Clarification on "Beautific Vision"

[Soulewolf]

I guess i have a few questions about Beautific Vision.

from what i read on the “Personal Experience Vs. Scripture” thread, Beautific vision seems to be a trait attributed to the saints and are what helped to establish Dogma in the church.

If this is true, what about those who experienced these kinds of things but find that mainstream interpretation is too black and white to agree with their experience?

Is their divine experience somehow held in less of a standard than the saints? or is it just as authoritative?

What about “Beautific Vision” before Jesus Christ, such as Lao Tzu, or the Buddha?

Am i misinterpreting the term? if so, could someone post a more concrete definition?

This would be a lot of help.

 

[DulcisAncilla]

Does “beautific vision” differ from “beatific vision,” i.e. a visual perception of God? I am not familiar with the first term.

 

[Soulewolf]

Does “beautific vision” differ from “beatific vision,” i.e. a visual perception of God? I am not familiar with the first term.

well now i feel dumb for misspelling the term. : /

though i find it strange no one has corrected me yet shrugs

 

[fhansen]

There is no “beautific vision” in Christianity. There is only the Beatific Vision, which is the end purpose of man: to see God “face to face” in the next life. I brought up the matter in that other thread as an example of the ultimate mystical experience, and to mention that God grants glimpses of that vision to some in the here and now as well as other experiences for His purposes.

But the BV itself is a permanent state, the final direct experience of God for created beings. “Beatific” is related to the word beatitude, meaning blessedness, or more precisely,.perfect happiness. The vision of God is sheer compromised happiness for man.

 

[scottm]

What then is the word for the experiences of the Apostles John and Paul? And the Russian Saint Saraphim of Sarov?

 

[fhansen]

What then is the word for the experiences of the Apostles John and Paul? And the Russian Saint Saraphim of Sarov?

Well, God can grant and orchestrate any kind of experience He wants to people for whatever purpose He has in mind. They’re all what the Church calls “mystical experiences” which sounds sort of archaic or magical but is simply the term long used for an experience of the supernatural order granted by God.

 

[GEddie]

The “BEATIFIC VISION” as I understand the term, is not a mystical experience that human beings may have during their life; but rather the full experience of GOD that a human being can receive only in Heaven, and therefore after death. So no one can experience it while living earthly life.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

A certain participation of Happiness can be had in this life: but perfect and true Happiness cannot be had in this life.newadvent.org/summa/2005.htm#article3

1 John 3:2 …“We know, that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him: because we shall see Him as He is”.

1 Corinthians 13:12 “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”.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

We define that the souls of all the saints in heaven have seen and do see the Divine Essence by direct intuition and face to face [visione intuitivâ et etiam faciali], in such wise that nothing created intervenes as an object of vision, but the Divine Essence presents itself to their immediate gaze, unveiled, clearly and openly; moreover, that in this vision they enjoy the Divine Essence, and that, in virtue of this vision and this enjoyment, they are truly blessed and possess eternal life and eternal rest"

newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm#III

The human intellect works from abstraction of the senses gaining knowledge by effort. In contemplation we seek the infused spiritual knowledge from the source of knowledge and truth, God. In the beatific vision we shall, without any medium whatsoever, no thought, no idea, no created agent, know God to the degree which He draws us into that vision of Him. This is our true happiness.

Hence it must be absolutely granted that the blessed see the essence of God.

newadvent.org/summa/1012.htm