Whether Anyone in This Life Can See the Essence of God?
Objection 1: It seems that one can in this life see the Divine
essence. For Jacob said: "I have seen God face to face" (Gen. 32:30).
But to see Him face to face is to see His essence, as appears from the
words: "We see now in a glass and in a dark manner, but then face to
face" (1 Cor. 13:12).
Obj. 2: Further, the Lord said to Moses: "I speak to him mouth to
mouth, and plainly, and not by riddles and figures doth he see the
Lord" (Num. 12:8); but this is to see God in His essence. Therefore it
is possible to see the essence of God in this life.
Obj. 3: Further, that wherein we know all other things, and whereby
we judge of other things, is known in itself to us. But even now we
know all things in God; for Augustine says (Confess. viii): "If we
both see that what you say is true, and we both see that what I say
is true; where, I ask, do we see this? neither I in thee, nor thou in
me; but both of us in the very incommutable truth itself above our
minds." He also says (De Vera Relig. xxx) that, "We judge of all
things according to the divine truth"; and (De Trin. xii) that, "it
is the duty of reason to judge of these corporeal things according to
the incorporeal and eternal ideas; which unless they were above the
mind could not be incommutable." Therefore even in this life we see
God Himself.
Obj. 4: Further, according to Augustine (Gen. ad lit. xii, 24, 25),
those things that are in the soul by their essence are seen by
intellectual vision. But intellectual vision is of intelligible
things, not by similitudes, but by their very essences, as he also
says (Gen. ad lit. xiii, 24, 25). Therefore since God is in our soul
by His essence, it follows that He is seen by us in His essence.
_On the contrary,_ It is written, "Man shall not see Me, and live" (Ex.
32:20), and a gloss upon this says, "In this mortal life God can be
seen by certain images, but not by the likeness itself of His own
nature."
_I answer that,_ God cannot be seen in His essence by a mere human
being, except he be separated from this mortal life. The reason is
because, as was said above (A. 4), the mode of knowledge follows
the mode of the nature of the knower. But our soul, as long as we live
in this life, has its being in corporeal matter; hence naturally it
knows only what has a form in matter, or what can be known by such a
form. Now it is evident that the Divine essence cannot be known
through the nature of material things. For it was shown above
(AA. 2, 9) that the knowledge of God by means of any created
similitude is not the vision of His essence. Hence it is impossible
for the soul of man in this life to see the essence of God. This can
be seen in the fact that the more our soul is abstracted from
corporeal things, the more it is capable of receiving abstract
intelligible things. Hence in dreams and alienations of the bodily
senses divine revelations and foresight of future events are perceived
the more clearly. It is not possible, therefore, that the soul in this
mortal life should be raised up to the supreme of intelligible
objects, i.e. to the divine essence.
Reply Obj. 1: According to Dionysius (Coel. Hier. iv) a man is said
in the Scriptures to see God in the sense that certain figures are
formed in the senses or imagination, according to some similitude
representing in part the divinity. So when Jacob says, "I have seen
God face to face," this does not mean the Divine essence, but some
figure representing God. And this is to be referred to some high mode
of prophecy, so that God seems to speak, though in an imaginary
vision; as will later be explained (II-II, Q. 174) in treating of the
degrees of prophecy. We may also say that Jacob spoke thus to
designate some exalted intellectual contemplation, above the ordinary
state.
Reply Obj. 2: As God works miracles in corporeal things, so also He
does supernatural wonders above the common order, raising the minds
of some living in the flesh beyond the use of sense, even up to the
vision of His own essence; as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 26,
27, 28) of Moses, the teacher of the Jews; and of Paul, the teacher
of the Gentiles. This will be treated more fully in the question of
rapture (II-II, Q. 175).
Reply Obj. 3: All things are said to be seen in God and all things
are judged in Him, because by the participation of His light, we know
and judge all things; for the light of natural reason itself is a
participation of the divine light; as likewise we are said to see and
judge of sensible things in the sun, i.e., by the sun's light. Hence
Augustine says (Soliloq. i, 8), "The lessons of instruction can only
be seen as it were by their own sun," namely God. As therefore in
order to see a sensible object, it is not necessary to see the
substance of the sun, so in like manner to see any intelligible
object, it is not necessary to see the essence of God.
Reply Obj. 4: Intellectual vision is of the things which are in the
soul by their essence, as intelligible things are in the intellect.
And thus God is in the souls of the blessed; not thus is He in our
soul, but by presence, essence and power.
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