Thesis.
SECTION II: ON THE INVISIBILITY OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE
Thesis.
§ 124. God is invisible in Himself and by His nature. The consequence of incorporeality is invisibility. Because God is incorporeal and nonmaterial, therefore He is also invisible. Exod. 33:20: “Man will not see Me and live,” which must be understood not in the divided sense [in sensu diviso], as if one could see God with his corporeal eyes, though a man may meanwhile die, but in the connected sense [in sensu conjuncto]: “No living man is able to see Me.” 1 Tim. 1:17: “To the King of ages, invisible, be glory.” (See our commonplace [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3 (On the Nature of God)], § 76.) Justin quotes from Philemon: “Now tell me what sort we must consider God to be who sees all things and who Himself is not seen” (De monarch., p. 81). And from Orpheus: “No mortal views Him, but He Himself sees all” (p. 82). The same: “But I do not see him, for he is set nearby a cloud. For all mortal men have mortal maidens in their eyes but are weak to see Zeus, the guardian of all things.” In 
, bk. 1, c. 1, vol. 1, p. 669, Origen demonstrates with many arguments that God is invisible. The wiser heathen recognized this. Xenophon says that God, who rules this entire universe, is invisible (De dict. et fact. Socrat., bk. 4, p. 467, in the Greek; p. 342 in the Latin). Nevertheless we must distinguish (1) between physical and mental sight. God is said to be invisible with respect to the former but not the latter. (2) Between the state of this life and that of the life to come (1 Tim. 6:16 and Augustine, epistle 112).
§ 125. (I) The question arises: Do His appearances in the Old Testament conflict with the invisibility of God? We respond. Those appearances, which were preludes to His incarnation, were made not in His bare divinity but in the assumed, external form of a human, of a man, or of something else. Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 10, c. 13: “For as a sound that communicates an idea conceived in the silence of the mind is not the very thought itself, so also the form by which God, who is invisible in His own nature, is seen is not what He Himself is. Nevertheless He Himself used to be seen in the same physical form, just as that idea itself is heard in the sound of the voice. Nor were they ignorant that the invisible God could never be seen in corporeal form.” In Contra Maxim., bk. 3, c. 26, he proves this in detail: “Whenever it wished, the Divinity appeared to the eyes of mortals not through its own substance, in which it is invisible and immutable, but through a creature subject to itself.” Therefore we are compelled by no necessity to accept Alcuin’s opinion that favors the Photinians. In it he claims: “Those appearances that are read to have been made to the fathers in the Old Testament took place through the administration of the angels” (De Trinit., bk. 2, c. 17). This he tries to prove in vain from a comparison of Exodus 3 and Acts 7. Augustine, De Trinit., bk. 2, c. 17: “It is overly rash to say that God the Father never appeared to the patriarchs or prophets through some visible forms.”
§ 126. (II) The question arises: Will the blessed see God clearly and intuitively in eternal life? The Armenians believe that they will not see God immediately, but instead a radiance emanating from the divine essence. Contrary witness is given by: (1) Statements of Scripture: Matt. 5:8; 18:[10]; 1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2. (2) Rational arguments. Thomas gives two arguments in [ST,] part 1, q. 12, art. 1: [a] The blessedness of man consists in the clear vision of God. However, man is able to reach his blessedness for which he was created. [b] Man naturally wishes to see God, for now that he has seen creatures, he wants to see their Creator. Therefore that desire is not in vain. Meanwhile, we must distinguish between the proportion of quantity and of relation [habitudo], which is between the intellect and the intelligible.
