Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Satisfied and yet growing

Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in the Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018)  considers the Christian vision of God in the New Creation (pp68f).

Since God is infinite, it make sense that our vision of God should continue to grow. Even when we see God, we will desire to see more of him. Theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Palamas and Jonathan Edwards have stressed this. God is always still incomprehensible to us - we cannot fully know him. He is the Uncreated Creator and we remain creatures. There is always more of him for us to know.

And yet we will also know rest and satisfaction in God. The Thomist tradition has stressed this.

We can perhaps seek to hold on to both of these insights:

We will always know him to the fullness of our capacity, yet by the grace of God our capacity will always continue to grow. 

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