released 1/22/2021

Human beings were from the beginning fitted for a final purpose: a relationship with God. Scripture often uses the language of vision to describe that relationship, and the technical term used (taken from the Latin word beatus, “blessed” or “happy”) was traditionally the “beatific vision.” On Volume 149, Reinhard Hütter talked about his book Bound for Beatitude, which explores (with help from Thomas Aquinas) the ethical consequences of this eschatological reality. On this Feature, we review a recent conversation from Volume 146 with theologian Hans Boersma about his book Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition.

20 minutes

PREVIEW

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Related reading and listening

  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
  • Cultural implications of the beatific vision —
    FROM VOL. 146
    Theologian Hans Boersma argues that the beatific vision described throughout scripture is foreshadowed in “this-worldy experiences.” (22 minutes)
  • Sacramental preaching —
    FROM VOL. 135
    Hans Boersma discusses why we should recover a patristic way of preaching and reading scripture. (23 minutes)
  • Discerning an alternative modernity — In a lecture from 2019, Simon Oliver presents a summary of the cultural consequences of the comprehensiveness of the work of Christ. (28 minutes)
  • Boersma, Hans — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Fr. Hans Boersma holds the St. Benedict Servants of Christ Chair in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin.
  • Hütter, Reinhard — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Professor Reinhard Hütter’s primary field of study is systematic and philosophical theology with a focus on faith and reason, revelation and faith, dogma and history, on questions of theological anthropology (freedom and grace) and the doctrine of God.
  • The theonomic nature of conscience — Matthew Levering on Reinhard Hütter’s description of conscience: “Real conscience does not give free rein to a person’s desires.”
  • The aboriginal Vicar of Christ, the voice of God in the heart of Man — Reinhard Hütter on John Henry Newman’s insistence that conscience — rightly formed — bears witness to the law of God
  • Conscience and its counterfeits — A 2014 lecture by theologian Reinhard Hütter examines “Freedom of Conscience as Freedom in the Truth: Conscience according to Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman.” (64 minutes)
  • On Earth as it is in Heaven —
    FROM VOL. 108
    Hans Boersma — author of Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry — explains why Christians should reject the modern separation of Heaven and Earth and recover a “sacramental ontology.” (26 minutes)
  • Properly this-worldly by being fundamentally other-worldly — Hans Boersma on the necessity of affirming the links between Heaven and Earth
  • Recognizing a frayed tapestry — Hans Boersma summarizes the theological concerns shared by the members of the nouvelle théologie movement
  • Recovering a sacramental imagination — Hans Boersma argues that we need to recover the pre-modern view that Creation not only points to God, but that it participates in the very being of God — that in God we live and move and have our being. (29 minutes)
  • “A roaming unrest of the spirit” — Theologian Reinhard Hütter argues that the contemporary plague of pornography is a symptom of a deep spiritual apathy. (28 minutes)
  • The eclipsing of happiness — Reinhard Hütter on the Christian recognition that happiness is only intelligible in light of the end for which we were created
  • The scantily clad public square — Reinhard Hütter on the necessity of the virtue of religion
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 149 — FEATURED GUESTS: Dru Johnson, Steven L. Porter, Reinhard Hütter, Matthew Levering, David Lyle Jeffrey, and Christopher Phillips
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 146 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Mitchell, Hans Boersma, Henry T. Edmondson, III, Brian Clayton, Douglas Kries, Conor Sweeney, and Carole Vanderhoof
  • Hans Boersma on For the Life of the World — Drawing from Alexander Schmemann’s book, Hans Boersma asserts that a recovered understanding of the relationship between God and Creation is essential to addressing a host of modern cultural crises. (17 minutes)
  • Recovering the meaning of “faith” — Andrew Root asserts that a Church co-opted by the ethics of “authenticity” has lost its ability to speak of the transcendent and its understanding of what it means to be in Christ. (18 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 135 — FEATURED GUESTS: Bob Cutillo, Hans Boersma, Dana Gioia, Matthew Levering, Bruce Gordon, and Markus Rathey
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 108 — FEATURED GUESTS: Thomas Albert Howard, Jean Porter, Peter Augustine Lawler, Hans Boersma, Felicia Wu Song, and Elias Aboujaoude
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 67 — FEATURED GUESTS: Eric O. Jacobsen, Allan C. Carlson, Terence L. Nichols, R. R. Reno, David Bentley Hart, J. A. C. Redford, and Scott Cairns
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