Is Aquinas's view of the beatific vision Christological Deficit? Is it an unmediated vision of the Divine essence to the exclusion of Christ?

Simon Francis Gaine1 put forth a defense of Aquinas's view on the Beatific Vision and Christ's mediation against the charge that there is a Christological deficit in Aquinas's eschatology.2

Abstract: This article argues that Thomas Aquinas is to be interpreted as holding that the beatific vision of the saints is causally dependent on the glorified humanity of Christ. It opposes the view that, for Aquinas, Christ's humanity has causal significance only for those who are being brought to the beatific vision by grace, and not for those who have attained this vision, such that there is a Christological deficit in Aquinas's eschatology. The argument proceeds somewhat in the manner of an article of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. Having briefly outlined the recent debate, especially the contribution of Hans Boersma, two objections are put against my position. A sed contra is formulated on the basis of quotations from the Summa. The responsio is based on Aquinas's extensive use of a philosophical 'principle of the maximum' and its particular application by Aquinas to grace. After replies to the objections, based on the method and structure of the Summa, I locate Aquinas's position in the debate on Christ's heavenly mediation between that of John Calvin and that of John Owen and Jonathan Edwards.

The thesis that "the beatific vision of the saints is mediated to them through the humanity of Christ, and that their heavenly glory thus depends eternally on the beatific vision enjoyed by Christ in his human mind"3 corrects the common understanding that Aquinas's beatific vision is the unmediated divine essence. It is argued that for Aquinas, Christ's humanity has a causal role in bringing saints to the beatific vision through faith, but it no longer has any such role once our souls have arrived in heaven.

In this paper, he argues against the alleged twofold Christological Deficit in Aquinas's View, which is (1) the rarity of Aquinas's statement on Christ's continuing role in heavenly mediation and (2) Aquinas's object of the beatific vision: the Divine essence. He also argues, along with the appeal to the "principle of the maximum," that Aquinas's overall thought, both philosophical and theological, commits him to the causal dependence of the saints' glory on Christ's. Interesting quotes from Aquinas' works that will put the charges to rest are provided by Gaine.

The Saints who will be in heaven will not need any further expiation by the priesthood of Christ, but having expiated, they will need consummation through Christ Himself, on Whom their glory depends, as is written (Apoc. 21:23): "The glory of God hath enlightened it"---that is, the city of the Saints---"and the Lamb is the lamp thereof." (ST, III, q. 22, a. 5, ad 1)4

What is in potentiality is reduced to act by what is in act; for that whereby things are heated must itself be hot. Now man is in potentiality to the knowledge of the blessed, which consists in the vision of God; and is ordained to it as to an end; since the rational creature is capable of that blessed knowledge, inasmuch as he is made in the image of God. Now men are brought to this end of beatitude by the humanity of Christ, according to Heb. 2:10: "For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, Who had brought many children unto glory, to perfect the author of their salvation by His passion." And hence it was necessary that the beatific knowledge, which consists in the vision of God, should belong to Christ pre-eminently, since the cause ought always to be more efficacious than the effect. (ST, III, q. 9, a. 2)5

Gaine agrees that Aquinas "did not actually speak of this heavenly mediation" very often, but it is a Christ-led vision nonetheless since "Human beings are led to beatitude through the humanity of Christ."

Here's another quote, not from Gaine but from Boersma,

We, I say, filled with a visible apparition, i.e., by a sensible and corporeal one, of Godself as far as the humanity of Christ, and this in the most chaste contemplations since we will not be affected by the body of Christ carnally, but spiritually and divinely, according to the Apostle in II Cor. 5 "and if we knew Christ according to the flesh, but now we know him thus no longer": by Christ himself, I say, pouring out around us through his own body brightness by most manifest splendors just as he had done around the disciples in that most divine transformation, i.e., transfiguration, when, as it is recorded in Matt. 17 "his face shone as the sun", and not only will we be filled with his sensible apparition, but also we will be intelligible participants by the gift of the light of Christ himself which he will pour out in us according to the virtue of his own divinity. (Div. Nom., cap. 1, lect. 2)6

Boersma took note of this and became convinced, and revised his judgment that Aquinas does seem to allude to or mention Christ's heavenly mediation of the saints' beatific vision.7 Gaine maintains that this rarity does not indicate a deficit but is instead due to Aquinas's theological method and the structure of the Summa Theologiae. Aquinas did not pit the heavenly vision of the Divine essence against the person of the incarnate Christ—as if in eternity we move beyond Jesus. Rather, it is precisely through the incarnate Son that we are brought to see and enjoy the essence of God. Boersma's view of Aquinas cannot be substantiated when viewed through the lens of Aquinas's wider philosophical commitments and systematic methodology.

I think what Gaine accomplished in the paper is that it is wrong to believe that Aquinas's focus on the divine essence excludes Christ as the object of the vision. Gaine counters that Aquinas's "unrelenting focus" on the divine essence includes Christ as an object of beatific knowledge. He argues that seeing the divine essence perfectly entails knowing everything contained within that essence, including Christ, and that focusing on the divine essence does not exclude Christ but includes him as an object of beatific knowledge.

