The beatific vision

The beatific vision, “the vision that makes blessed”, is the Christian teaching that the final happiness of the redeemed is to see God “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In Latin theology, Thomas Aquinas argued that the human intellect’s natural desire to know the cause of all things can be fulfilled only by the direct vision of God’s essence, which requires a supernatural light of glory.

A papal constitution of 1336, Benedictus Deus, defined that the souls of the blessed see the divine essence immediately after death, without waiting for the general resurrection. Some mystics claimed a foretaste of this vision in this life; most theologians held that, apart from rare exceptions, it belongs only to the life to come.

Eastern Orthodox theology, following Gregory Palamas, teaches instead that the saints see God’s uncreated light, God’s energies, but never God’s essence. The difference between the two traditions on this point remains one of their characteristic disagreements.