The Christological Character of the Beatific Vision: Hans Boersma’s Seeing God

Abstract

The Christological Character of the Beatific Vision: Hans Boersma’s Seeing God1 Michael Root WE LIVE TODAY in a universe vastly larger than that imagined by our ancient and medieval forebears in its spatial and temporal reach, but oddly shrunken in its metaphysical complexity. Not only have angels and incorruptible heavenly bodies disappeared from the functional ontology of Western society, but also more mundane realities have often ceased to play more than an ornamental role in secular thought: essences, transcendental truths, ends (whether natural or supernatural). For many, what you see is what you get, and all you will ever get. Such views inevitably creep into Christian attitudes. Our horizon narrows; our faith too often focuses on our present life. That the nature and purpose of our present life might be determined by an end, a goal or telos, beyond the limits of this life becomes a thought that crosses the mind now and then, but too often fails to take root. The faith becomes constrained within Charles Taylor’s “immanent frame.”2 Heaven, resurrection, eternal union with God and the saints are not denied, but they fade from significance. [End Page 127] Hans Boersma will have none of this in Seeing God. The loss of a sense of a telos inherent within things is a fundamental impoverishment of modern thought (20–22). The Christian life, in particular, is determined by the end set before us; our “identity lies in the future; we are what we become” (20). Boersma is not afraid to name that end; it is “seeing God,” the beatific vision. On the first page of the book, he asks why we should believe that “seeing God is the purpose of our life” (1), and he then lays out an argument affirming that belief. This affirmation must be applauded, even if some aspects of his conclusions are problematic.3 I The structure of the book is straightforward. An extended Introduction and opening chapter lay out why the beatific vision is important, tendencies in modern culture and theology that have undercut the significance of the beatific vision, and the background metaphysical commitments that Boersma believes are needed for a vigorous reassertion of the vision’s centrality. The bulk of the book is a consideration of, as the subtitle promises, “the beatific vision in Christian tradition,” beginning with Plotinus and running chronologically as far as recent Dutch Reformed theologians, with major attention given along the way to Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Gregory Palamas, Dante, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. The chapter on Edwards and the concluding chapter of the book lay out Boersma’s own proposal for understanding the vision. The historical survey is selective rather than comprehensive. The most significant chapters focus on figures and texts apparently chosen and interpreted with an eye toward Boersma’s larger argument about the nature of the vision. Some gaps in coverage are inevitable. The third of the book’s four parts is entitled “Beatific Vision in Protestant Theology,” but the figures [End Page 128] discussed are all Reformed; Lutherans and other non-Reformed Protestants make no appearance. More significantly, the Western Scholastic tradition of debate and teaching on the beatific vision, conflicted between 1235 and 1335 and then largely unified on doctrinal questions with variation on theological details, is represented only by Thomas Aquinas. The other medieval and Catholic figures considered (Bonaventure, Dante, Nicholas of Cusa, John of the Cross) are each treated only in relation to devotional or poetic texts. The theological consideration of such texts is certainly praiseworthy, but neglect of the explicit theological discussion of the topic is not. This tilt away from the Scholastic discussion distorts Boersma’s presentation. The views of individual authors are misrepresented4 and Aquinas’s significance for the Western tradition is both underestimated (his view on basic questions is not so much his alone, but the consensus of Catholic theology, embodied in doctrine)5 and overestimated (his [End Page 129] detailed views are not the only option available in line with the basic commitments he shares with other Scholastics). Boersma’s historical discussions lay bare what he thinks are significant problems in the way the vision is often discussed...