Scholastic Debates on Beatific Union with God: Henry of Ghent (c. 1217–93) and His Interlocutors

Speculum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-333
Author(s):  
Richard Cross
Vivarium ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-304 ◽  
Author(s):  

AbstractMedieval theories of ethics tended on the whole to regard self-perfection as the goal of human life. However there was profound disagreement, particularly in the late thirteenth century, over how exactly this was to be understood. Intellectualists such as Aquinas famously argued that human perfection lay primarily in coming to know the essence of God in the next life. Voluntarists such as the Franciscan John Peckham, by contrast, argued that ultimate perfection was to be achieved in patria through the act of loving God. The present article argues that Giles of Rome and Henry of Ghent defended a different sort of voluntarism with respect to the final destiny of human beings. Rather than claiming that the goal of human life lay in the perfection of the self, they argued instead that ultimate union with God was to be achieved mystically through an act of self-transcendence, which occurred through ecstasy or quasi-deification.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Stephen Grimm

I argue that mystical experience essentially involves two aspects: (a) an element of direct encounter with God, and (b) an element of union with God. The framework I use to make sense of (a) is taken largely from William Alston’s magisterial book Perceiving God. While I believe Alston’s view is correct in many essentials, the main problem with the account is that it divorces the idea of encountering or perceiving God from the idea of being united with God. What I argue, on the contrary, is that because our experience of God is an experience of a relationship-seeking, personal being, it brings with it an important element of union that Alston overlooks.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Marcin SIEŃKOWSK

The characteristics of the knowledge of God through the religion faith is consequence of subject– that one’s overtopped the epistemic powers of human – which is accessible merely in that way.The aim of Belief is supernatural and it consists in union with God through getting to know hisnature. The method of the religious faith is an engagement of the intellect and a will the recognisedsubject. The religious faith is a different cognition toward other types of knowledge. It is also thecognition which assumes a former natural acquired knowledge. A leap of faith in that what wasdeemed for truth needs activities of intellect.


Author(s):  
Jon R. Kershner

John Woolman’s ministry efforts translated his vision of God’s will for human affairs into the physical realm. This state of union with God entailed an outward dimension consistent with the transformed state Woolman believed God intended for creation. Woolman was committed to his religious community and viewed himself as representing the best of what colonial society would become. He understood himself to be a prophet like the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, and so he believed his actions to be within the prophetic tradition. This chapter explores Woolman’s sense of commissioning to the prophetic role and his conceptions of what such a role entailed. Then, this chapter demonstrates that the content of Woolman’s message was the application of his vision to human affairs. This message declared God’s claim over the whole world, renounced idolatrous influences, and challenged the alienation of sin.


Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
To Come ◽  

This chapter discusses how Christ bridges the human–divine, temporal–eternal, earthly–heavenly realms by healing and purifying the believer for union with God. This union with God consists of knowing and loving God—imperfectly in this life, but perfectly in the life to come. This union happens through the conformation of the believer to Christ in love, which forms the believer for rightly ordered relationships with God, self, and neighbor. Augustine pictures the process of conformation as the journey to the homeland, a pilgrimage the believer makes to God in Christ. Christ is the way to the homeland and he is the way because he is the homeland. Christ’s mediating and healing work is inextricably tied to his dual roles as the way and the end.


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