Beatific Vision Research Articles

Aquinas after Marion

What reflections might occur to a veteran student of the works of St Thomas Aquinas after reading Jean-Luc Marion’s remarkable book God without Being? Of course, it is not primarily about the thought of Aquinas. But we are persistently encouraged to reject an approach to the question of God which thinks in terms of a concept of ‘Being’, in favour of an acceptance of the reality of God in an economy of ‘Gift’. Thus, one is certainly sent back to the text of Aquinas with provocative questions. For myself, I have to say that I was prompted first of all to return to the magnificent account in the Summa Theologiae of the epistemology of the beatific vision (Section I)—not that Marion himself discusses it (he doesn’t), but his whole approach is a reminder of the radical ‘theocentricity’ of Aquinas’s thought. Next, it proved interesting to compare Marion’s approach with philosophy of religion in the English-speaking context (Section II). Much else might be mentioned, no doubt, but, given that context, the intelligibility of speaking of God either with or without reference to ‘Being’ could not but become questionable (Section III).IQuestion 12 of the Prima Pars must be one of the finest in the Summa Theologiae. Composed in 1266-67, when St Thomas was teaching at Santa Sabina in Rome, it has no precedent or exact parallel in the rest of his work, although of course he treated the same material in several different places.

The Natural Desire for the Beatific Vision

The Natural Desire for the Beatific Vision

Cleanness on the Question of Images

"Cleanness on the Question of Images." The Middle English poem Cleanness is manifestly about how the physical sense of sight leads to the beatific vision. The poem's sentiments on this broad topic appear to be informed by the ancient question of whether religious images have a legitimate devotional purpose. Shortly after Cleanness's composition, this question was revived by Lollard iconoclasts who attacked the orthodox cult of images. The documents recording both the Lollard challenge and the defense of images by ecclesiastical writers offer an intriguing context for interpreting Cleanness, since the iconodules make their case by interpreting the very same biblical narratives that provide the poem its primary sources. A comparison between Cleanness's biblical exempla and their analogues in iconodule tracts, however, reveals that the poem, while orthodox in its opinions, does not recommend the devotional use of images as heartily as iconodules do. Cleanness's acceptance of images is tempered by a suspicion that images may often become idols-a suspicion it shares with the Lollards, whose polemic against images it sometimes anticipates.

A New Interpretation of Fra Angelico

In part I, I examined William Hood’s recent attempt to understand Fra Angelico as a propagandist for the Observant reform in the Dominican Order. In his magisterial treatment of Fra Angelico at San Marco (Yale University Press, 1993) Professor Hood interprets each of the works against the background of its predecessors elsewhere in Dominican or other art, or elsewhere in Angelico’s own corpus. His particular concern is with the institutional tradition out of which Angelico spoke: the spaces, spirituality and devotional practices of the friars, which conditioned the subject matter and significance of the works. He persuasively argues that Angelico’s art is to be understood as an expression of a particular view of Dominican community and tradition. I proposed that Angelico’s art would be better understood if there had also been some examination of the doctrinal tradition out of which the painter preached: in particular its Scriptural and Thomistic Catholicism. Essential are some understanding of Angelico’s aesthetic (its Thomist view of beauty, light, reality, analogy, the senses ...), his understanding of the function of religious art (as worship, visualizing spiritual exercise, source of instruction, tool of preaching), and his theology of the Incarnation and the Passion as the way to the beatific vision for the various audiences to whom he preached. Admittedly very little has been written to date on Angelico’s theology. Hood’s book is a great jumping off point for such an endeavour.On the Feast of the Epiphany 1443 the high altar of San Marco was consecrated in the presence of the pope and all the cardinals, patriarchs and bishops present at the Council of Florence.

