The beatific vision is a subject of considerable importance both in the Christian Scriptures and in the history of Christian dogmatics. In it, humans experience and see the perfect immaterial God, which represents the final end for the saints. However, this doctrine has received less attention in the contemporary theological literature, arguably, due in part to the growing trend toward materialism and the sole emphasis on bodily resurrection in Reformed eschatology. As a piece of retrieval by drawing from the Scriptures, (...) Medieval Christianity, and Reformed Christianity, we motivate a case for the Reformed emphasis on the immaterial and intellectual aspects of human personal eschatology and offer some constructive thoughts on how to link it to the contemporary emphasis of the body. We draw a link between the soul and the body in the vision with the help of Christology as reflected in the theology of John Calvin, and, to a greater extent, the theology of both John Owen and Jonathan Edwards. (shrink)

Modern Christians often polarize the otherwise inseparable realities of academic reading and personal reading of Scripture. While generally not declared outright, many Christians consider the two methods discontinuous. This article deems this bifurcation unnecessary and dangerous to the spiritual formation of individuals and the spiritual health of the church. It examines Bonaventure's insightful use of the quadriga in order to contribute to today's discussion of spiritual reading of Scripture. The article shall argue that Bonaventure's quadrigal method ought to be retrieved (...) today for the spiritual health of scholarship and the church. This thesis will be attained organically. It will first survey his proposed method of interpretation in his Breviloquium and Commentary on the Gospel of Luke; then, it will appeal to scriptural and pastoral support to show that his method is a helpful route for retrieval. (shrink)

What may seem astonishing is the near dismissal of the beatific vision doctrine in the last 50+ years of biblical and theological scholarship in contrast to the emphasis given to it throughout church history. The state of theological scholarship is changing. In what follows, we set forth a short survey of a theology of the beatific vision, while also introducing the rest of the volume on the beatific vision and theosis, of which we take to have an intimate and overlapping (...) relationship. The editorial article has four parts: it begins by (1) introducing some of the relevant biblical material on the vision, proceeding to (2) develop a theological interpretation of those passages, and then (3) offer a short historical survey of the doctrine, focusing on the relevant medieval and Reformed developments. It finally (4) introduces the articles of the issue. (shrink)