Seeing God

Seeing God
The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2018)

WHO: Hans Boersma, who holds the J.I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada.

HE SAYS: “It is the ultimate telos of the beatific vision that determines our priorities and molds our desires.”

THE BIG IDEA: This book provides a comprehensive historical account of theologies of the beatific vision and matches key issues pertaining to the vision with individual theologians.

THE PROGRESSION:
The author begins with a thorough introduction on the beatific vision’s history and analogy, sacramental ontology and the beatific vision and the vision in modernity.
The three central sections of the book deal with early Christian thought (Part 1), medieval thought (Part 2) and Protestant thought (Part 3), respectively, in regards to the beatific vision. Part 4 offers “Beatific Vision: A Dogmatic Appraisal.”

“To the degree that we live in sync with the final end for which God has created us, we are already being habituated to seeing God in the here and now of our everyday lives.”

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