The Incomprehensibility of God, Predication, and the Beatific Vision

 

Key Texts on God's Incomprehensibility:

1) Psalm 145:3

2) Nehemiah 9:5

3) Ephesians 3:20-21

4) Romans 11:33

5) Job 11:7-9

Theological Points and Clarifications:

We can only know God insofar as He has revealed Himself to us in divine revelation (cf. Isaiah 11:9)

“Since then we are to discourse of the things of God, let us assume that God has full knowledge of Himself, and bow with humble reverence to His words. For He Whom we can only know through His own utterances is the fitting witness concerning Himself.” (Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitae, 1.18)

The full depth of God's works is also impossible to fully comprehend and know (Romans 11:33).

We cannot form a mental image of God's essence (Charles Hodge).

"To comprehend is (1.) To know the essence as well as the attributes of an object. (2.) It is to know not some only, but all of its attributes. (3.) To know the relation in which these attributes stand to each other and to the substance to which they belong. (4.) To know the relation in which the object known stands to all other objects. Such knowledge is clearly impossible in a creature, either of itself or of anything out of itself. It is, however, substantially thus that the transcendentalists claim to know God. (Charles Hodge)

Thomas Aquinas on the Incomprehensibility of God and Analogical Predication

In question 13 on the names of God, Aquinas investigates what is known as predication and God. This doctrine is related to God's incomprehensibility since it tells us how we should speak about God and how our language about God relates to Him. 

On the question of God and predication, there are three main views in the philosophy of religion:

[1]. Univocal Predication - This view says that some of the terms that humans use do accurately describe God's essence.

[2]. Equivocal Predication - This view teaches that none of the terms in our language accurately describe God's essence. 

[3]. Analogical Predication - This was the view of Aquinas. 

"Aquinas argued that our positive talk about God is analogical, and neither univocal or equivocal.   He argues that we do not speak of God univocally, because words when applied to God do not have the same meaning as when they are applied to a person. He also argued that we do not speak equivocally about God because there must be some connection of the creature and the creator. We therefore speak about God analogically." (https://www.philosophyzer.com/univocal-and-equivocal-language/)

Thomas Aquinas on the Beatific Vision

Aquinas teaches the following points about these topics in ST, Part I, Questions 12 and 13:

[1]. The created intellect of man can indeed see the essence of God, however this is not with the bodily eye. Rather, it is when God heightens the intellect (or "visual faculty") to a new state so that it can then, and only then, behold God. Aquinas appeals to Psalm 35:10 to support this idea.

[2]. Angels (or any created thing) cannot see the essence of God in their own natural powers. It must be heightened by the grace of God in order to do this. 

[3]. Creatures need "created light" in order to see the essence of God. 

"Everything which is raised up to what exceeds its nature, must be prepared by some disposition above its nature; as, for example, if air is to receive the form of fire, it must be prepared by some disposition for such a form. But when any created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect. Hence it is necessary that some supernatural disposition should be added to the intellect in order that it may be raised up to such a great and sublime height. Now since the natural power of the created intellect does not avail to enable it to see the essence of God, as was shown in the preceding article, it is necessary that the power of understanding should be added by divine grace" (Thomas Aquinas). 

[4]. Some saints in heaven see the essence of God more perfectly than another. 

[5]. Even those who see the essence God do not in reality actually comprehend God, because the essence of God is infinite, whereas the created intellect of man is finite. It is impossible for something finite to comprehend something that is infinite.

[6]. God is incomprehensible primarily because He is not seen to the most perfect capacity as is capable of seeing Him.

Witness of the Early Church Fathers

"What then, some man will say, is it not written, The little one’s Angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven? (Mt. 18:10). Yes, but the Angels see God not as He is, but as far as they themselves are capable. For it is Jesus Himself who says, Not that any man has seen the Father, save He which is of God, He has seen the Father (Jn. 6:46). The Angels therefore behold as much as they can bear, and Archangels as much as they are able; and Thrones and Dominions more than the former, but yet less than His worthiness: for with the Son the Holy Spirit alone can rightly behold Him." (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 6)

"Hear what the blessed Peter says: ‘it is good for us to he here’ (Mt. 17:4). But if he, when he beheld some dim image of the things to come, immediately cast away all other things out of his soul, on account of the pleasure produced in it by that vision; what would any one say when the actual reality of the things is presented, when the palace is thrown open and it is permitted to gaze upon the King Himself, no longer darkly, or by means of a mirror, but face to face; no longer by means of faith, but by sight?" (John Chrysostom, Letter to Theodore After His Fall)