PAPER NO. 106

THE GOOD AND HEAVEN

The Good is not the Beatific Vision

The good is the end in itself, man’s chief end, the highest value, sought for its own sake, the summum bonum.

The beatific vision is said to be the immediate vision/experience of God, apart from creation, accessible to all in heaven.

As we understand the good and the beatific vision, we will understand the good is not the beatific vision or heaven as the immediate fulfillment of human happiness.

  1. Characteristics of the good

The good is objectively clear, from general revelation (GR), special revelation (SR), and Historic Christianity (HC).

From General Revelation:

  1. The good for a being is based on the nature of that being: all beings have a nature/essence, that distinguishes them from other kinds of beings.
  2. There is a unity of diversity in the nature of a being.
  3. The good for a human being is based on human nature. There is a human nature consisting of the set of qualities which all humans have, that they always have, that only humans have, that distinguishes humans from all non-humans: animals, angels, God, plants, non-living beings.
  4. There is a unity of diversity in human nature: the larger formal aspect, the narrower content aspect, the triune personality, the body/soul unity, the male/female unity, the temporal/historical/background factor, and the unique, singular, distinguishing factor.
  5. Man is a rational animal; reason in man is natural, ontological, transcendental, and fundamental to all other aspects of his being.
  6. Good for man as a rational being is the use of his reason to the fullest. Reason is used to understand the nature of things. The nature of things created reveal the nature of God. Therefore, the good for man as a rational being is the knowledge of God.
  7. The knowledge of God is based first on GR, not gnostic (based first on SR); the knowledge of God is rational/cognitive, not mystical/non-cognitive/experiential.

From Special Revelation/Scripture:

  1. From creation, man is the image of God, a person who can know all other persons (including God). He can think, reason, and understand revelation. Creation is revelation, necessarily, intentionally and exclusively; it is full and clear. Man is given dominion over the creation, a task which is corporate, cumulative, and communal, by which mankind is to glorify God. The end of the work of dominion is the earth filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9). The Sabbath affirms that man will complete the work of dominion.
  2. Eternal life is knowing God (John 17:3). Eternal life begins in this life and continues into the next life; it does not merely begin in the future life in heaven (John 5:24). The good is eternal life.
  3. The Fall of man is permitted in order to deepen the revelation of God, especially God’s justice and mercy in redemption.
  4. Redemption is by the curse (as a call to repentance) and by promise (through a spiritual war, which is age-long and agonizing, good will overcome evil—Genesis 3:15). In this spiritual war, the believer is to take captive every thought raised up against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:4-5; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Revelation 19:11-21; 20:1-3).

From Historic Christianity:

  1. Historic Christianity is the work of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church into all Truth (John 16:13; Acts 15; Ephesians 4).
  2. Historic Christianity responds to challenges to the faith throughout the history of the Church. This insight is cumulative, to depart from which, without sufficient reason manifest in discussion, is to deny the unity of the faith. Traditional Christianity is not Historic Christianity.
  3. Historic Christianity began with the council of Jerusalem (AD 50), and continues in the Apostles’ Creed, Nicea, Carthage, Chalcedon, Orange, and, from the Reformation period, is summed up in the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF, 1648).
  4. WCF is doxologically focused: man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, in all that by which he makes himself known, in all his works of creation and providence (SCQ 1, 101, WCF 4.1, 5.1). The outcome of glorifying God is the earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. There is no enjoying of God without glorifying God.
  5. Challenges since the Reformation remain to be answered: fideism and divisions in the Church vs. skepticism and pluralism in the world; mere otherworldliness in the Church vs. mere this worldliness in the current culture wars. These pairs of conflicting views are antinomies, both of which are mistaken since both share the same set of assumptions regarding good (creation and revelation) and evil (clarity and inexcusability).
  1. Reasons for conflicting views and response
  1. Some claim that God is unknowable by reason from creation; God is infinite and man is finite (Barth).

Response:

God as creator ex nihilo is not merely infinite, but infinite in all his attributes—being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth (vs. advaita/non-dual Vedanta’s attributeless nirguna brahman; and vs. God in Islam who is beyond all attributes). Man is the finite, temporal, changeable image of God. Creation is revelation, necessarily, intentionally and exclusively. In knowing himself, man can have knowledge of God.