§ 127. (III) The question arises: Will the blessed see the essence of God with eyes that are corporeal yet glorified? Vorstius responds affirmatively on p. 237 (though he contradicts himself on p. 199: “The Spirit is not perceptible to the external senses”). Augustine leaves the matter in doubt (De civ. Dei, bk. 22, c. 29; and in his epistle to Paulina). When Schmalz looks at this, he writes: “Theologians are not yet agreed whether we can see the essence of God in heaven” (Exam. 157 errorum, error 129, p. 35). Most Scholastics, as well as the Jesuits, deny it precisely (part 4, Sent., dist. 49). Thomas says that “it involves a contradiction to see God with a corporeal eye; therefore that cannot be done, even with absolute power” ([ST,] part 1, q. 12, art. 3). In Disp. 1, q. 13, point 8, Valencia relies on these rational arguments: (1) No spirit falls under the sense of the body. God is a spirit. (2) The infinite cannot be comprehended by a finite, physical sense. God is infinite. (3) No power can be borne outside its own object. The object of corporeal sight, however, is something visible and corporeal. (4) The object of seeing is color. Aristotle, De anim., bk. 2, text. 66: “It is the extremeness to be seen in a limited body or the quality stemming from bright and dark things gathered together.” But color does not befit God because He is not corporeal. In class. 1, Loc., c. 4, § 2, Martyr also embraces the opinion of the Scholastics. He argues: “Those who believe that the blessed see the essence of God are mistaken. Although our eyes will be strengthened when we are in our fatherland, nevertheless they will continue to be eyes, and they will be corporeal eyes. Therefore they will not exceed the genus and breadth of their objects.” To the statements of Scripture “We shall see God face-to-face” (1 Cor. 13:12) and “We shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2), he answers: “We must take these words to mean mental vision because the soul also has its own face, just as angels see the face of God (Matt. 18:10), and we shall be like them in eternal life (Matt. 22:13).” One could prove this with these arguments: (a) Scripture is speaking about that seeing which comes after faith (1 Cor. 13:12). But the seeing that comes after faith is intellectual. (b) It is of the same kind in angels and blessed souls. But this is intellectual. (c) People who depart from this life attain it immediately. (Cf. Becanus, Theol., p. 1, c. 9, q. 6.)
We take the middle road. It has been revealed in Scripture that the blessed will see God in eternal life, but the manner of that divine seeing—whether it will be only mental or both mental and corporeal—is scarcely found defined. As a result, we cannot define precisely nor urge peevishly that the essence of God will be seen with corporeal eyes. 1 Cor. 2:9: “Eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man.” But neither should we deny stubbornly that through the power of God the eyes of the blessed can be illumined and sharpened in this way to see the essence of God. For we should by no means limit and bind the infinite power of God because of corporeal reasonings taken from the common, ordinary course of nature. (See Scaliger, Exerc., 368, sect. 9.) The statements of Scripture are quite emphatic: [1 Cor. 13:12]: “We shall see Him as He is, now in a mirror in a dark manner, but then we shall see Him face-to-face.” 1 Cor. 15:28: “God will be all in all.” It must be denied that that supreme blessedness consisting of the vision of God will not be seen with glorified eyes. God is no less infinitely distant from the created intellect than He is from corporeal sight. But the created intellect can be elevated to recognize God intuitively. Therefore corporeal sight, too, can be elevated to see Him.
The Scholastics object that in proportion of object and power God is farther from corporeal sight than from the created intellect, because God is seen outside the entire breadth of object, but He is not outside the adequate object of the created intelligence. We respond. God can provide more than we can understand. If He can preserve His infinity yet elevate the intellect to an intuitive recognition of Him, surely He can preserve His invisibility and elevate the glorified eye to see Him clearly.
Practical use.
§ 128. With grateful heart and mind, let us acknowledge that the invisible God comes forth from the secret throne of His majesty and reveals Himself not only in the creation of the world (Rom. 1:20) but also and especially in the sending of His Son (John 1:18) and in the preaching of the Word. With reference to His revelation in the creation of the world, Ambrose speaks as follows, commentary on Romans 1: “So that God, who is by nature invisible, could be known even to visible creatures, He performed a work that manifested the Workman in its visibility.” With reference to His revelation in the sending of His Son, the Savior Himself speaks: “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 4, c. 4, p. 241: “The recognition of the Father is the manifestation of the Son. The Father of the Son is invisible; the Son of the Father is visible.” The Father manifests Himself in the Son, and the Son manifests Himself in the Word. As many as embrace this in true faith “see the light in the light of God” (Ps. 36:[9]), and at some time, they will see God face-to-face in eternal life. They will see and love Him; they will love and praise Him forever.