Seeing Christ, Seeing the Trinity: Beyond Boersma's Trinitarian Deficit

Abstract

In an effort to correct the alleged ‘christological deficit’ of Thomas Aquinas's theology of the beatific vision, Hans Boersma circumscribes the object of the blessed's vision of God to the humanity of Christ and denies that they immediately see the divine essence. This results in a trinitarian deficit in Boersma's theology. For, as Matthias Scheeben's and Karl Rahner's analyses of Aquinas's theology of the beatific vision demonstrate, the blessed's immediate vision of the divine essence brings them into union with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Juan Alfaro's account of how the blessed's vision of the humanity of Christ operates in harmony with their vision of the divine essence provides resources for constructing a thoroughly christological and trinitarian theology of the beatific vision.