Episode 106: Interview with Dr. Hans Boersma

Dr. Boersma of the Nashatoah House comes on the show to talk about his book Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition. In the episode, Dr. Boersma explores Christian Platonism (if that is the right term), Sacramental Theology, and the Creator-Creation Distinction. It was a pleasure to have Dr. Boersma on and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Timestamps:

3:00- Christian Platonism

15:14- Christological Vision

34:50- Sacramental Outlook

39:51- Creator/Creature Distinction

Episode Transcription

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim with me this week is Hans Boersma. Dr. Boersma wrote a book recently called seeing God the beatific vision and Christian tradition with Edmonds press that was released in 2018. It was actually a book that he wrote while a professor at the at St. Louis University in the Danforth center. So I got to know Dr. Bergsma a little bit in my graduate program, and he was kind enough to let me interview him for an hour about several different things, including Christian Platonism what it means to read the scriptures sacramentally. And we did a little bit of discussion of Gregory Palamas and St. Augustine and others in the Christian tradition and how they understood the Creator creation distinction. This podcast was actually recorded a month or two ago, it has been a difficult few months in my own life. And so I have not been able to release this until now. So my apologies to Dr. Bergsma. And to our audience. I have a few other guests that I would like to interview in the near future. And hopefully I get to those soon as our semester is coming to a close at the places where I'm currently adjunct ting so thank you for listening and thank you, especially to Dr. Bergsma for giving me his time and in this interview, so thank you for listening. And please rate us and review us on iTunes and we hope to have some new episodes out for you soon. This week on the history of Christian theology. We have Dr. Hans Bergsma, who's the Chair of the Order of St. Benedict servants of Christ endowed professorship and ascetical theology. So just a small title at the National toa house, a Anglo Catholic seven Seminary in Wisconsin, but the main subject of our conversation today will be his recent book, seeing God the beatific vision in Christian tradition. And I think it also is won the award for the theology and ethics Book of the Year from Christianity today, and 2019. And that's with Urban's press. I actually got the book as a Christmas gift last year. And so I have been enjoying it for some time. So I'm very excited to have Dr. Bergsma on today to talk with us a little bit more about the writing of this work. So Dr. Bergsma, thank you so much for coming on. No, thank you for having me, Chad. It's a privilege. Well, we'll just hop right in. So I've written up a few questions that I've sent to Dr. Bergsma. And so I'm just going to kind of start with some of those. The first one is a phrase which comes up frequently in seeing God is the phrase Christian Platonism. So on our podcast, we've mentioned this briefly a little bit in the podcast that we did with Philip carry on the meaning of Protestant theology. And in a few other places, we've talked about Platonism broadly, but maybe, Dr. Boersma could give us a little bit more background on what is Christian Platonism? And why is this important for Christians to consider or welcome as they as an understanding of their own sort of theological tradition?

Hans Boersma 3:24

Yeah, thank you for that question, Jack. It's difficult for us today, perhaps to imagine, but through most of the history of the church, Christian Platonism, as we now call it, was more or less the commonly accepted outlook on life. So, whereas today, perhaps we may scratch behind the ear, when we hear that somebody is a Christian Platanus that would not have been the case for much of the history of the church. Christian theology is essentially unthinkable without Christian Platonism. And the main that's not to say that's not to say and I should immediately qualify these that's not to say that Christians are primarily Platanus. They're first and foremost, Christians, of course, I actually just last night was listening to an interview with Andrew Louth. I've got an interview a presentation that he did, rather, at King's College, on Christian Platonism. And although he's very much in tune with what Christian Platonism stands for, Andrew Laos made the point that he actually doesn't like the term Christian Platonism. And the reason for it is that Platonism is the noun. And Christian is simply the adjective that qualifies the noun. And strictly speaking, therefore, the term Christian Platonism might seem to give the impression that we're first and foremost Platanus and that were Christian second. That fairly obviously cannot or at least, ought not to be the case. As a Christian can never be straightforwardly appointments for a variety of reasons. But on number of points Platonism is incompatible with the Christian faith. That's perhaps the first and important caveat that I should make. That said, though, I think it is fair to say that in much of the history of Christian thought, the reason why important aspects of the Platonic tradition were of interest and were appealing to Christian theologians is that the Platonic tradition had a sense that heavenly and earthly things were closely connected, that is to say, earthly realities were seen not simply as existing by themselves, as having their own being as having their own, perhaps true good and beautiful aspects. Rather, created things were seen as participating in what you might call capital B being or capital T, truth, capital, G, goodness. So, so creative things exist by way of derivation, you could say or exist by way of participation, they participate. And Christians will put it this way they participate by sharing in the eternal word of God. And that link between heaven and earth is something that we've lost in modernity, where we've, quote unquote, pushed God upstairs. And where we just get on with our lives in a purely natural world here below. To my mind, that seems like a like a drastic and also also fatal turn to make. And Krishna Platonism. Rightly, I think reminds us that there is more to the things that we see around us, then we can access with the with the census with the with our sensorium.