Concerning the Case of the Heretical Pope: John XXII and the Question of Poverty: Ms. XXI of the Capestrano Convent

information concerning the Defensorium contra errores lohannis Papae , also known as the letter Veritatem sapientis. The heretical pope had been accused of ten errors concerning the question of the poverty of Christ and the apostles, errors that were later refuted on the basis of Sacred Scripture and patristic and legal authorities. In his article, Schmitt noted the urgency of a modern critical edition of the Defensorium ,2 a text of fundamental importance, which still in the 15th century fueled the ideas of the Fraticelli , together with the unon moins efficace ' Decalogus evangelicae paupertatis'n 3 Schmitt listed the known manuscripts, incorporating data cited by Marc Dykmans in his edition of the sermons of John XXII on the beatific vision.4 Four codices are listed: Brussels, 11437-40

L’iconographie du Purgatoire dans les manuscrits liturgiques du XIIIe au XVe siècle

The iconography of purgatory in liturgical manuscripts between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Purgatory was invented by Parisian theologians. The researches of J. Le Goff allow us to date this invention from the turn of the twelfth century. It is interesting to follow the emergence of the imagery of purgatory through about twenty examples of liturgical manuscripts, dating from the end of the thirteenth century up to the early fifteenth century (the list of the illuminated manuscripts comprising the study corpus is appended to this article). The invention of purgatory during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries suggests the increasing importance of the individual dimension of salvation, and opens up a third possible alternative in the after-life. It is an invention which sets forth a place and a space which refute an earlier liturgical dualism, which had only allowed for judgment, followed by heaven or hell. The appearance of the image of the purifying fire in these liturgical manuscripts was encouraged by the development, since the fifth century, of the cult of the dead in the canon of the Mass. However, most of the images identified in the early iconography of purgatory are associated with texts that make no reference to a purifying fire after death. The image functions in an active manner, in order to guide the reading of the text. It pedagogical role is clear when the fire of purgatory is associated with the vision of God (known as the « beatific vision »). The image-makers of the Middle Ages had to invent the space and the place of purgatory, these details being left uncertain by the theologians. In these representations, the author of the present article has identified four main strands. He also underlines the image of the souls themselves : their attitude of prayer, for examples, suggests an identification between the living (the owner of the manuscript) and the dead. The belief in the beatific vision and in the opening of purgatory towards heaven both reinforce the belief in an individual salvation.

Johannes XXII en het conflict over de visio beatifica

The article discusses the theological context of the discussion started by John XXII in 1331 about the question whether the souls of the saints in heaven are directly admitted to the beatific vision of God or not. It must be noted that John’s opinion in this matter was less extreme than many scholars sofar presumed. It was John’s sincere intention to make a papal decision on this matter, and there is strong evidence that only death (1334) prevented him from doing so. The conflict about the beatific vision clearly shows John’s urge to interfere in theological matters. He failed, however, to establish unity between the various theological opinions, and his legalistic approach may have provoked many theologians to fierce reactions against the papal opinion.

THE OMEGA POINT AS ESCHATON: ANSWERS TO PANNENBERG'S QUESTIONS FOR SCIENTISTS

Abstract. I present an outline of the Omega Point theory, which is a model for an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, evolving, personal God who is both transcendent to spacetime and immanent in it, and who exists necessarily. The model is a falsifiable physical theory, deriving its key concepts not from any religious tradition but from modern physical cosmology and computer science; from scientific materialism rather than revelation. Four testable predictions of the model are given. The theory assumes that thinking is a purely physical process of the brain, and that personality dies with the brain. Nevertheless, I show that the Omega Point theory suggests a future universal resurrection of the dead very similar to the one predicted in the Judeo‐Christian‐Islamic tradition. The notions of “grace” and the “beatific vision” appear naturally in the model.

Computers and the Constitution: A Helpful, Harmful or Harmless Relationship?

