The image and its object: seeing God without anything in between

Modicum et jam non videbitis (John 16): 'In a little while you will not see me.' My Latin text is from the Gospel of John, which we read on Sunday. It is what our Lord said to his disciples: 'A little while, and you will not see me.' Anything at all, however small, that clings to the soul keeps you from seeing me. St Augustine, when asked what eternal life means, answered: Do you ask me what eternal life is? Ask eternal life itself, and see what it says. No one knows what heat is like as well as what is hot does, and no one knows wisdom as well as the wise know it. In the same way, no one knows the meaning of eternal life as well as eternal life itself knows it. Our Lord Jesus Christ says, 'This is eternal life, to know you, God, the one true God.'

'A little while, and you will not see me.' Now you should understand that if the soul saw God even from a distance, or through something in between, as if through a cloud, for just a moment, she would not turn away from him, not for anything in the world. What then do you think would happen if she saw God in himself, as he is, face to face in his naked essence? All the creatures God has ever made, or could make if he chose, amount to very little, next to nothing, compared with God himself. The heavens are vast, so vast that if I told you how vast, you would not believe me. If you could take a needle and prick the heavens with it, that needle-point of heaven, compared with the whole of heaven plus this entire world, would be greater than this whole universe compared with God. So it can rightly be said: a trifle, a little thing, and you will not see me. As long as you see anything of a creature you see nothing of God; however small it is, it has to go. The soul says in the Song of Songs, 'I went about and sought him whom my soul loves, and I did not find him.' She met with angels and many other things, but she did not find the one her soul loved. Then she goes on to say, 'It was only a little while after I had passed them that I found him whom my soul loves,' as if to say: once I had gotten past creatures, those small and unimportant things, I came upon the one my soul loves. The soul must pass beyond, she must go past, all creatures before she can find God.

Now you should know that God loves the soul so powerfully that whoever could rob God of his love for the soul would rob him of his very life and being, would kill God, if that can be said; for the very love with which God loves the soul is the breath of his Holy Spirit blowing within it.

But if God loves the soul so much, the soul must be something of great importance.

The philosopher says in his book On the Soul: if there were nothing in between, the eye could see a gnat, an ant, in heaven. And he was right, meaning the air and fire and so on that lie between the eye and heaven. Another philosopher says that without something in between, the eye could not see at all. Both are saying the same thing.

The first one says that if there were nothing in between, the eye could see an ant in heaven. And that is true. If nothing came between God and the soul, she would see God entirely, for God himself is wholly free of any medium and allows no kind of interference. If the soul were stripped of all her coverings, God would show himself to her completely bare and would give himself to her, holding nothing back. As long as the soul has not thrown off every veil, however thin, she cannot see God. Any medium at all, even a hair's breadth, coming between body and soul blocks real union. That is true of physical things, and how much more of spiritual ones. Boethius says: do you want to know the naked truth? Then cast off joy and fear and trust and hope and pain. Joy is a medium, fear is a medium, faith and hope and pain, all of them are mediums. As long as you are looking at them, and they are looking back at you, you cannot see God.

The second authority says: without something in between, the eye would see nothing. If I cover my eyes with my hand, I can see nothing of my hand. If I hold it out in front of me, I see it quite clearly. This is because of the dense nature of the hand, which has to be thinned and carried, as it were, in air and light, and in likeness brought to my eye. The same is true of a mirror. If you hold it facing you, your image is reflected in the glass. The eye, like the soul, is a mirror, and whatever is held before it appears within it. I do not see the hand itself, or the stone itself; I see the image of the stone, but I do not see this image by means of a second image, or by any other medium: I see it without medium and without image. This image is itself the medium: an image without image, like motion without motion though it causes motion, and like size which has no size though it is the source of size. In this sense the image is imageless, because it is not seen by means of another image. The eternal Word is the medium and the image itself, which is without medium and without image, so that the soul, in the eternal Word, grasps God and knows him without image and with nothing in between.

