Unimaginable bliss: what awaits us in heaven

“Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” – Jn 17:3

(LifeSiteNews) — Man’s final end, and his eternal bliss, is to see God face to face.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that “after the resurrection of the body the only object of the Christian’s hope is the reward of everlasting life.” ^[1]

Yet the nature of this reward is impossible for us to grasp fully in this life. St. Paul tells us that:

[E]ye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Cor 2:9)

The Catechism of Trent likewise speaks both of “the intensity of the happiness which the just enjoy in their celestial country” and of “its utter incomprehensibility to all but themselves alone.”

“The idea,” the catechism continues, “presents to the mind something too great, too exalted, to be expressed fully by a proper term.”

Hence:

[T]he happiness of heaven is expressed in Scripture by a variety of other words, such as the kingdom of God, of Christ, of heaven, paradise, the holy city, the new Jerusalem, my Father’s house; yet it is clear that none of these appellations is sufficient to convey an adequate idea of its greatness.

This is because:

The mind is incapable of comprehending or conceiving the greatness of this glory: it can be known only by its fruition, that is, by entering into the joy of the Lord, and thus satisfying fully the desires of the human heart.

Introducing the concept of the beatific vision, the Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges:

[I]t is so extraordinary a mode of perception that we cannot clearly understand either the fact or the manner of its possibility.^[2]

Nonetheless, even though we cannot fully comprehend this mystery, we can have true knowledge of it. In the verse following that quoted above, St. Paul states:

But to us God hath revealed them, by his Spirit. (1 Cor 2:10)

God has revealed certain truths about the joys of heaven to His Church. In this article, we will begin exploring the central mystery: the beatific vision.

This is the third part of a series on the “Four Last Things,” which are death, judgment, heaven, and hell. The first installment, on death, can be found here; the second installment, on judgment, can be found here.

The beatific vision

The Church teaches that the final end of man is to see God as He is for all eternity and that in this vision of the Most Holy Trinity we attain supreme happiness.

This sight of God is called the beatific vision.

It may help us to understand the concept of the beatific vision by contrasting it with the knowledge of God that we can attain in this life.

In our current state, we acquire knowledge about God through the things that He has made, as St. Paul explains in his letter to the Romans:

For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity. (Rm 1:20)

From consideration of creation, we can attain certain knowledge of the existence of God and of many truths about His attributes and His government of creation. This knowledge is reached through the exercise of our natural reason.

God has also revealed Himself to us by means of the supernatural revelation entrusted to His Church. This revelation includes mysteries beyond the full comprehension of our intellect, such as the dogmas of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation.

However, while these truths are made known to us by supernatural means, they are still made known to us through creatures. We receive them from the teaching office of the Church, not from our own direct sight of God. As St. Paul teaches:

How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent, as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things! (Rm 10:14-15)

But in heaven, our knowledge of God will be very different; we will know Him by sight, face to face, and as He is.

These two states of knowledge are acknowledged and contrasted by both St. Paul and St. John. In his first epistle, St. John writes:

Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is. (1 Jn 3:2)

And in his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes:

We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known. (1 Cor 13:12)

And in his second letter to that church, he teaches:

[W]hile we are in the body we are exiled from the Lord – for we walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Cor 5:6-7)

This is the sight of God already enjoyed by the holy angels, as revealed in these words of Our Lord:

See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. (Mt 18:10)

This sight of God is the beatific vision.

The beatific vision in the teaching of the Church

In the 12th article of the Apostles’ Creed, we profess our belief in “life everlasting.”

These words, teaches the Catechism of Trent:

[S]ignify not only that continuity of existence, to which the devils and the wicked are consigned, but also, that perpetuity of happiness which is to satisfy the desires of the blessed.

The “happiness of heaven consists of two things,” the catechism states, “to see God such as he is in his own nature and substance, and to be made like unto him.”

In 1336, in the Constitution Benedictus Deus, Pope Benedict XII defined the following about those souls who die in the state of grace and have been purified in purgatory (if needed):

[T]hese souls have seen and see the divine essence with an intuitive vision and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature by way of object of vision; rather the divine essence immediately manifests itself to them, plainly, clearly and openly, and in this vision they enjoy the divine essence.