Early in 1986, while discussing the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law, Congressman Michael Synar, primary sponsor of the suit, said he was compelled to challenge the law because he believed Congress may not delegate its constitutional responsibility to a computer. With the enactment of general revenue sharing in 1972, and with each successive renewal of aid over the following decade, critics decried the politics by printout arising from district-by-district computer printouts showing aid distribution based on complex formulas. And with the enactment of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, scholars argue that Congress has, in effect, reversed the 1974 Privacy Act by requiring all states to participate in file merging, matching, and linking programs to verify the eligibility of beneficiaries of social welfare programs.' Despite such concerns, the tendency towards computerization continues unabated with federal agency budgets for information technology reaching $15.2 billion in fiscal year 1986, and forecast to reach $23.8 billion by 1988.121 Computers have taken on a highly visible role as tools of government and as symbols in the ongoing debate about how government ought to function. Far to one side in this debate, computers form part of a demonic vision; an Orwellian nightmare in which autocrats eliminate democratic government and individual freedom through computerized surveillance. This view has been prominent over the years, beginning in 1964 with Vance Packard's popular book, The Naked Society, and it remains a strong theme in both popular literature and scholarly works such as Kenneth Laudon's recent book, Dossier Society. 3 Far at the other side of the debate, computers form part of a beatific vision of efficient, effective, and truly democratic government. While seldom articulated in a single place, this vision is incumbent in works that laud the computer's role in eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse; streamlining the functions of government; and permitting electronic voting and plebiscites.4 These end points embrace a spectrum of widely divergent views about the role of computers in democratic government and raise the basic question of whether computers and computerization are altering or will alter the functioning of American constitutional government. A less common

Practical Reasoning, Human Goods and the End of Man

Our practical reasoning goes well and attains its truth when we identify ways of adequately getting or realising really desirable objectives. And our objectives are really desirable (good) when they either are really desirable in themselves, or are steps on the way to getting or realising some such intrinsically desirable objective or objectives. If there is but one such intrinsically desirable objective, our practical reasoning cannot go well unless we know what it is. If, as seems much more plausible, there are a number of intrinsically desirable objectives, our practical reasoning cannot go well unless we know whether there is some further objective to be attained or realised by or in the pursuit of some or all of these intrinsically desirable objectives, i.e. whether there is some further point to pursuing them; and if so, what that further point or objective (‘last end’) actually is.Some say that the true last end is some one of the intrinsically desirable human goods, say, the highest instantiation of the highest good attainable in this life, thus contemplation of God to the extent that God is knowable through His creatures. Others agree that it is some one human good, but place it beyond this life, and beyond merely human capacities, in the beatific vision and contemplation of God.

Albrecht Dürer'sAdoration of the Trinity: A Reinterpretation

(1985). Albrecht Durer's Adoration of the Trinity: A Reinterpretation. The Art Bulletin: Vol. 67, No. 1, pp. 146-153.

Death Is Not the Enemy

KARL Barth, a 20th-century Protestant theologian, wrote, "Life is no second God, and therefore the respect due it cannot rival the reverence owed to God." On the other hand, for secularized persons in a secular society, there is no "first God" and thus nothing due more respect or reverence than life itself. Life and its preservation become more than the necessary conditions for the realization of a measure of self-fulfillment and for capacities to contribute to other persons and to society. They become virtually ends in themselves. The pursuit of health and the preservation of physical life seem to have replaced "salvation," the glorification of God, or the beatific vision as the chief end of man. To the secular person, what theologians call "the conditions of finitude," those inexorable restraints and limitations on human life of which the final one is death, seem repressive since there is nothing real or

Animals in Heaven?

“Fido is wagging his tail in heaven to-night”. According to Evelyn Waugh, this was the greeting sent out from Forest Lawn to the owners on the anniversaries of their pets buried in the cemetrey. No one, of course, asked if the owners would also deserve a place in heaven if they had killed their dogs by overfeeding or whether the latter would have the joy of interrupting the heavenly choirs by their barking. But the false assumption behind this attitude was perhaps less the hope of reunion with animal friends than the idea of a heaven where we shall all congregate cosily with our pets and former neighbours. If some of us do not relish the prospect of an eternal menagerie, can we nevertheless in all charity welcome the company of human beings who never hurt us but often threaten to bore us to death?Even from traditional theology we get the impression that we shall not be troubled with bores, but equally that our joy in the beatific vision will be solitary and even then frustrated by the delay in the restoration of the body or by a reunion with the soul to which it will be no more than a glorified appendage. We look for the restoration of the whole personality, redeemed in Christ and therefore in Christ’s company and in the company of those we have loved on earth. The lonely person in particular asks if the affection of his or her pet, expressed in an outstretched paw, in a purring response, is not somehow transfigured also and not forever extinguished.