Charles Kim 7:10

Yeah, that's very helpful. And that just made me think that one of the sort of points of conversation in the book is, is how exactly do we get to this place where we've made this disconnect between the God above and the earth below. And one of the purchase persons in that conversation is Augustine, there's a little bit of a question about whether or not he is should be understood as sort of maybe an early precursor to this dissociation, or in fact, in your reading, and then maybe also in father McCone is reading who I studied with that, actually Agustin would understand that these are more connected that actually Augustine is much closer to what what you describe as kind of a Christian Platonism.

Hans Boersma 7:55

Yes. Yeah. In my book, I quote father McCone, and I love his work on St. Augustine. I think father McCone is right, to say it's a claim to make the claim that Augustine believed that in some ways, already today. We have experiences through which we can share in and through which we can anticipate our eternal destiny of the beatific vision or the vision of God. So we have some sort of privilege already today in contemplative experiences. And Augustine, Augustine, make makes the point quite clearly several times in his confessions, that he himself has had those experiences. So that already in this life, there is a sacramental deposit, you could almost say, of eternity. Now, Now that said, I understand why some people might say yes, but isn't isn't isn't Agustin a precursor of modernity? And doesn't he keep this world and the next separate from one another? And doesn't he keep this world and the world above separate from one another? It may not be helpful for our interview to go through the reasons that people put down for that, but, but I understand why they why they might say that, but if you if you put everything together. It seems to me, Augustine was a Christian Platanus. And that implied a strong reliance on Plotinus. And that in turn, implied also, I think, a participatory outlook on life. Yeah.

Charles Kim 9:41

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think one of the you mentioned this a little bit in your book and as does McKone when he talks about deification and participation, yeah, that actually Augustine is much more like the Greek fathers than is sometimes understood. He sort of seems like he's on an island on his own, but really his His outlook as as it is shaped by by Platonists and Plato and these others that is actually much closer. Not that he doesn't he makes all the same moves. He certainly doesn't. But but you might think that there's more alike than there is different.

Hans Boersma 10:13

That's a good way of putting it. I think. The theme of deification that you mentioned, is huge for St. For St. Augustine. And that theme is predicated, is grounded in an overall overall understanding of creation as in some way participating already in heavenly realities. And Agustin with his, for example, in its early days, on divine ideas. His Reliance there on Plato, and on Plato's divine ideas is obvious. And although he becomes increasingly Christological, and increasingly biblical as he as he moves along, St. Augustine never never repudiates that that earlier, plate nest or pertanian mindset as

Charles Kim 11:08

well to take a little bit of a step back. So the title of your book is seeing God the beatific vision and Christian tradition. So could you tell us a little bit what what exactly is the beatific vision? And why have some recent or more modern theologians been skeptical of using this kind of language of vision,

