see that the thesis on Jesus’ ability to contemplate the divine nature was not a particular opinion of John of Dalyāthā. This opinion was representative of East Syriac mystical movement (or at least of one of monastic traditions within this movement).

The Contemporary Reception of Aquinas on the Natural Knowledge of God

2021 ◽  
pp. 595-611
Author(s):  
David VanDrunen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Attributes Of God

This chapter considers key themes from Thomas Aquinas’ view of the natural knowledge of God, or natural theology, from the opening of his Summa theologiae. It is written from the perspective of Reformed theology, which has traditionally supported natural theology of a certain kind, despite its recent reputation as an opponent of natural theology. According to Thomas, natural theology is insufficient for salvation and is inevitably laden with errors apart from the help of supernatural revelation. But human reason, operating properly, can demonstrate the existence and certain attributes of God from the natural order, and this natural knowledge constitutes preambles to the articles of the Christian faith. The chapter thus engages in a critically sympathetic analysis of these themes and suggests how a contemporary reception of Thomas might appropriate them effectively.

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