The Doctrine of the Beatific Vision—Owen's Greatest Contribution

My favorite Avenger is the character called "The Vision." In the movie adaptation of the hit comic book series, the Vision was portrayed as being the possessor of the "mind stone", one of the Infinity gems that are the said to be the receptacles of all the power that is in the universe—and the object of Thanos' covetous inclinations. This makes the Vision very special indeed. But while he can do a lot of cool stuff—like alter his density to intangibility or diamond-hardness—this is not why I like him. I like him because he reminds me of John Owen's most important theological contribution (at least in reference to my own appreciation of it and its implications)—the doctrine of the beatific vision.

To be sure, John Owen was not the first to articulate this doctrine. It was the great Thomas Aquinas who gave prominence to the doctrine and Owen owes much of his thought on the subject to the former. However, Owen did in fact improve upon Aquinas' take on the BV. In a nutshell, Aquinas' notion of the BV consists in it being the human being's intellectual fruition as pertaining to the knowledge of God. As image-bearers, we have the capacity to know God and this knowing, maximally heightened as creaturely possible, will be our blessedness in glory. For Aquinas, the BV is still mediated by Christ through the Spirit.

While Owen does not particularly disagree with this, he extends, as it were, Aquinas' formulation and grounds the BV on Christ Himself as the object of this vision. When Aquinas seemingly gives Christ a utilitarian function in the BV, Owen makes Christ both the mediator and the essence of the BV. We behold God in the face of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The saint's blessedness in glory, according to Owen, will be in marveling at and enjoying God's greatest work, the hypostatic union. And it gets better.

Francis Turretin, along with Aquinas, does not give the physical senses, even though glorified, any place in the BV, but Owen includes the physical sight of Christ as part of our blessedness. In other words, not only will we enjoy the divinity of Christ in heaven but His humanity as well.

In terms of the importance of the doctrine of the beatific vision for the Christian life this side of glory, Owen gives it the paramount place. He writes the ff. in "The Glory of Christ" (the last book he ever wrote):

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who does not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight. Where the subject (the soul) is not previously seasoned with grace and faith, it is not capable of glory or vision. Nay, persons not disposed hereby unto it cannot desire it, whatever they pretend; they only deceive their own souls in supposing that so they do. Most men will say with confidence, living and dying, that they desire to be with Christ, and to behold his glory; but they can give no reason why they should desire any such thing, -- only they think it somewhat that is better than to be in that evil condition which otherwise they must be cast into for ever, when they can be here no more. If a man pretend himself to be enamoured on, or greatly to desire, what he never saw, nor was ever represented unto him, he does but dote on his own imaginations. And the pretended desires of many to behold the glory of Christ in heaven, who have no view of it by faith whilst they are here in this world, are nothing but self-deceiving imaginations.

We behold Christ by faith now through the means of grace and we shall behold Him by sight immediately in glory thereafter.

Looking to Christ by faith is an outflow of Spirit-regenerated and Spirit-enflamed affections. If we hunger and thirst for Him now and love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we shall surely be satisfied with being with Him and seeing Him face-to-face in glory for we have proven to be His friends while here on earth.

Click on the ff. for a very good lecture by Suzanne McDonald (contributor to The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen's Theology, where she discusses the BV) on Owen's doctrine of the beatific vision: "Beholding God's Glory: John Owen and the 'Reforming' of the Beatific Vision"

Click on the ff. for quotes that can be used a devotional aids from Owen's "The Glory of Christ": Highlights of John Owen's "The Glory of Christ"

Westminster Wednesday: Where Have the Great Men Gone?

Scientific advancement and the industrial revolution have produced a new criterion for judging man as successful. A man is made when he has contributed significantly to industry, and a man who has thus contributed is rewarded handsomely in financial terms. Hence, the impetus for higher education has really not been the desire to know more about God, His creation, and the cultivation of the latter for the glory of the former, but the amassment of wealth. This phenomenon has produced dullards on a wholesale level.

J. Gresham Machen rightly observes:

"Scientific investigation, as has already been observed, has certainly accomplished much; it has in many respects produced a new world. But there is another aspect of the picture which should not be ignored. The modern world represents in some respects an enormous improvement over the world in which our ancestors lived; but in other respects it exhibits a lamentable decline. The improvement appears in the physical conditions of life, but in the spiritual realm there is a corresponding loss. The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution which has been produced in the external conditions of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly become dumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre. Even the appreciation of the glories of the past is gradually being lost, under the influence of a utilitarian education that concerns itself only with the production of physical well-being." (Christianity and Liberalism, Introduction)

The solution? A Christianity that is integrally connected with the past.

Westminster Wednesday: Beauty

In the following WTJ article, Dr. William Edgar discusses the role that beauty played, and still plays, in the intellectual developments of various contexts.

Noteworthy is the observation that scientific breakthroughs arose not chiefly out of utilitarian consideration but aesthetic.

