Sect. 141Eternal Life in the Beatific VisionEternal Life in the Beatific Vision

I. It has been defined by Benedict XII. (Constit. Benedictus Deus, A.D. 1336) that the substance of the beatitude to which rational creatures are called, consists in the immediate vision of God, face to face, in His essence. This dogma is clearly expressed in Holy Scripture. “Their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father Who is in heaven” (Matt. 18:10). “We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then, face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12). “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

II. Reason and Faith alike tell us that to see God face to face is (1) supernatural, at least inasmuch as it cannot be arrived at by the natural forces of the created mind, and is only possible to nature elevated and clarified by a supernatural light; (2) that it implies a participation in the Divine Nature, and a deification of the created nature. To gaze upon the Divine essence is, naturally, possible to God alone; at the same time it constitutes the highest possible kind of knowledge and life, the gift of which to the creature endows the creature with a likeness to God, analogous to the likeness between the Divine Son and His Father. This supernatural likeness to God may be resolved into the following elements: (a) the act and the object of vision are of the same kind in God and in the creature, in as far as, in both, the vision is an act of direct knowledge whose formal and material object is the Divine essence; (b) the likening of the created intellect to the Divine is brought about by the infusion of a light proceeding from, and homogeneous with, the Divine Intellect. The connection between the created intellect and its Divine object is not indeed, as is the case with God, a union by identity, but is produced by the intrinsic presence of the object in the intellect, the Divine Substance fertilizing and informing, as it were, the intellect of the glorified creature. As a consequence of the vision, the blessed spirits enjoy a beatitude similar to the Divine beatitude or participate in God’s own happiness. They also have a share in the eternal duration of the Divine Life, because the contemplation of the Eternal God, by His most proper power and most intimate presence, naturally entails simplicity and immutability of Life.

III. The absolute exaltedness of the beatific vision, and of its glory and beatitude above the powers of rational nature, likewise places it above all the claims or requirements of nature, and makes it supernatural in the sense of absolute gratuity. The creature can only claim for its happiness whatever contributes to or achieves the development of its natural faculties. Besides, the gratuity of the beatific vision and kindred privileges is attested so often in various doctrines of faith, that we are bound to receive it as a fundamental dogma. Thus, the vocation to the beatific vision supposes a real and true adoption; it can only be known by a supernatural revelation. Nature, by its own power, cannot merit it, nor even elicit a positive desire of it worthy of being taken into consideration by God. All these points have been defined against Baius, and dealt with in former sections. It is, moreover, evident, at first sight, that no creature can have a claim to what is God’s most personal property.

IV. The complete gratuity of the beatific vision supposes that, apart from it, some other beatitude, viz. a natural one, is conceivable. A final beatitude of some kind is necessarily the destination of rational beings. Since, however, as a matter of fact, angels and man are destined to supernatural felicity, it is not to be wondered at that Revelation is silent about natural felicity, and that the Fathers have not dealt with it more at length. On theological and philosophical principles, the natural destiny of rational creatures can only be described in general outlines: it consists in that knowledge and love of God which can be obtained by merely natural means. See also § 135.

V. The supernatural life of the blessed would be incomplete if their possession of God did not include a participation in the Divine Love and Holiness, as well as in the Divine Wisdom. The fruition of God, arising from the beatific vision, cannot be conceived without an accompanying love equal in excellence to the beatific knowledge, and of the same kind as the Love with which God loves Himself. The sublimity of this love, exalted as it is above the faculties of nature, necessarily requires that the will of the blessed should be raised above its nature just as the intellect is raised by the Light of glory. In this there are three factors: (1) The subject-matter of the act of love, directly, materially, and formally, is the Supreme Good; (2) the power of the will is raised and clarified so as to partake of the power for love of the Divine Will; (3) the will is brought into the most intimate contact with the Highest Good in the same way as the intellect is pervaded by the Highest Truth—a union analogous to the union of identity between the Divine Will and its object. The union of love between God and the blessed is thus, according to Holy Scripture, analogous to the union between the Father and the Son; the blessed are made “one spirit with God” (1 Cor. 6:17); a “deification” of the will takes place, of which St. Bernard rightly says that it gives the creature another form, another glory, and another power; and, lastly, the divinized will is endowed with an immutability excluding all possibility of sin.