202. How nature aids contemplation
202. HOW NATURE AIDS CONTEMPLATION
Are art and science compatible with the contemplative life, or even part of it? Or do they too “weigh the mind down to sensible objects” and interfere with it?
That which belongs principally to the contemplative life is the contemplation of divine truth. . . . This contemplation will be perfect in the life to come, when we shall see God face to face, wherefore it will make us perfectly happy; whereas now the contemplation of divine truth is. . . through a glass and in a dark manner (1 Cor 13:12). Hence it bestows on us a certain inchoate beatitude, which begins now and will be continued in the life to come (II-II,180,4). . . .
The highest degree of contemplation in the present life is that which Paul had in rapture, whereby he was in a middle state between the present life and the life to come (II-II,180,5). (See 2 Cor 12:1-4.)
Since, however, God’s effects show us the way to the contemplation of God Himself, according to Romans 1:20, The invisible things of God . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, it follows that the contemplation of the divine effects also belongs to the contemplative life, inasmuch as man is guided thereby to the knowledge of God (II-II,180,4).
There are three degrees of contemplation. The highest, most complete degree never happens in this life, even to the greatest mystic, but only in Heaven, where we see God as He truly is, “face to face”.
(1) “Face to face” means “person to person”. The divine nature has no physical face. However, we will see Christ literally and physically face to face, since His human nature is now eternally united to His divine nature.
(2) A middle state, halfway between natural contemplation and Heavenly contemplation, is the supernatural gift of “rapture”, or ecstasy, in which we are literally taken out of ourselves (out of all self-consciousness and out of the natural powers of our minds as well as our bodies) by divine miracle.
There are many remote prefigurings and suggestions of this rapture and ecstasy in many little ways in which we find ourselves wholly self-forgetful, even now. Great natural beauty, art or music, or the beauty of human love can provoke this. St. Thomas would probably classify these under the third and lowest form of contemplation rather than under the “middle state” of “rapture”, since they rest on natural and material things; but they are remote prefigurings of Heavenly contemplation, so we might call them a middle state between what he calls the “middle state” and the lowest, commonest state.
Such experiences are never attained by deliberate effort (we have to be “surprised”), and they are always brief, all too brief, and suggestive of much, much more. They are like a few tiny drops of a delicious appetizer or apertif to a great meal that we are waiting for. They make us hungrier than ever for the meal, and that is one of the purposes God has in mind in giving us these gifts.
The best examples of this are moral and religious: when we do a deed of great love and sacrifice, sometimes suddenly or surprisingly; or when we give ourselves up entirely to God, heart and soul and mind and strength, during prayer or when participating in the sacraments. Needless to say, even these happen only by divine grace, never by human strength, planning, or control.
(3) The third, lowest, commonest, and most natural mode of contemplation is the understanding of something of God through His creatures—any of His creatures. People who are not “contemplatives” in their state of life (e.g., monks) can do this kind of contemplation too, e.g., when contemplating the beauty and order in nature or the goodness in acts of human charity, or in looking—along rather than just looking—at religious symbols (like icons) or sacraments to the God they symbolize or sacramentalize.