Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven (Kreeft)

[RamistThomist]

This book is simply Kreeft. One is reminded again of just how good a writer Kreeft is. While he is not the next Lewis or Chesterton, he is very close. He is witty, ironic, and yet logically thorough. He is not afraid of difficult questions and spends the necessary time fleshing them out, using rigorous Thomistic reasoning at all times.

There really isn't a theme in this book--simply his analysis of a number of issues and questions that people ask about heaven (and it goes to say that children have superior theological intellects than do theologians--children ask far better questions).

The first section of the book contrasts the medieval mindset with the modern mindset, not only about heaven but about all of reality. The medieval win easily. For the medievals earth is the training ground of heaven. Earth matters (matter matters) because heaven matters. One could thus summarize medieval art as "spirituality" infusing matter. This doesn't mean that the art is "spiritual" (which of course for Evangelicals means "not real"), but that the matter has been energized by heaven.

Kreeft explores the reality of hell and the nature of hell. Surprisingly, although a Roman Catholic, Kreeft gives very Eastern answers to this question.Kreeft sees us as either experience God's energies as light (heaven) or fire (hell).

My qualm with the book. The Bible speaks of the eschaton more as "the renewed creation of new heavens and new earth" than it does as "beautific vision." Of course, both points are true, but Kreeft only focuses on the second one.

 

[earl40]

Does he equate the beautific vision as seeing a literal face to face encounter with The Father and Holy Spirit? I have found many have not thought through this issue, in that no one can see God, as He is in Himself, and live. Which includes the glorified saints in heaven now.

 

[RamistThomist]

Does he equate the beautific vision as seeing a literal face to face encounter with The Father and Holy Spirit? I have found many have not thought through this issue, in that no one can see God, as He is in Himself, and live. Which includes the glorified saints in heaven now.

As God is pure essence, which means God is identical to the mind, then there isn't a literal face to face encounter. We experience the mind of God (or the love or the justice or the wisdom. They are all the same thing in Thomism).

 

[Justified]

Does he equate the beautific vision as seeing a literal face to face encounter with The Father and Holy Spirit? I have found many have not thought through this issue, in that no one can see God, as He is in Himself, and live. Which includes the glorified saints in heaven now.

If you mean by "face to face encounter" seeing the essence of God himself, then yes, albeit only qualifiedly. For Thomas (who I presume Kreeft is following, one can see the essence of God in the next life, though one knows the essence of God according to the finite mode of the knower, whereas God knows himself according to an infinite mode of knowing-- that is what it is to know God in se. Many of the Reformers, I believe, actually follow Thomas. To Easterners, knowing the essence of God is anathema even in a qualified sense; to them, it smacks of Eunomianism.

 

[earl40]

If you mean by "face to face encounter" seeing the essence of God himself, then yes, albeit only qualifiedly. For Thomas (who I presume Kreeft is following, one can see the essence of God in the next life, though one knows the essence of God according to the finite mode of the knower, whereas God knows himself according to an infinite mode of knowing-- that is what it is to know God in se. Many of the Reformers, I believe, actually follow Thomas. To Easterners, knowing the essence of God is anathema even in a qualified sense; to them, it smacks of Eunomianism.

I personally think the Reformers would not think how Thomas did, and had a reformed view of God.

 

[RamistThomist]

I personally think the Reformers would not think how Thomas did, and had a reformed view of God.

Most of the post-Reformation Reformed scholastics were Thomists in one sense or another (Rutherford was a Scotist).

I'm not a Thomist fanboi like the guys at CalvinistInternational, nor do I think the Reformed were explicitly Thomist, but they all used categories like actus purus and the like.

John Owen is explicitly Thomist in his Display of Arminianism.

 

[earl40]

Most of the post-Reformation Reformed scholastics were Thomists in one sense or another (Rutherford was a Scotist).

I'm not a Thomist fanboi like the guys at CalvinistInternational, nor do I think the Reformed were explicitly Thomist, but they all used categories like actus purus and the like.

John Owen is explicitly Thomist in his Display of Arminianism.

I hear you though I would hope most of the early Reformers would not think we will see God face to face (in se) per say. The ONLY qualification I believe they would express is that we will see God only through the man Christ Jesus.

 

[RamistThomist]

I hear you though I would hope most of the early Reformers would not think we will see God face to face (in se) per say. The ONLY qualification I believe they would express is that we will see God only through the man Christ Jesus.

I don't think Aquinas would deny that we wouldn't see God in Christ. My point was that the Beatific Vision has man contemplating Divine Essence (or Divine Essence of Christ).