  1. Some claim reason is either finite or fallen or both. The finite cannot grasp the infinite, without paradox. God is incomprehensible, past finding out. Those stuck in the meshes of intellect are worse than dogs . . . incorrigible, hopeless and destined to doom (Buddhism).

Response:

Reason is ontological, it applies to being, all being, God’s being. God is not both eternal and not-eternal in the same respect at the same time. There is unity of diversity but no paradox in any being; the problem lies in the non-theistic presupposition that all is eternal or all is one/becoming.

Man has true knowledge of anything only in part; he knows nothing comprehensively or exhaustively. Man can grow in knowledge without end, in depth and breadth, as the waters cover the sea. Reason is transcendental; as the laws of thought it cannot be fallen.

  1. Some claim the noumenal (God) cannot be known by man in time, in or from the phenomenal realm (Kant).

Response:

The distinction between the two realms requires reason, or must not be made at all; and, causality applies objectively between the noumenal cause and the phenomenal effect or all the world is an uncaused event, and meaningful predication ceases.

  1. Some claim we can have only negative knowledge of God which does not satisfy the heart of man to know God (Aquinas).

Response:

Man can never know God as God knows himself; man can never be infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in himself or by infusion. Man knows God only by God’s self-revelation in creation, which is very good in itself and as revelation. This is positive knowledge of God that fills the heart with great delight.

  1. Some claim the need for a special work/grace to dispose the heart of man to desire what he knows, a bonum superadditum based on the doctrine of the primacy of the heart as feeling or emotion (J. Edwards, J. Gerstner, R.C. Sproul, J. Piper).

Response:

Man is sanctified (made holy) by knowing the Truth. Knowing the truth under sin is through suffering (by expulsion from the Garden to live under the curse). Job came to see what he had not seen before through a trial of faith (Job 42:3-6). Man is transformed by the renewing of his mind. There is a change in cognitive content, not merely a supernatural change in attitude apart from content. Holiness as purity of heart removes doublemindedness. Without holiness, no one can see God (Hebrews 12:10-14).

  1. Reasons for the beatific vision
  1. Desire for ecstasy/bliss in unitive love (depicted in Bernini’s sculpture of Teresa of Avila in the Vatican).
  2. Continuing desire for euphoria/bliss in ordinary life vs. depression.
  3. Continuing desire for the oceanic feeling of oneness as in mother/infant relation.
  4. Reaction to arid intellectualism in theology (Aquinas) or in Romantic reaction to Enlightenment rationalism.
  5. Desire for escape from life on earth as a vale of tears (widespread in history).
  6. Desire for escape by suicide by the sensitive and thoughtful from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (Hamlet).
  7. Life at its best under the sun is still vanity (Solomon).
  8. Life is as a tale that is told, spent in labor and sorrow (or full of sound and fury signifying nothing) (Moses, Psalm 90).
  9. The songs of pop culture constantly portray romantic love as the good. Love without the good fails to satisfy and often ends in heartbreak.
  10. The vast majority of human beings seek virtue or happiness as the good. Without a sufficient good in this life, the default is the good in the life to come.
  1. Response to appeal to experience
  1. No experience is meaningful without interpretation; this mystical experience has been interpreted in many ways by naturalism, dualism, spiritual monism, Buddhism, and animism. A valid interpretation must be logically coherent. Only theism retains coherence, and consistent theism does not teach or allow for the good as heaven in the afterlife.
  2. Happiness is not the good but the effect of possessing the good.
  3. Love is not the good, nor is a person the good; in true love, we seek the good for the other person.
  4. The curse of toil and strife, and old age, sickness and death is God’s call back from moral evil (sin and spiritual death), to exercise moral and natural dominion in the earth.
  5. Without the good, the practical and psychological virtues of the many can become vices which hinder achieving the good for all.
  1. Scriptural passages used in support of the beatific vision and response
  1. We shall see him face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12); Moses spoke to God face to face (Exodus 33:11).

Response:

God is a spirit and does not literally have a bodily face. No man has ever seen God (John 1:18). The Son of God, who is the Word of God in its fullness, the Logos, makes God fully known. God is a Spirit, immortal, invisible, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen, nor can see (1 Timothy 6:16). Face to face is seeing the nature of God plainly, beyond types and shadows.