Perfect Happiness and the Resurrection of the Body

Although not a great deal has been said about heaven in the Christian tradition, it is part of the traditional notion of heaven that the blessed are in a condition of perfect happiness. In this life we can be happy to a certain degree, but mixed with earthly happiness is disappointment, frustration, and even sorrow. In heaven, by contrast, there is no sadness, nothing is lacking, happiness is complete. The usual way of explaining this perfect happiness is in terms of the ‘beatific vision’ – the face to face relationship of knowing and loving God which the blessed enjoy. On earth we experience only finite objects; nothing that we come to know ever completely satisfies our desire to know, and nothing that we love ever completely satisfies our will. But in the beatific vision we shall be in a direct relationship with the infinite God, who in his boundless perfection will completely ‘fill up’ our capacities to know and love. As the completely adequate object of these capacities, God will make us perfectly happy. As Aquinas puts it, ‘…But if God alone were seen, who is the fount and source of all being and of all truth, he would so fill the natural desire for knowledge that nothing else would be desired, and the seer would be completely happy.’

Existence and Existents by Emmanuel Levinas

466 BOOK REVIEWS speech. The first occupant of the In-Between is Eros, a demi-god; but soon the boundaries of the In-Between are extended to include philosophers , then human beings generally, who desire the vicarious immortality of offspring, and finally all procreative animal life. Rather than something rarified and special, the daimonic state comes to designate ordinary activity and the entire panoply of living things. (I do acknowledge, however, that comprehensiveness, from a different perspective, may reflect favorably upon the daimonic and not constitute a depreciation) . As the speech of Socrates progTesses, the daimonic In-Between regains some of its original markings of spiritual excellence; and Eros is singled out as man's guide in the ascent to the Beatific Vision. But it is also stated that the initiation into love-matters is incomplete-other things need to be said which are not being said. And Socrates admits in conclusion that Eros is the best guide that human nature can easily (radios) find. The same point is made in the Phaedrus, where love of beauty is credited with being- the easiest form of recollection and where true rhetoric, itself an expression of love, is thought impossible without the governing assistance of non-erotic, dialectical knowledge. With this example from Plato in mind, I state my reservation concerning Voegelin as follows: Plato seems to regard the erotic experience as one means of ascent, likely the most common means, but not as simply identifiable with philosophy; Voegelin seems to count them as one and the same-which perhaps explains why in reading Voegelin it is difficult to keep fixed the boundary between religious belief and philosophical inquiry. Kenyon College Gambier, Ohio p ATRICK COBY Existence and Existents. By EMMANUEL J.,F,VINAS. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978. Pp. 101. Existence and Existents, begun before the war and published in 1947 in France, is a difficult book to evaluate in 1978. Evaluating and understanding it are all the more difficult for English-speaking readers who are hearing of the book for the first time and who may not realize precisely how it fits into the development of Levinas's thought and that of contemporary European philosophy. It is very important to note-and one could have hoped to see this noted in the translator's introductionthat Existence and Existents in no way occupies a decisive nor a definitive position in the larger development of European thought, and that it made BOOK REVIEWS 467 no pretention to occupy such a position. Indeed, in the original preface Levinas had called it a preparatory work, and admitted that due to historical circumstances his study did not and could not take into account the work of Sartre. But not only is this book not a major or influential text in post-war French philosophy, it cannot even be seen as a definitive book in the context of Levinas's own thought, for every analysis presented in it has been integrally rethought by the author in his subsequent publications . For those who regard the history of philosophy atomistically, and for whom a book is a book and a text is a text regardless of the place it occupies in relation to an author's entire work, Existence and Existents can possibly appear to be a work of exceptional perceptiveness and descriptive skill, but for others of us who are concerned with the comprehension and comprehensibility of Levinas's phuosophy, a presentation of this book must not omit some comments about its relation to Totality and Infinity and Autrement qu'etre ou au-dela de ['essence. To present Existence and Existents as Levinas's mature thoug·ht is to impoverish Levinas's thought; this book is not on an equal footing with the works that succeed it. We should realize the value of the book and the significance of its being translated in relation to Levinas's philosophy taken as a whole, and thus in terms of the development of this philosophy. In the space that we can permit ourselves at present we will try to throw some light on the relationship between certain themes in Existence and Existents and Levinas's more...

