Formed in His ImageSample

The Beatific Vision

Beauty and imagination within classic Christian thought collide in the affirmation of the beatific vision. The beatific vision, once commonly understood in Christian spiritual life, has been replaced with a vision of good marriages and families, health and wealth, or even consistent practices of spiritual disciplines in the Christian life.

The pinnacle of Christian life is no longer the aim of beholding God in his infinite wonder and beauty. Losing the beatific vision in Christian spirituality removes both the majesty of eternity as well as the purpose for faithful Christian living in the present. We will dwell with God forever in a new heavens and new earth (see Revelation 21:1). Some thinkers in the recent history of Christian history have attempted to direct the church back to this vision.

Everyone seeks beauty, and everyone exercises their imagination in the process. It’s hardwired into our hearts to seek “the good life.” Ancient philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus all understood the good life and the ways you can have it. In his book, Jesus the Great Philosopher, biblical scholar Jonathan Pennington relays the importance of the Good Life in ancient thought and its usefulness still today. Pennington notes, “The Good Life is not referring to the lives of the rich and famous as revealed in a tabloid or exposé show. The Good Life refers to the habits of practiced wisdom that produce in the human soul deep and lasting flourishing.” The ancients understood that the heart is the core of our being, and that our actions were in some way connected. Certain virtues and habits contribute to one’s practice and attainment of the Good Life. Biblical authors understood this as well.

Psalm 1 begins with the declaration, “How happy is the one who…” and follows with warnings not to walk in ways of wickedness and sin which lead to destruction—the literal opposite of happiness. The psalmist’s prescription for happiness? To “delight is in the Lord’s instruction” and constantly meditate on the Lord and his word (Psalm 1:2). The metaphor for happiness given in Psalm 1 is of one who is like a flourishing tree with ripe fruit, resistant to drought and decay. But compare this to the opening words of Ecclesiastes. Like a deep ominous voiceover in a dystopian action movie, he states, “Absolute futility…Absolute futility. Everything is futile” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

So, which is it? Can we be a flourishing tree of ultimate happiness, or is everything truly futile? I don’t think these two observations contradict, but both serve to illustrate the physical and spiritual realities of the human condition. The pursuit of things on earth, apart from a God-directed vision, is fruitless. It also speaks to the reality of sin which comes in and distorts the vision of the good life, replacing it with a vacuous vision of fleeting wealth, power, fame, and the like. Solomon knew all too well the vanishing nature of fame and wealth.

These images describe how Scripture, particularly in the wisdom literature, shows what the Good Life is all about.