  1. The Mount of Transfiguration experience is seen as a foretaste of what is to come.

Response:

The disciples’ seeing Jesus transfigured was not transformative. That came later as their understanding was opened to the Scriptures.

  1. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, which is better by far (2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:21-26).

Response:

If one’s work is done, it is better to depart. But Paul knew he had to remain to build up the saints in the faith.

Abraham died in faith, still waiting for the promised City with foundations. Those who die before the resurrection are still waiting for the work on earth to be completed (Hebrews 11:10, 39-40).

  1. Heaven is seen as a return to the Garden of Eden, prior to and without the curse, often as some type of hedonic surfeit.

Response:

The Garden was the beginning, not the end. Mankind was to move from the Garden to the City of God (Revelation 21), the completion of the work of dominion and its expression in culture. The fullness of blessing and inheritance is found only in the City of God, the kingdom of God presently coming on earth.

  1. Since happiness evades most in this life, it is eagerly hoped for in the next life.

Response:

Happiness evades most because most do not glorify God and so cannot enjoy God. Happiness is the effect of possessing the good, which is the knowledge of God through dominion. The good apart from the work of dominion is false hope. Work without a lasting good is no hope.

  1. The good is not the beatific vision in heaven
  1. The good is rational, based on human nature; the beatific vision is not.
  2. The good is continuing from this life to the next; the beatific vision is not.
  3. The good is clear, grounded in human nature; the beatific vision is not.
  4. The good is the source of unity in all and for all; the beatific vision is not.
  5. The good is consistent with GR, SR and HC; the beatific vision is not.
  6. The good preserves the distinction between God and man; the beatific vision does not.
  7. The good preserves meaning in history; the beatific vision does not.
  8. The good is necessary to restore the Church; the beatific vision cannot.
  9. The good is necessary to overcome the first and root sin of mankind in becoming like God knowing good and evil; the beatific vision is an expression of that sin.
  10. Only the good is fulfilling, ultimate, and transformative; the beatific vision is not.
  1. The good: past and at present
  1. In theodicy of the Fall, God permits evil in order to deepen the revelation of his glory in creation. In redemption, sin is allowed to work itself out in world history, while being gradually removed.
  2. The noetic effect of sin blinds man to the nature of sin. Root sin blinds man to all sin. Root sin is first historically (in Eden), ontologically (in the First Commandment), and existentially (in human self-awareness).
  3. Misunderstanding good and evil is first existentially. What is first is foundational. What enters first historically is removed last historically.
  4. There have been many cycles of apostasy in the Church. Many civilizations have perished in the world. After many cycles culminating in the Crucifixion, the second diaspora occurred. Judaic literalism and legalism were rejected in the council of Jerusalem (AD 50).
  5. The Church expanded into a world taught by Athens. The Apostles’ Creed rejected Greek dualism, and with it Greek gnosticism and mysticism. Yet, otherworldliness in monasticism and celibacy captured the best minds.
  6. Augustine and Aquinas in “spoiling the Greeks” built upon Plato and Aristotle. Lacking in the doctrine of sin grounded in clarity and inexcusability, the Church gave Greek philosophy a pass and the Church has been spoiled.
  7. By rebuilding upon the Historic Christian Faith from prior councils and creeds, the Church in the Reformation got to the doxological focus of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1648). Subsequent generations failed to build upon the focus that man’s chief end is to glorify God in all that by which he makes himself known.
  8. The challenges of modernism (Enlightenment naturalism and secularism) and post-modernism (skepticism and pluralism) remain. The Church’s response of otherworldliness and fideism are inadequate antinomies, building on the same worldly assumptions.
  9. At present, we are nearing a crisis of a perfect storm. Four cycles of history are converging. Post-Babel, post-western/Christian, post-Reformation, and post-pluralism/Critical Theory are upon us. Can the Church rebuild its foundation or do we face a world-wide collapse of modernity?
  10. There is hope in thinking foundationally, in restoring the cornerstone. The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. By wisdom, using the ordinary means ordained and blessed of God, the Church can rebuild beginning with understanding good and evil.


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