Whilst reading Trevan Hatch’s When the Lights Came On, I felt compelled to reflect on the very nature of supernatural visions. In the first chapter of the book, Hatch provides twenty examples of claimed supernatural visions by individuals in America between 1741-1827. All twenty individuals related two common elements concerning their claimed visionary experiences: first, they saw God the Father and Jesus Christ together at the same time; and second, both of them appeared as men.
Now, all twenty of the individuals were of a Protestant background—no visionary experiences from Catholics were provided. I suspect that Hatch did not reference any Catholic examples because he could not find any Catholic visionary experiences that shared the two common elements of the twenty individuals he referenced—they saw both God the Father and Jesus Christ together and as men. Personally speaking, I am not aware any visionary experiences reported by individuals within the Catholic tradition that had God the Father and Jesus Christ appearing together in a vision as men.
Catholics have claimed visions of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, Michael the Archangel, Satan and demons; but to my knowledge, no Catholic has reported that they have seen God the Father in a vision. [For an excellent treatment on Catholic visionary experiences, see THIS LINK.]
With that said, many Catholic—and Eastern Orthodox—mystics have claimed to had some sort of supernatural interaction with God. Such reported mystical experiences seem to be of a different order/nature than those experiences that have historically been termed ‘visions'.
In ending, I would like to know what folk of differing Christian traditions think about the claimed visions of those who are not within their own tradition.
Grace and peace,
David
P.S. I cannot help but think that the issue of ‘visions’ is somehow connected the doctrine of the ‘beatific vision’—see THIS POST for some reflections on Visio Dei.