Hans Boersma 11:31

the Beatific Vision is is the vision of God in the eschaton, or in the Hereafter. So the term beatific comes from beatitudes Blessed are happy. So it is a vision of the blessing of the BRT of those who are happy. And it is a vision also that renders us happy, that renders us bless it. So when we, when we're with God, who himself is happiness, who himself is blessedness, he's the definition or the instantiation, whatever word you want to want to use, of happiness of blessedness. When when we when we are eternally with God, eternally with happiness, when we join his happiness, in union with God in the Hereafter, then that renders us truly happy, in as much as finite creatures can share in that happiness of God. That I think has been the outlook, the eschatological outlook of the church through the centuries, I'm not saying anything new or this. It's pretty, pretty, pretty standard and humdrum articulation of something that is absolutely astounding, theologically. Now, in modernity, because the participatory understanding of reality, has largely been displaced with one in which Heaven and Earth are separate from one another, which I typically would call a nominalist. Outlook on reality, in this nominalist are separate understanding of heaven and earth. It's hard for us it has become hard for us to treat God as the ultimate aim of everything that we go through here in this life. And so when when modern Christians think of the question, what is the hereafter going to be like? Typically, what we're almost immediately inclined to do is say, well, all the things that we enjoy here and now are going to be present also then and they're just better, just more of them just more beautiful, just greater, just more intense, whatever, but the same, same things plural. And the the earlier tradition would have said, well, your your desires for these for this worldly things for temporal things, doesn't doesn't run deep enough. You need to deepen your desires. For for only, only God Himself, can truly satisfy our deepest desires. And so St. Augustine, famously right in the very beginning of his confessions, our hearts are restless until they rest in the and it seems to me that that emphasis on contemplation, that emphasis on contemplation of God, that is, that emphasis on a theocentric understanding of God focused understanding of the Hereafter, is something that we've become increasingly impatient with, also in modern theology, and my book is meant in part as a correction to that and is meant In part, as a way of saying, look at what the tradition has done. The tradition has pointed us to God himself, and has insisted that nothing less than God can truly make us happy.

Charles Kim 15:10

Yeah, that's very good. Well, in one of the parts that your work seeks to sort of maybe add, I guess, or not, maybe not add, but sort of draw out in the tradition is the place of Christ in that beatific vision, right. So there's something about like, you call it a theocentric vision, but how do we understand this as Christological? And I think that's one of the important contributions that you make in your work is to sort of draw, draw that back into the center, how this is a Christological vision. You care to comment on that? Or why why is this one been sort of somewhat relegated but but now drawn back into the center?

Hans Boersma 15:53

Yes, it's true that one of the one of the points that I tried to make in the book is that we should not separate the vision of Christ, from the vision of God. And one of the key verses, I suppose, in my constructive part of the book, is John 14, verse nine, where Jesus says, to fill up, he who has seen Me, as seen the Father, and I think implicit in Jesus comment to Philip is that there is not something behind God's self revelation in Jesus Christ. That is that that is perhaps going to come to us, at some later point in time or in the eschaton. When God reveals Himself in Jesus Christ, He reveals Himself in Jesus Christ, that is to say, God's revelation is true, is dependable, and, and and the sacrament truly makes the reality present. So God's Christ being the sacrament, the Incarnation, being the sacrament, and God him showing himself truly, in that or sacrament, in that basic sacrament of Jesus Christ. So in the Hereafter, it seems to me, when we see God face to face, we see him in Jesus Christ. The incarnation is not not a temporary thing. It's an eternal thing. And we will see God in Christ, I think, also in the hereafter. Now, we will see, we will see God in a much more glorious way, in an intensity that we cannot possibly even begin to imagine today. But it is it is Jesus Christ all the same. And many, as one of the things that struck me as I was, as I was doing the research for this book, is that many of the theologians of the tradition make this very same point, whether it's St. Gregory of Nyssa, talking about Moses going up the mountain in the life of Moses, and talking about the tabernacle, that that he that, that Moses sees there. And recognizing then that the tabernacle is Jesus Christ himself. So whether it's Greg missa, whether it's Simeon the theologian, the New Theologian, or Gregory Palamas, Bonaventure, Jonathan Edwards. A number of periods and theologians, especially, they all they all highlight this Christological element. Now, there's a bit of a polemical aspect as opposed to this emphasis. And that is that, I think, that in St. Thomas Aquinas, with his focus on the essence of God, as something that we don't have access to today, but that we will attain to in the hereafter seems to me a somewhat of a, of a lesser emphasis on Christology when it comes to the doctrine of the beatific vision. And of course, Thomas Aquinas is hugely influential in later Western tradition. So I must confess that I prefer the earlier Eastern tradition on this and also some elements of the later Protestant tradition.