There is one power in the soul: intellect, of the greatest importance to the soul for becoming aware of God, for detecting him. It has five properties. First, it is detached from here and now. Second, it is like nothing. Third, it is pure and uncompounded. Fourth, it is in itself active, or self-searching. Fifth, it is an image.

First, it is detached from here and now. Here and now, in other words, mean place and time. Now is the smallest unit of time, a point, a connection, an end of time. Small as it is, it has to go; everything time touches has to go. Likewise, it is detached from here. And here means place. The spot I am standing on is small, but it has to disappear before I can see God.

Second, it is like nothing. A philosopher says: God is a thing that nothing is like, and that nothing can become like. But according to St John, we will be called children of God, and if we are God's children, we must resemble God. How then can this authority say God is a thing that nothing is like? The answer is that in being like nothing, this power is like God. God is like nothing, and this power is like nothing. You should understand that all creatures, by their nature, are striving to be like God. The heavens would not turn unless they were following the track of God or of his likeness. If God were not in all things, nature would come to a complete stop, neither working nor wanting; for whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, nature at bottom is seeking, even if obscurely, and is moving toward God. No one, however thirsty, would take a drink offered to him if he knew there was no God in it. What nature is after is not food or drink, or clothing or comfort, or anything at all in which there is nothing of God; rather, secretly, and more and more fiercely, she pursues the trace of God in these things.

Third, it is pure and unmixed. By nature, God cannot tolerate any mixing or blending. Nor is there any mixing or blending in this power: it is free of impurity, and nothing foreign can get into it. To tell someone handsome that he is fair and dark at the same time would be unjust to him. The soul must be without mixture. If someone hangs something on my cloak, or sticks something to it, then whoever wears the cloak wears what is attached to it as well. If I leave this place, everything attached to me goes with me. Whatever the spirit rests on, whatever it is attached to, takes the spirit along with it. The person who rests on nothing, who is attached to nothing, will stay unmoved even if heaven and earth fall.

Fourth, it is always seeking, always at work, within. God is such that he always remains in the innermost place. And intellect is always seeking him there. But will goes out toward whatever it loves in him. So when my friend arrives, my heart suddenly goes out to him, and he is glad. St Paul says, 'we shall know God as we are known.' And according to St John, 'we shall see God as he is.'

Now if I am colored, I must have something in me capable of taking color. I would never take on color unless I had the nature to receive color. And I can only see God in whatever he sees himself in. St Paul says that God lives in light that no one can approach. It cannot be denied that staying on the way, at the threshold, though good as far as it goes, is still a long way from the truth, for it is not God.

Fifth, it is an image. Pay attention here, this is important: it sums up the whole sermon. Object and image are bound to each other so closely that they cannot be separated. We can think of fire apart from heat, and heat apart from fire. We can think of the sun apart from light, and of light as separate from the sun. But we cannot separate an object from its image. I will say more: Almighty God himself cannot untangle them. They are born together, and they die together. I do not die because my father does. But suppose you die: then he was your son, since he no longer is. Cloth that has been bleached is like all whiteness in its whiteness. But if you blacken it, it is dead to whiteness. It is the same here. If the image, the likeness of God, disappeared, then its model, God, would also perish. There is one thing I want to say: you have become two, you have become three. Now listen carefully. Intellect looks in, it searches every corner of the Godhead, and finding the Son in the heart of the Father, in his ground, it takes hold of him and sets him in its own ground. Intellect presses further in; good and wisdom do not satisfy it, nor does truth, nor even God himself. A tree or a stone would content it just as little as God does. It never rests until it reaches the ground from which truth and goodness come, and takes them in principio, in the beginning, at the source of truth and goodness, where they rise up before they come forth, a ground far higher than truth and goodness themselves. Its sister, the will, is satisfied with God as the good. But intellect, leaving this behind, goes in and breaks through to the root from which the Son springs and from which the Holy Spirit blossoms forth. May we come to find this, and be blessed forever. So help us, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.