«Inter fidem et speciem»: dos consideraciones sobre el estatuto científico de la teología

The author wishes to examine the nature and the method of Theology and he poses two questions: 1. Should Theology today be contemplative? 2. What benefits can the human sciences render to Theology? It appears, in fact, that the answer to these two questions can be found in the Encyclical of Leo XIII. Concerning the first question, you have to take into account that St. Anselm has already placed theological investigation inter fidem et speciem. More precisely, the rational investigation of Theology in not only placed inter fidem et speciem, but also that it is the same movement towards beatific vision. This is something proper to the selfsame nature of Theology, which is a science of revelation, that is a contemplative look the revealed mysteries. Hence appears also the insubstitutible mission of the Magisterium, which deals with the communication of revealed facts to the beheving community. In fact, however, there are some theological groups which deny this property to Theology. They are undercurrents of the anthropological school which make man a pseudo-absolute (the rationalism of Spinoza, modernist inmanentism, bultmanian existentialism) and they want to condition the whole of this theological task on a basis in the interest of man. It is certain, on the other hand, that the interest of man is indispensable for Theology, but the mystery of man can only be clarified in the light of Revelation and not the other way round. If you do not do it in this way, you fall into a curious anthropomorphism. Other currents, which are no more than variants of the previous ones, plead in favour of action. Efficacy is the first and the principal interest of Theology and centres on a concrete political and social task. Their mistake consists of forgetting that the praxis requires a previous theory and that all the efficacy of action comes from previous contemplation. If it is right that we should remove the social and political injustices, it is also certain only in God's plan of salvation where these requirements find their exact place and justification. Referring to the second question, the author is pointing out that the attitude of the theologian faced with positive scientific disciplines (psychology, sociology, etnology, science of religions, etc.) ought to be positive at the same time, that is to say he ought to take into account that human sciences help us to get to know man better, and are a stimulus for the search for a deeper, comprehensive and critical truth, because the human sciences can have some partial or equivocal philosophical presuppositions. The solution consists of an open and dialoguing attitude, so that the theologian can benefit from the contributions of the human sciences, and thus these very sciences can also necessarily and continuously ask for a philosophical and contemplative reflection properly.

Mysticism and Drugs

In recent years the issue of whether mysticism can be induced by drugs has been pursued by both scholars of mystical literature and psychological researchers. R. C. Zaehner is perhaps the best known among the scholars of religious literature who have addressed the issues of drug-induced mysticism. While on the side of empirical psychology investigators such as Walter N. Pahnke, R. E. L. Masters, and Jean Houston have pursued some of the same issues using the techniques of laboratory experimentation. Zaehner, who was familiar with both Eastern and Western mysticism, argued that drug-induced experiences are not the same as religious mystical experiences of the theistic variety. It was farcical, he argued, for Aldous Huxley to posit a connection between his preternatural feeling of oneness with his chair and the Beatific Vision. The issue between Zaehner and Huxley was not over the veridicality of Huxley's mystical experience. It was over the significance of Huxley's experience: Was it or was it not a drug-induced mystical experience of the sort attained by mystics after heroic struggles of self-discipline? This was the issue again when Zaehner came to address himself to the claims of Timothy Leary, a chief proponent of ‘the LSD experience’, and, in general terms, this has been the central issue pursued by the psychological researchers.