Charles Kim 19:44

Yeah, and that might be something like the palate might distinction between essences and energies or other ways of conceiving, what does it mean to see is that kind of the what you're referring to there?

Hans Boersma 19:56

Kind of Yes. It thinks get it little technical at this point. But yeah, let me put it this way, I'm very sympathetic to what Paula Mars and other eastern theologians drawing on the church fathers do with the essence energies distinction. And, and when when, when they make the distinction, they make the point that we have access, quote, unquote, to the energies of God, that is to say, the way that God acts or operates in the world. But the essence of God is something that is out of reach today. And that will remain out of reach also in the hereafter. Now, I don't quite take the same approach in the book, I'm very sympathetic to this. And and I love the underlying idea of it, namely, that we can never comprehend God Himself. And by the way, as an aside, it's not like Thomas Aquinas has no understanding of that at all. But, but I appreciate what what what polymers does there, and what the earlier theologians tried to do as well. It's the reason why I don't use the distinction between essence and energies myself, is that Christological emphasis that I mentioned earlier, when I said, when God reveals Himself, He truly reveals himself, for the Christ is a true revelation of God. It's not like there's an essence behind God's self revelation in Jesus Christ, it seems to me. And therefore, I would much prefer a much prefer I would, I think it's perhaps better to say that, when God reveals Himself in Jesus Christ, He reveals His essence to us. Now, that essence, contains an infinite depth. And the essence of God's love is infinite. And we only have a very tiny grasp of it in a human manner. But I'm apprehensive of dividing up as it were. And I want to be careful what I say, but with accusation, quote, unquote, apprehensive of, of making the sharp distinction between essence and energies. The distinction that polymers makes safeguards to the transit, the transcendence of God, to be sure, but it safeguards it only to the extent that it, it is a real distinction in God. And, yeah, I'm not entirely comfortable with it. But again, the underlying the underlying conviction, namely, that the God always is transcendent to us that the infinite God is always and always remains behind beyond us, and always remains greater than us. That's deeply embedded within the Eastern tradition, deeply embedded in Parliament society. And it's something for which I think we should be grateful.

Charles Kim 23:25

Well, and maybe one way to draw on the sort of the modern approaches that you also mentioned, would be to say that there are different metaphors that that one can use for talking about how God reveals God's self. Whether you know, most of the time we focused on vision so far in this conversation is that is the emphasis on your book. But you you do mention early in the book that that that you could also think of hearing, both Azhar uses the notion of a river of water of flowing. You know, and I, as I've mentioned before, we I was very interested in Dr. Philip Kerry's work on the meaning of Protestant theology, where he takes Luthers emphasis on God revealing Christ as the word and that being spoken. And so he has this emphasis on the hearing that that he thinks is very important in and maybe even the way he calls it the great contribution that Protestants have made to the great tradition. So why is in your your mind and your book is arguing that vision is a better way to conceive of this. Thinking about eschatology and thinking about Revelation, its vision is the primary metaphor. So why would why would one opt for vision maybe over and against or at least, and maybe downplay hearing? And I'll reply to that.