A key part of Gaine's argument is Aquinas's consistent application of the "principle of the maximum," which dictates that the "first in the genus" causally influences all others in that genus. Gaine asserts that Aquinas's identification of Christ as the "Head especially of those in glory" (ST III, q. 8, a. 3) implies Christ's pre-eminent beatific vision would eternally cause and mediate the saints' vision. Therefore, such a view is "definitely entailed by his overall theological and philosophical approach," even if not frequently stated explicitly. Gaine cites ST III, q. 9, a. 2 and ST III, q. 22, a. 5 as passages that allude to this ongoing causal dependence.

This reading of Aquinas's view of the beatific vision is confirmed by Samuel Parkison, noting that Aquinas deals with the beatific vision at length in two particular sections of his Summa Theologia: part 1, question 12, and part 3, question 92. After affirming that Aquinas "agrees with Augustine that God will be seen immediately," he writes,

The idea is that our glorified bodily eyes will not see a thing called "the Divine essence"; they will behold the divine essence in everything they behold, preeminently in the glorified body of Christ. Since in God's light we will see light (cf. Ps 36:9), the divine essence will be so immediately and immensely present that the beatific vision will be everywhere in glory—"most of all in the body of Christ."8

He then highlights the Christological function of Aquinas's beatific vision through the fact that the glorified saints will intellectually behold the Divine essence "preeminently in the glorified body of Christ" and concludes,

Not only is the body of Christ included in what we see in the beatific vision as the object of our delight, he is also the cause of our beatific vision. Christ experiences the beatific vision foremost as the God-man, and in him, we see what he sees: in Christ, we see God.9

For Aquinas, no finite, created entity (including Christ's humanity) can be an adequate epistemological means for knowing the infinite divine essence as such, which is the ultimate fulfillment of humanity's desire to know God. Gaine writes,

While Boersma supposes, as noted above, that Aquinas's theory of Christ's causality "yields" a non-theophanic account of the beatific vision, what in fact yields it is Aquinas's conviction that no finite, created entity, including the humanity of Christ and every other theophany, can ever be an adequate epistemological means for knowing the infinite divine essence as such (cf. ST, I, q. 12, a. 2). Since human beings have a natural desire to know God, and this can only be fulfilled by knowledge of God's essence, they can only be truly fulfilled through a means of knowledge that is adequate to that infinite essence and so non-theophanic. The only means of knowledge adequate for knowing God's essence is that essence itself, which God gifts to the blessed in a self-communication that in fact comes by way of the heavenly Christ's causality and transcends any theophany.10

Indeed, we can rightly conclude that Aquinas's view is a non-Christological deficit articulation of the beatific vision. Again, Samuel Parkison agrees with Gaine's reading when he discusses the centrality of the beatific vision in the historic witness of the church and refutes Boersma's claim of a "Christological deficit" in Aquinas's work. He indicates that his own disagreement with Boersma, McDonald, and Strobel on how to interpret Aquinas does not mean he minimizes the contributions of Owen and Edwards; rather, he disagrees with the "demerits they attribute to Aquinas." While Aquinas and later Reformed theologians like Owen might organize and emphasize aspects of the beatific vision differently, their core positions are fundamentally reconcilable and do not represent a contradiction.11 We can happily affirm with John Owen that,

This beholding of the glory of Christ given him by his Father, is, indeed, subordinate unto the ultimate vision of the essence of God. What that is we cannot well conceive; only we know that the "pure in heart shall see God." But it has such an immediate connection with it, and subordination unto it, as that without it we can never behold the face of God as the objective blessedness of our souls. For he is, and shall be to eternity, the only means of communication between God and the church.12

Other papers on this topic:

Soli Deo Trino Gloria!

Footnotes

  1. Simon is currently assigned to the Angelicum, Rome, where he teaches in the Theology Faculty of the Pontifical University of St Thomas. He lectures on the Theology of Grace and Christian Anthropology, and oversees the Faculty's Doctoral Seminar. ↩

  2. Gaine, S. F. (2018). The Beatific Vision and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ. TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology, 2(2), 116–128. https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v2i2.7623 ↩

  3. Ibid. 116 ↩

  4. Ibid. 120. ↩

  5. Ibid. 119–20. This is also quoted by Samuel Parkison in Parkison, Samuel. "A Cloud of Witnesses: Part One." To Gaze upon God. InterVarsity Press, 3 Sept. 2024. ↩

  6. As quoted by Boersma in Boersma, H. (2018). Thomas Aquinas on the Beatific Vision: A Christological Deficit. TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology, 2(2), 129–147. https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v2i2.14733. 134–5. ↩

  7. Boersma (2018). 135. Yet, Boersma still thinks that it is fair to suggest that Aquinas's theology suffers from a christological deficit. See also: Boersma, Hans. Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition. Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018. 159–62. ↩

  8. Parkison, Samuel. "A Cloud of Witnesses: Part One." To Gaze upon God. InterVarsity Press, 3 Sept. 2024. ↩

  9. Parkison (2024). "A Cloud of Witnesses: Part One." ↩

  10. Simon Gaine, Thomas Aquinas, the Beatific Vision and the role of Christ: A Reply to Hans Boersma. ↩

  11. Parkison (2024). "Retrieval for the Evangelicals." ↩

  12. Owen, John. Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, 385. ↩