Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition by Hans Boersma

Abstract

Reviewed by: Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition by Hans Boersma Elizabeth A. Huddleston Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition by Hans Boersma (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2018), xx + 467 pp. Hans Boersma's project over the past decade or so has largely been to establish a theology of what he calls "sacramental ontology." Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition is an excellent addition to this ongoing project. In this book, Boersma advocates for a "sacramental understanding of the beatific vision" that "takes seriously the teleological character of history" (10). At the onset Boersma makes the point that our teleological "gaze," so to speak, needs to shift from the spatial or vertical metaphor to a more horizontal or temporal metaphor in which "we anticipate seeing God at the end of our lives and, particularly, at the end of history" (10). This metaphor, Boersma argues, more accurately demonstrates that "the telos or purpose of our lives is the vision of God (visio Dei) in Christ" (10). Thus, "we could interpret life as a pilgrimage to a sacred place and … treat history as an apprenticeship that aims at acquiring a skill" (10). In order to shift this metaphor, Boersma does not simply "rehearse in any detail the Catholic debate surrounding the supernatural" (11). Rather, he goes "beyond the broader metaphysical issue of the sacramental relationship between nature and the supernatural to the question of what it means to conceive of the beatific vision sacramentally" (11). The primary question Boersma asks is: "If the beatific vision is our ultimate telos, then how does [End Page 987] God's economy," or as he deems it in the last chapter, "God's pedagogy," work in line with our ultimate end? (11–12). Boersma concludes that "just as the pilgrims would sing the Songs of Ascent (Pss. 120–134) on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, so we contemplate Christ in anticipation of the face-to-face vision of God in Christ. A truly sacramental understanding of the beatific vision, therefore, points us to the recognition of the real presence of Christ already in this life, in anticipation of the beatific vision of God in the hereafter" (13–14, emphasis original). This book is divided into four parts, which are primarily organized chronologically. Part 4 breaks from the strict chronological presentation in order to propose a "dogmatic appraisal" of our conception of the beatific vision in light of the previous three chapters. While this book is not intended to be a historical analysis of a particular idea per se, Boersma does a good job of grounding his argument historically, as well as tracing the idea of the beatific vision within the greater Christian tradition. The introduction and first chapter introduce the contemporary context for Boersma's appraisal of the doctrine of the beatific vision. He begins his book with the questions, "Why beatific vision?" and "Why make the claim that seeing God is the purpose of our life?" (1). Calling specifically upon the metaphor found in Christian tradition of the beatific vision as the telos of human life, Boersma explains that the metaphor of "seeing God" is found in Scripture, which influences a "system of analogies" (spirals) that point to Christ as the archetypical "sacramental reality (res) in which the various historical events (the types) inhere or participate as sacraments (sacramenta)" (9). Paraphrasing Edward Pusey, Boersma explains that "Christ—who is in his person the embodiment of the eternal Word or Son of God—is the sacramental reality (res) in which sacramental types (sacramenta) find their truth or identity" (9). Part 1, "Beatific Vision in Early Christian Thought," begins with chapter 2 and focuses on the Platonic and neo-Platonic roots of early Christian theologies of the beatific vision. Chapter 2, "Philosophy and Vision," looks at how Plato and Plotinus help to set the philosophical stage for early Christian theological exploration into the nature of seeing divine beauty and virtue. Chapter 3, "Progress and Vision," is dedicated to Gregory of Nyssa's notion of spiritual progress in his Homilies on the Beatitudes, The Life of Moses, and Homilies on the Song of Songs. Chapter 4, "Anticipation and Vision...