Hans Boersma 24:53

Well, I would not want to be understood as downplaying hearing The theme is good. It's just that the theme of the Word, and the theme of hearing of obedience is huge in Scripture. So, so the element of the word and the sense of hearing chorus that corresponds to it, and the sense of obedience that corresponds to it. All of that is an important constellation of themes throughout Scripture, I think. And I think it is true that that Protestant theology has, has emphasized that as come to a renewed appreciation slash emphasis on that theme. However, this, the, the reason why God gives us His Word, His, his, his his command, is to bring us into eternal fellowship with Him. The scriptures, I often say, are a sacrament. And that communion with God is the reality, the race. So, St. Augustine makes the point that the purpose of reading scripture of hearing is, is that we might love, the endpoint is love of God and love neighbor. And if we perfectly love, we don't need the Bible. Augustine is entirely correct, I think, in the Hereafter, they will be no sacraments. There'll be no priests, there'll be no Bible, not because these are bad things. And the Christian tradition makes clear that I think that hearing the word God's commandments are very important. But they have their aim in the heavenly reality itself, that is to say they have their aim in the union between God and us. Something that that the theme of command or a word doesn't do is it does not articulate. The moment of union itself, a word is spoken to us from above by one who has authority in itself. While that's entirely appropriate, it does not yet convey the point of union that we reach when we obey that word, and when will follow that word. And for that, I think we need different metaphors. And and the one that I think is most prominent scripture is is is that a vision and also the one that is most prominent in tradition, there's one one additional comment that I that I should maybe make here. And that is, while it's true that the Protestant Reformation strongly emphasize the word, it is less than accurate to say that the earlier tradition undervalued it. When you when you read, the Church Fathers and medieval theologians, it quickly becomes clear that these were Bible centered folk. I'm working right now on the theme of Lectio Divina. And you can but read these earlier theologians, whether it's John Kassian, or later, she or Saint Victor, it really doesn't matter. They were, they were saturated with scripture in a way that we moderns simply are not. So the easy caricatures of the Middle Ages or of the patristic era as shorn of any sort of biblical biblical foundation or biblical shaping is, is one that we should read ourselves off as quickly as we can.

Charles Kim 29:22

That's very helpful. It's something I also found the first time I read the confessions. I just remember being struck by how the footnotes had so many references to Scripture, it felt like you know, his language was just him, pasting together quotes from scripture, like, you know, he couldn't speak one sentence without some sort of brief illusion or reflection on Scripture. And I was, I was raised in a Southern Baptist home and so you know, we were taught to memorize scripture, and all I could think was man he knows scripture better than I do. And I feel like you know, I feel like I'm taught it all the time.

Hans Boersma 29:58

Yes. And Paul, by Memory indeed. Right?

Charles Kim 30:01

That's right. That's right. Well, to kind of break up the conversation a little I, one question I'm beginning to ask my guests is, what is one position you hold or belief which you hold to be true, that has changed in your life. And this is intended to be open ended? It doesn't have to be something extremely serious. But just what's what's one way as you've studied things that you've sort of changed your mind on or realize that, wow, I've got I've got to rethink this. And like I say, it's intended to be open ended. So

Hans Boersma 30:38

well to leave us to change I suppose. Gregory of Nyssa makes the point that what God is unchanging, immutable, we are immutable, we are changing. And for Gregory, that's a good thing, because it allows us to grow more deeply into the life of God. So mutability for creatures is a good thing. And I've I have changed my mind, on a number of things over the years. I suppose that the most significant change came early on in my teaching career. I grew up as a reformed theologian, studied a Puritan theologian for my doctoral dissertation, which Baxter is justification. And I had gone to seminary in reformed seminary and learn to read the scriptures, through what typically was called a redemptive historical method. And with that, what was meant by that is we need we need to read the scriptures, in terms of their original context, historically. And at the climax of that story, at the climax is Jesus Christ. So we read the entire scriptures, always with a view to the coming of Jesus Christ, always forward looking to Him. So it's quite a historical and grammatically grounded way of reading the scriptures. That's how I grew up. And that's that's what I what was reinforced during my seminary studies. There's lots in that, that I deeply value appreciate, and I'm grateful for. But what revolutionized my my approach to reading scripture is reading on readerly, Buck, the 20th century Jesuit. It was a little essay of his, I think it's called allegory and topology, something like that. And when I started reading, I read the book and later on, read more about the to the buck. books such as scripture in the tradition, medieval exegesis, and so on. I came to I came to an understanding of the Church Fathers, modes of reading scripture as not being arbitrary, not being weird or strange, but it's actually a way of foregrounding Christ as the main contents of all of Scripture. And that, to me, was an eye opener. It allowed me to read father's and medieval theologians with much less prejudice. And I would have done before that, not that I knew the church fathers or medieval theologians well before that, but this world now opened itself up to me I could enter into it. And, and, and I could, I could love what I what I what I read in in synagogues, then I could love what I read in Iran as I could love what I read in Gregory MySite cetera. Why? Because while history is important, and while I continued to find historical exegesis, an important aspect of interpretation, I came to recognize that history only, or doing historical historical analysis is only the beginning step is only the first step of a much deeper and much lengthier engagement with scripture. Christological and an ecclesial engagement with scripture, and that? Yeah, that that, to me was a that was a real eye opener, and has shaped not just my way of reading scripture, but it has shaped also, my my broader metaphysic my understanding of how the world as a whole, quote, unquote, hangs together, whether God has made it

