Whether the Essence of God Can Be Seen with the Bodily Eye?
Objection 1: It seems that the essence of God can be seen by the
corporeal eye. For it is written (Job 19:26): "In my flesh I shall see
. . . God," and (Job 42:5), "With the hearing of the ear I have heard
Thee, but now my eye seeth Thee."
Obj. 2: Further, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxix, 29): "Those
eyes" (namely the glorified) "will therefore have a greater power of
sight, not so much to see more keenly, as some report of the sight of
serpents or of eagles (for whatever acuteness of vision is possessed
by these creatures, they can see only corporeal things) but to see
even incorporeal things." Now whoever can see incorporeal things, can
be raised up to see God. Therefore the glorified eye can see God.
Obj. 3: Further, God can be seen by man through a vision of the
imagination. For it is written: "I saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne," etc. (Isa. 6:1). But an imaginary vision originates from
sense; for the imagination is moved by sense to act. Therefore God can
be seen by a vision of sense.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Vid. Deum, Ep. cxlvii): "No one
has ever seen God either in this life, as He is, nor in the angelic
life, as visible things are seen by corporeal vision."
_I answer that,_ It is impossible for God to be seen by the sense of
sight, or by any other sense, or faculty of the sensitive power. For
every such kind of power is the act of a corporeal organ, as will be
shown later (Q. 78). Now act is proportional to the nature which
possesses it. Hence no power of that kind can go beyond corporeal
things. For God is incorporeal, as was shown above (Q. 3, A. 1).
Hence He cannot be seen by the sense or the imagination, but only by
the intellect.
Reply Obj. 1: The words, "In my flesh I shall see God my Saviour," do
not mean that God will be seen with the eye of the flesh, but that
man existing in the flesh after the resurrection will see God.
Likewise the words, "Now my eye seeth Thee," are to be understood of
the mind's eye, as the Apostle says: "May He give unto you the spirit
of wisdom . . . in the knowledge of Him, that the eyes of your heart"
may be "enlightened" (Eph. 1:17, 18).
Reply Obj. 2: Augustine speaks as one inquiring, and conditionally.
This appears from what he says previously: "Therefore they will have
an altogether different power (viz. the glorified eyes), if they
shall see that incorporeal nature;" and afterwards he explains this,
saying: "It is very credible, that we shall so see the mundane bodies
of the new heaven and the new earth, as to see most clearly God
everywhere present, governing all corporeal things, not as we now see
the invisible things of God as understood by what is made; but as
when we see men among whom we live, living and exercising the
functions of human life, we do not believe they live, but see it."
Hence it is evident how the glorified eyes will see God, as now our
eyes see the life of another. But life is not seen with the corporeal
eye, as a thing in itself visible, but as the indirect object of the
sense; which indeed is not known by sense, but at once, together with
sense, by some other cognitive power. But that the divine presence is
known by the intellect immediately on the sight of, and through,
corporeal things, happens from two causes--viz. from the perspicuity
of the intellect, and from the refulgence of the divine glory infused
into the body after its renovation.
Reply Obj. 3: The essence of God is not seen in a vision of the
imagination; but the imagination receives some form representing God
according to some mode of similitude; as in the divine Scripture
divine things are metaphorically described by means of sensible
things.
_______________________