A typical example is the work of Joe Rosen from the University of Tel Aviv. After explicating extraordinarily complex examples of broken charge symmetry and the like, he asks, 'What makes a theory beautiful?' The answer is something of a tautology: 'Most scientists are prejudiced in favor of (what they consider to be) beautiful theories and feel (albeit irrationally) that nature should be described by beautiful theories.' Far more popular assays by those proclaiming the parallels between theology, science, and cosmology can be cited. For example, there is the work of Jeffrey Sobosan, who argues that the very uselessness of the stars in heaven means they have an aesthetic purpose. We are free to contemplate their beauty, and to be jolted by that into recognizing the true goodness of the cosmos, and, behind that, of its Maker. The enigmatic Stephen Wolfram is currently working on a theory of order in complexity that may speak even more eloquently of intelligence behind the design of things.

Also,

Thomas Kuhn, of course, has worked with a similar notion since the mid twentieth century, noting that the paradigm shifts leading to scientific revolutions were often experienced because of aesthetics, not measurement. To be precise, it was in large part out of a sense of 'admirable symmetry,' that is, the 'clear bond of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the spheres,' that drove Copernicus to question the older, earth-centered astronomy and to suggest a sun-centered system. As Kuhn puts it, 'Copernicus’ arguments are not pragmatic. They appeal, if at all, not to the utilitarian sense of the practicing astronomer but to his aesthetic sense and to that alone.'

Commenting on the phenomenon of the seeming mass migration of individuals from modern evangelicalism to more "traditional" expressions of Christianity, Dr. Edgar notes:

A variety of factors have stimulated churches to rethink the issues of beauty. One of them is the relatively modest delivery of seeker-friendly worship. It is significant to note that many churches which had become 'post-traditional' in an attempt to adapt to contemporary tastes in order to reach outsiders are now reconsidering. They found they missed the mysterious, the prophetic, and the beautiful, especially the rich musical heritage of the church of the ages. Even advocates of 'blended' worship and other attempts to reach out to different social groups find themselves defending the importance of aesthetics and making disclaimers about selling-out. The exodus from Protestant Evangelicalism to the other major communions, Roman Catholic and Orthodox, is due in part to aesthetics. Among the top reasons given for former evangelicals who take the 'Canterbury trail' is the perceived dearth of artistic sensibility in the typical low-church culture.

I haven't finished going through the whole article and have yet to get to the really juicy parts. I will be posting more about these wonderful revelations in the coming days, God-willing.

Shadows and a Sulcata

Beauty in creation is reflective of the incomprehensible beauty of God. It is precisely because of His transcendence that only faint shadows of His comeliness are evident in nature—O, but what food for the soul are these glimpses in the dark!

I am of the conviction that man needs his regular doses of the beauty of God reflected in the created order as a barrier against the erosion of his well-being. Having been at a valley surrounded by an undulating series of tree-green mountains yesterday, with the landscape blanketed in a clear sheet of warm, soothing sunlight, and having my heart moved to worship at the sight thereof, my conviction was reinforced. The place was Heaven's Gate cemetery; and though the context was that of mourning, the joy and love of God permeated every inch of grass. Indeed, a peek at a crack on the door of heaven was what it was, and I thought to myself, "papa is enjoying the full reality of all this now"—well, perhaps not the full reality as that is still in the age to come—but being in the presence of the One from whom all this beauty that surrounded me derives its being, he is happy and he is home.

With that said, I advocate pets as stress-relievers, too. I am enjoying "Ranger", my Sulcata Tortoise very much!

Beauty and Love

God is LOVE. What this means is that God is love's ground of being, its foundation. Love derives its existence, its ontology, from God. Take God out of the picture and you take love out as well.

But what does love mean, anyway? What does it mean to love something or someone? I propose this definition: LOVE IS THE RECOGNITION OF BEAUTY IN THE OBJECT AND THE DESIRE FOR ITS CONTINUANCE IN THE OBJECT, BOTH FOR THE GOOD OF THE OBJECT (AGAPE) AND THE SUBJECT'S SATISFACTION (PHILEO).

Given this definition, we can see that when Scripture commands us to love our fellow man, what it is essentially telling us is that we should open our eyes to see the beauty of every human being and desire their good, which translates to us deriving pleasure from the beauty beheld. Man was so wired by God that beauty gives him pleasure, as it does God.

God's love for man is of the same nature. God loves His people, desires their ultimate good and derives pleasure from seeing the BEAUTY OF CHRISTLIKENESS in them. In the end, EVERY HUMAN BEING DEVOID OF CHRISTLIKENSS (that is to say UGLY or LACKING IN BEAUTY) shall forever be expelled from God's sight and presence.

But why is it often hard to love? I believe it is a problem of truth deficiency (just as vitamin deficiency causes physiological problems, truth deficiency causes spiritual and psychological problems). In fact, all of life's ills are solved by the acquisition and enfleshment of truth. The difficulty in loving another person has to do with a blindness that has descended that prevents the beholding of beauty in the other. Without beauty perceived, there would be no reason to love, and this is natural. The key is in gaining a vision of the beauty that exists in the person. How is this vision acquired? By knowing, believing, and living the truth about the object of love. In the marriage relationship, beauty is intrinsic to it and to both parties involved by virtue of it being an earthly model of Jesus Christ's relationship to the Church. In other human relationships, the anthropological truths of Scripture serve as the backbone of the love that must mutually exist between persons. Emotional roadblocks to love are dealt with by the filling of the mind with these truths, as every emotion has at its root a believed notion.