Charles Kim 34:50

Yeah, and I guess one way to describe a lot of that would be the importance of the Sacramento men race distinction, right? And that's a focus of a lot of Your other works. And you've mentioned it briefly. But, you know, how do you maybe just give us a Could you give us a brief explanation of what is a sacramental outlook? Because it seems like that may be one other way to talk about some of the things that you've just stated.

Hans Boersma 35:18

Yes, thank you for that. So I'll read a new book, made the point that for the church fathers, the scriptures, as they call it, and without they meant, primarily the Old Testament, as we now call it, the scriptures were a sacramentum. They were a sacrament, an outward outward garment, as it were. And hidden within the sacramentum was was was the content of of Christ Himself, the race, the reality and sacramentum and race, the Old Testament sacrament and then the New Testament reality. And and the loopback argued that for the Church Fathers, that raise that reality is not something that simply comes later, although chronologically historically speaking, obviously it does. But that race, that reality of Christ, was always already present within the, the scriptures of the Old Testament themselves. So when we read the Old Testament, in order to look there for Christ, we're not imposing Christ in an arbitrary fashion, on to the Scriptures. Now we're finding him there. And Rene is already in the late second century, uses the imagery of digging up the treasure, Treasury, and he's thinking here of Matthew chapter 13, where somebody sells everything he asked for the sake of, of having that plot of ground, where you can dig up the treasure, and send her nails already makes a point that our job, as Bible readers, is to take the stick, shovel in hand, and dig up the scriptures in order to find Christ there to find him there, because he's already there. Now, that that notion that Scripture is, is is sacramentally, constituted, as it were, is something that, according to Luboc, fit within a broader sacramental understanding of reality as a whole. So he can apply it not just to biblical interpretation, but to the understanding of the cosmos as a whole. So that creative things are sacraments sacramental again, in which Christ is present in some manner, really present in some manner, or to put it the other way around, created, created things participate in the heavenly reality of the terminal Word of God. So, so the the notion of sacramentality is not just a hermeneutical hermeneutical thing it is, it is also a cosmic thing. And it has something it's something also about the the pilgrimage, the journey, that as Christians, we undertake, it is, it is through our daily decision making, choosing between good and evil, that we come to participate, or not more profoundly in Jesus Christ. And so, our virtues, small v virtues, participate, to varying degrees, in Christ himself. So there are two there are external, external acts, actions, small v virtues, that participate as it were, or, or you could also say, the small small v virtues, these actions are things in which Christ makes himself present. So that whatever it is, that we do that is that is morally upright or that is good or that is beautiful. Is is is, is a participate in some small way in Jesus Christ. So the whole notion that, you know, what we do is something we do by ourselves on our own steam is entirely foreign to this way of thinking because whatever it is that we do, is, is always in some small manner of participation in the capital V virtue that constitutes Jesus Christ Himself.

Charles Kim 39:51

Yeah, that's very helpful. One thing that you're like, like so you're picking up on this sort of Platonic and patristic use of the language of participation. I was just really going back through your introduction, and you mentioned the the Creator creation distinction. And it strikes me that this could be one thing that's easily misunderstood maybe about this language of participation, especially as I would have understood it growing up. But how, you know, how is it that we can understand how we are separate from the Creator, but at the same time how this participation language, sort of, you know, helps us think about our continued connection to the Creator? That is like, how do we, you know, how do we do this dance where we don't collapse that distinction, but we also maybe don't push it too far away, as if these two things are totally separate.