Moreover, by this vision and enjoyment the souls of those who have already died are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest. Also the souls of those who will die in the future will see the same divine essence and will enjoy it before the general judgment. ^[3]

Likewise, the Council of Florence teaches that:

[T]he souls of those who have incurred no stain of sin whatsoever after baptism, as well as souls who after incurring the stain of sin have been cleansed whether in their bodies or outside their bodies [i.e. in purgatory] … are straightaway received into heaven and clearly behold the triune God as he is. ^[4]

Man finds his supreme happiness in this supernatural vision of God, and not in any created good. Many people are tempted to think of heaven as a more perfect version of this world. “We are apt to deceive ourselves,” John Henry Newman wrote, “and to consider heaven a place like this earth.”^[5] Some even believe that the joys of heaven consist primarily in the enjoyment of bodily pleasures.

And many who avoid this error nonetheless think that the joys of heaven consist primarily in the absence of evils – such as sin, suffering, and death – and the fulfilment of good natural desires, such as being reunited with loved ones we have lost.

These things are truly good, but it is not in them that our supreme and eternal happiness is found. In theological terminology, these joys are called accidental beatitudes, while our essential beatitude is found in the vision of God.

Our supreme happiness is found in God alone

Our Lord Jesus Christ expressed this truth in the prayer He addressed to His Father at the Last Supper:

Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (Jn 17:3)

Commenting on this verse, the Catechism of Trent states:

Solid happiness, which we may designate by the common appellation, essential, consists in the vision of God, and the enjoyment of His beauty who is the source and principle of all goodness and perfection.

This truth was known to the psalmist who sang:

For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth? For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.  (Ps 72:25-26)

The saints have ever longed for this vision of God. In the opening paragraph of his Confessions, St. Augustine famously wrote:

You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. ^[6]

And in The City of God, the same saint explained:

He is the fountain of our happiness, He the end of all our desires. Being attached to Him, or rather let me say, re-attached — for we had detached ourselves and lost hold of Him — being, I say, re-attached to Him, we tend towards Him by love, that we may rest in Him, and find our blessedness by attaining that end. For our good, about which philosophers have so keenly contended, is nothing else than to be united to God. ^[7]

St. Gregory Nazianzen taught:

God himself … is the highest crown of all intelligible things, to whom every desire is directed and fixed, and in no way does desire reach beyond him … For he is the ultimate of all things that can be desired, and when we attain him all searching will be at rest. ^[8]

And while meditating on this sublime truth, John Henry Newman wrote:

Thou alone art the food of my soul. Thou alone art inexhaustible, and ever offerest to me something new to know, something new to love. At the end of millions of years I shall know Thee so little, that I shall seem to myself only beginning. At the end of millions of years I shall find in Thee the same, or rather, greater sweetness than at first, and shall seem then only to be beginning to enjoy Thee: and so on for eternity I shall ever be a little child beginning to be taught the rudiments of Thy infinite Divine nature. For Thou art Thyself the seat and centre of all good, and the only substance in this universe of shadows, and the heaven in which blessed spirits live and rejoice. ^[9]

Supreme happiness is found in God, and in Him alone.

Why is God man’s supreme beatitude?

In the book of the Apocalypse, we read:

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. (Apoc 1:8) 

God is our first beginning and our last end. He created all things from nothing, He sustains all things in being, and He is the final end to which all creation is directed.

If this is so – and we know from both reason and revelation that it is – God must be the ultimate satisfaction of all our desires. ^[10] If we needed something other than God to be fully satisfied, there would still be something to attain beyond God, in which case He could not be our final end.

As He is our final end, all our desires must find their fulfilment in Him. Through the divine revelation entrusted to the Church, we know that this fulfilment will be found in the beatific vision – a supernatural vision beyond anything unassisted human nature could either desire or attain.

In theological terminology, God is said to be the sufficient and necessary object of our beatitude.

God is the sufficient object, because in possessing God, we possess everything needed for perfect happiness.

As the mid-20th century theologian Joseph F. Sagües, S.J., expresses it, God is the “supreme good” who contains “in himself … in an unlimited and excellent way … everything that can bring happiness to a man.”^[11]

God is the necessary object because without Him we cannot be truly happy. Sagües explains:

[S]ince the object of the human will is everything good, and the object of the intellect is all being, God, as the supreme good and the supreme being, is the object of those faculties and in fact the principal one. Therefore, he is the last object to such an extent that without him these faculties cannot be satisfied.^[12]

In other words, lesser goods can satisfy our intellect and will to some extent, but only God can satisfy our rational nature fully.  Therefore, only in the possession of God can we find our fulfilment and lasting beatitude.

Conclusions

In this article, we have seen that the Catholic Church teaches that the essential object of our eternal beatitude is God Himself. Those who die in the state of sanctifying grace will see Him as He is for all eternity, and in that supernatural vision find their supreme happiness. This state is called heaven.

In the next article, we will go deeper in our exploration of this sublime truth.