Actualitas Omnium Actuum: Man’s Beatific Vision of God as Apprehended by Thomas Aquinas by William J. Hoye

BOOK REVIEWS Actualitas Omnium Actuum: Man's Beatific Vision of ·God as Apprehended :by Tlwmus Aquinas. By WILLIAM J. HoYE. Meisenheim am Giilin: Verlag Anion Hain, 1975. Pp. 363. 79 DM. If God is .subsistent esse and creatures are modes of participation in esse, wha:t can we thence conclude concerning man's beatific vision of God? William J. Hoye has posed this problem and worked out an answer. Actualitas Omnium Aofoum represents his effort to apply " existential " Thomism, especially as developed by Gilson, Fabro, and the late William E. Carlo, to eschatology, an enterprise, surely, of interest and importance even in the eyes of those who might question his " existential " exegesis of St. Thomas Aquinas. The big question for the reviewer, then, is how well Hoye has carnied out his chosen task. In the opinion of the present reviewer his work in certain respects deserves praise but at the same time suffers from grave shortcomings. Adopting the more gracious sequence, I shall speak first of the virtues, then of the deficiencies. First of all, Hoye has massively researched almost all facets of his problem , and his book shows admirable zeal in the pursuit of pertinent materials. A quick run-through of his bibliography (from Adamczyk to Zychlinski), a casual riffiing to see how high on the average page lies the division between text and footnotes, will verify this judgment. One notices immediately , also, that this is a decidedly multilingual book: English, Latin (mostly St. Thomas's), French (especially Gilson's and Fabro's-the latter's Italian writings are almost totally ignored) , and German· greet the eye not only in the footnotes but also in the text, which is studded with quotations, sometimes quite lengthy, so that one might well expect even the reader who is competent in all these tongues to weary of the constant switching. The author has read .far and wide in later and particularly in present day literature (though I should perhaps mention that Hoye's research for this 19.75 book stopped, as he tells us on page 307, in early 1970 and that no works published in the seventies are listed in his bibliography); yet he has kept close at all times to the works of Thomas himself, whose doctrine he is trying throughout to expound. His special table of citations to texts of Thomas shows how complete his coverage has been. Furthermore, the general path followed in the book is one that touches all the bases and touches them in the right order, or at least in a good order. There are two main parts, of roughly equal length: one," Uncreated Beatitude," concerned with God as ipsum esse and with the relation of creatures to ipsum esse; the other, "Created Beatitude," treating of man 484 BOOK REVIEWS 485 as subject of beatification. In the first part are chapters on God as unknowable , on God as ipsum esse, on esse commune, on participation (the Fabro influence is here much to the fore), and on God as object of the beatific vision. The second part offers chapters on man as subject of the beatific vision (introductory to the succeeding chapters), on the fulfillment of all desires, ·on the actualization of all potencies in the resurrection , ·on sex in Heaven (an eyebrow-raiser), on the "anthropological factor "'--man's unchangeable nature as perduring in the beatific vision (with a good deal of recourse to Rahner) , on the act of vision (especially the lumen gloriae), and, finally, on life in the world as predetermining life in God. On the whole, the first part seems superior to the second, which is more affected by certain failures-soon to be discussed~to maintain crucial distinctions. Hoye's chapter on the uriknowableness of God is quite good, a weaving together of a rich assortment of texts, a fine startingpoint for reflection. Hoye, at least in this segment of his book, accepts, as not all purported. Thomists really do, the position of Thomas, that we simply do not know the essence of God, that our striving in this life to know God culminates in "learned ignorance." Hoye, in the later chapters, is excessively anxious to establish a kind of extensional...