Hans Boersma 40:47

Yeah, I suppose it's possible to fall off the wagon, on either side. You could collapse like you say, the distinction between creator and creature, and, and lose divine transcendence. pantheism does. pantheism ignores the difference between creator and creature. That's that's the fall off the one side of the wagon. The other is, the other way in which you could fall off the wagon. The other side is, is to say, God is up there. We're down here. And there's a gap between us. That's why God is transcendent. And that's why he's the creator. And that's why we are creatures, such as separation separates literally God from the world. And God is not imminent in the world at all. So the former wants to emphasize imminence. pantheism men, therefore, collapses the two. The latter wants to emphasize transcendence, and therefore separates the two. The best elements, I think of Christian tradition, have have typically maintained that God is transcendent precisely in his ability to become imminent in this world. And God is imminent in this world can be can be imminent in this world, precisely in his much. And because he has transcended so transcendence and imminence don't don't oppose each other. It's not like you have to choose for the one rather than for the other. It's rather that the one always already presupposes the other. If you look at the history of Christian flaunt, it is typically those Christian politeness theologians, whether it's Gregory Nicholas of Cusa, Jonathan Edwards, it's typically those Christian theologians who most strongly emphasize divine sovereignty, divine transcendence. Who at this one, in the same time, highlighted, that God makes Himself present in this world, and that we can experience and see God in this world precisely. So the two are not opposed to one another. I think they free suppose one another.

Charles Kim 43:25

Yeah, it's just a, if you would permit me a brief personal reflection. i It's interesting, as I've continued my studies, how important this creator and creature distinction has become. And like, I realized that maybe in some sense, like, this is the heart of sort of the like, theological conversation, just exactly how do we, how do we conceive of this and almost by accident, I ended up in a study group with Grant Kaplan trying to read Shavon IRAs, analog via interest, and trying it. So I had heard about this as a seminary student at Princeton seminary a little bit, you know, that BART prefer the analog efe day, and the Catholics supposedly believed in this antichrist, as Bart calls it, the analog via Entus. And I've just been sort of I was, I mean, I'm not sure I understood. I don't know how much of chavara as I was reading it, I feel like very little, but but it was just like, you know, it was amazing how much reflection that and how much important reflection on the sort of human experience is really just this question, to what extent are we connected to God? And to what extent are we separated for God? And, you know, how do we how does this how is this gap bridged? I mean, this really does seem to be the perennial, a deep question of theology.

Hans Boersma 44:51

I think you're right. It's a question that comes up time and time again, and not only time and time again, but also no matter what theological topic, Take a look because you're you're you're touching, you're struggling with this issue of analogy and you're struggling with this issue of the relationship between nature and the supernatural. Absolutely. And, but But it's important, I think, always to go back to in this in this issue and what I think wanted to do that in his own way, although I think he didn't quite get there in the right fashion in the end, but, but it's important to go back ultimately to the Incarnation, for it's in a hypostatic union, I think that God reveals to us truly himself, and in so doing makes clear that that he does not have to give up his divinity in order to become human, that he becomes man wow, while retaining his his divine transcendence.

Charles Kim 45:52

Yeah, that's, that's really good. That's very helpful. Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time, if you would mind, I'll go ahead and just ask you one more question. And we could probably wrap up with this. Sounds good. All right. So the very end of your book is maybe more of a dogmatic proposal about divine pedagogy. And I just thought maybe you could give us a little bit of an explanation of, of what you understood by this and how, how and how you, you know, sort of explain the way in which God prepares us and molds us and shapes us into people who can see see God in in the eschaton.

