WHY I DISAGREE WITH THOMAS PAINE AND THOMAS AQUINAS

I do not know why, but I had not read any of Thomas Paine's writings until the fall of this year (2005). In reading his "Age of Reason", it entered my mind that were it not for the fact that it was written several hundred years ago, I would sue him for plagiarizing from my book "Beyond the Universe". Then again, I thought, geniuses think along the same lines. Be that as it may, my writings parallel his writings in most respects, except for his thoughts on why man cannot see God "face-to-face", in this life. For example, he wrote in his book The Age of Reason Part II

We can know God only through His works. We cannot have a conception of any one attribute, but by following some principle that leads to it. We have only a confused idea of His power, if we have not the means of comprehending something of its immensity. We can have no idea of His wisdom, but by knowing the order and manner in which it acts. The principles of science lead to this knowledge; for the Creator of man is the Creator of science, and it is through that medium that man can see God, as it were, face-to-face.

Unless a person HAS seen God face-to-face,the only way to prove that meeting with God (face-to-face) is or is not possible in this life, is by forcefully assembling the powers of reason, to come to one conclusion or the other. This is exactly what Thomas Aquinas attempted to prove (that we cannot see God face-to-face in this life.) Here is his argument from his Summa Theologica (Question 12, Article 11):

God cannot be seen in His essence by one who is merely man, except he be separated from this mortal life. The reason is, because as we have said above, the mode of knowledge follows the mode of the nature of the knower. But our soul, as long as we live in this life, has its being in corporeal matter; hence it knows naturally only what has a form in matter or what can be known by such a form.

Both Paine and Aquinas have a major flaw in their arguments in that they both neglect to mention that God's spirit exists in all of His creatures, unbounded, by the spatio-temporal universe. The key word is "unbounded". What I mean is this: the soul of each creature DOES reside in a corporeal body, and that the corporeal body "knows"for example, corporeal things through the senses. However, the spirit "knows" God, not through the senses (spatio-temporally), but through the spirit (spiritually), and therefore, is not corporeally bound. There is nothing irrational about the way God designed how we should know Him in this life.

This knowledge becomes greater or lesser, as we become less distracted or more distracted regarding temporal things. The purer our soul, the clearer becomes the vision of God. This is so, because it follows that if God is Infinite Love, then God wants us to share in that love, while at the same, having created us as free as He is, we have been given freedom of the will, so that we are free to accept and embrace His love and goodness, or to reject it and embrace temporal things.

Having personally been given the grace of seeing God face-to-face, I have absolutely no doubts regarding what I am saying. But my own personal revelation is not proof to anyone except myself. That is why I ask that you not rely on my testimony, but that you rely on God's gift of reason to support my argument that God can be known "face-to-face" in this life, Paine and Aquinas' arguments to the contrary. My only word of caution to you is this: to know God means temporarily leaving the spatio-temporal universe and entering the eternal universe. There are serious implications in this, which I will happily share with those who purchase my latest book "A Vision of God (Christ's Real Passion)", and who specifically request that I spell out these implications along with my personal autograph. These implications are not now, nor ever will they be printed anywhere in my writings, nor do they appear in the writings of others, presently or in the past.

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