“Figurando il paradiso”: The Signs That Render Dante's Heaven

AbstractThe structure of Dante's Paradiso is a mediating sign of “the love that moves the sun and the other stars.” Each time Dante the pilgrim moves to a higher sphere, his visionary power grows, passing through successive formulations of God's love. The growing beauty of Beatrice's smile measures his advance, and at several points (Par. x, xxiii, and xxviii) her words or her reflecting eyes explicate the semantic function of what Dante sees, thus projecting him one step closer to the Beatific Vision, to which all the signs refer. Finally, the pilgrim transcends Beatrice, just when her beauty transcends the poet's power to render it. In the last canti the pilgrim confronts a reality transforming itself in direct response to his visionary power, while the poet and we find vestiges of that reality in the transformations of his language through metaphor. This final dialectic of vision and language suggests themes of modernist poetry.

Metaphysical Finalism or Christian Eschatology?

METAPHYSICAL FINALISM OR CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY? 'lJHE TITLE of this essay expresses a disjunction in the orm of a question. But is that disjunction a complete ne? Does it exclude any third possibility? A number of respected scholars seem to think so. What is more, they present Thomas Aquinas as one who opted for metaphysical finalism. His choice is described as having unduly restricted the eschatological dimension in his own theologizing and that of his followers. The fact is, however, that such an assessment is by no means self-evident or apodictically demonstrated. A contrary position is possible logically and better grounded historically. Some questions which seem at first sight to allow an answer only in the form of " either ... or," permit a reply of "both ... and." The one posed in the title of this essay is a good example. In addition, careful textual analysis indicates that Thomas Aquinas was not impaled on either horn of the dilemma under consideration. He strove repeatedly to show that the infraterrestrial finalism of Aristotle and a Christian eschatology minimizing grace in the present are not the only options. There is another, which includes the truths each of these world-views brings into focus. His conviction and the efforts it inspired led him to develop a theory of participated eternity in the beatific vision. This essay has a number of purposes. It will seek to elaborate on the two positions that have already been alluded to. In so doing it will argue in favor of the second. It will likewise try to show that the view of Thomas Aquinas regarding the relation of the present to the future deserves a fair hearing from practitioners of Christian eschatology in 1974. 125 126 CARL J. PETER Part I Thomas and Theologians of Hope Is it really true? Are serious scholars of the opinion that the disjunction expressed in the title of this essay is an iron-clad one, working to the theological discredit of Aquinas? The facts can speak for themselves. In what is his major work to date, Jiirgen Moltmann observes that Martin Luther once had a flash of inspiration regarding the pursuit of knowledge from the standpoint of eschatological hope.1 Saint Paul had written of the earnest expectation of the creature (Romans 8: 19) . The Reformer said that phrase provided an important perspective, and he proceeded to describe it by way of contrast. Philosophers and metaphysicians focus attention on the present qualities and quiddities of things; the Apostle on the other hand invites us to fix our gaze on their future. But to accept that invitation, Moltmann notes, one must have recourse to a kind of understanding and discourse that rely very much on hope and that may be called "expectation thinking." 2 For creative action springing from faith is impossible without new thinking and planning that spring from hope.3 The sort of thought he is referring to is conditioned and inspired by the New Testament; he will later describe it as radically different from the mind-set of Thomas Aquinas. But he makes this point in his own way. His reference to Luther does not indicate that he regards the Reformer as offering a ready-made solution to the central problem of eschatology today, namely, the relation of the present to the future. Furthermore, he says that Protestant philosophy did not grasp the importance of the distinction Luther had made in this scholion on Romans.4 But the fact remains. 1 Ji.irgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 35. In Luther's works the text referred to can be found in Romerbrief, Weimar, t. 56, p. 371. 2 Moltmann, ibid. • Ibid. •Ibid. FINALISM OR CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY? 127 Moltmann does think Luther suggested a contrast between eschatological discourse and another type, one more concerned with essence, operation, actio, passio, and movement. Luther's remarks in the 16th century are a precedent Moltmann invokes to clarify his own position in the 20th. Luther thought Paul was espousing a future-oriented mode of thought. Moltmann thinks that same approach is badly needed in contemporary theology. To put it in somewhat different terms, he says Luther reflected on Paul's...