Hans Boersma 46:35

Yeah, thank you for that. So most of the book, indeed is, is made tracing a number of theologians from the past, and, and and discussing their strengths, sometimes also their weaknesses, but basically looking at the way in which they articulate the beatific vision. But of course, in the process, I tried to learn from them. And in the last part of the book, I give more of a dogmatic appraisal, a constructive appraisal in which I, I tried to articulate a theology of of the Beatific Vision, still relying very much on on historical figures, but somewhat more systematically trying to say, what are some of the key elements in the doctrine of the beatific vision that are important, and that perhaps we need to need to highlight, recover, perhaps. And the overriding theme there, that I use there is, is the notion of apprenticeship or pedagogy. So God apprentices, us as it were, like, like a master, training and apprentice, and I'm taking that notion from Saint erroneous initially, for erroneous pedagogy is hugely important. And interestingly, much later for John Calvin to the notion of apprenticeship or pedagogy was very, very important. Although, although, in some ways, Calvin articulated it differently than than the errand A's in the second century. So and that said, what to do in the last last chapter is a highlight four elements in this in this divine pedagogy. And just to quickly recapitulate, the first of those four is that pedagogy has to do with God's providential care. We don't simply try to look at God, as it were, but God, first of all, and primarily looks at us. Both and especially Nicolas of Cusa, and Java and Edwards, are helpful here, I think. Edwards would almost say, and I'm putting it in my own words here, but God looks us into being God, God looks at us and by looking and love looking at us and loving us, he creates us he constitutes us. So when we need to have a robust sense of God's providence, God's caring of us, for us and for the entire world that he has made? Because without such a sense of divine overarching Providence, it seems to me that we cannot arrive at the beatific vision. And the second point that I deal with throughout much of the book really and that I highlight then in the in the last chapter is that is the notion that the beatific vision at the end is intrinsically linked to spiritual experiences that we have today. And what what I mean by that is that the spiritual experiences of today Are our anticipations sacramental anticipations of the race of the reality that we will be gifted in the hereafter. So whether it's theophanies, God, appearances of God in the Old Testament, prophetic revelation or scripture, or ultimately Christ Himself as the Theophany each of these ways of of God revealing himself, a God as it were. accustoming us as Aaron as would have it accustoming as getting us used to, to seeing him, he shows us increasingly more and more of himself. So there's a link, I think, between the self revelations of God in history and the beatific vision in the hereafter. Then the third aspect, and Yuri touched on that earlier question, is the Christological centrality of the beatific vision, to see God is to see him in Christ.

And so, to see God face to face, for I think the best parts of of Christian tradition is to see Jesus Christ Himself God's face, and Jesus Christ is always God's self communication in Christ. And the last point is that fission Beatific Vision is a stress formative, it changes us, it transfigures us you could say, right in the transfiguration, the three disciples, James and John, they see a transfigured Christ, and they are transfigured in the process. And so, purity in heart, and vision of God, are closely linked. Think of the of the six Beatitude, the pure in heart will see God with a whole, without holiness, no one will see God. And so we're being deified, in our vision of God in the hereafter. We're being changed. We're physically going to be changed, I think, perhaps, we could even we could even speculate that we will be changed physically, in such a way that even with these physically changed eyes. We will see God in the hereafter. So those are those are some of the some of the elements that I've tried to highlight in, in the dogmatic part of the book.

Charles Kim 52:44

Well, thank you very much. Dr. Bergsma. If I do say if I say so myself, I found seeing God to be it's almost like an ecumenical tour de force. Right. I mean, they're, you know, you're you're drawing on reformed tradition, but then the Western theological tradition as well as the Eastern, I mean, it was just, you know, I mean, I know it wasn't intended to be comprehensive, but it certainly felt like it was at times. And so I just thought it was it was a very interesting way to draw those strands together in ways that, you know, I wouldn't have you ever seen. So thank you for thank you for this great book. And in coming on the podcast, it's been an absolute, you know, honor and privilege to be able to chat with you for a little bit.

Hans Boersma 53:31

No, thank you so much for having me on the podcast that chat. It's been a joy. And it's been great to chat with you. Thank you.

Charles Kim 53:37

This has been a history of Christian theology. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do let us know. Send us a comment. Like us on Facebook or Twitter. We appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai