Aquinas Wants to Contemplate the Essence of God Why?
Here is the master himself:
Consequently, when man knows an effect, and knows that it has a cause, there naturally remains in the man the desire to know about the cause, “what it is.” And this desire is one of wonder, and causes inquiry… For instance, if a man, knowing the eclipse of the sun, consider that it must be due to some cause, and know not what that cause is, he wonders about it, and from wondering proceeds to inquire…
If therefore the human intellect, knowing the essence of some created effect, knows no more of God than “that He is”; the perfection of that intellect does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there remains in it the natural desire to seek the cause. Wherefore it is not yet perfectly happy. Consequently, for perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. (ST, II-I, 3, 8)
So, the point of seeing God and His glory face-to-face is to… satisfy your curiosity? You just wonder how all things began and where everything is going and that’s why you want to see God? So that He would answer all your questions? Does all Aquinas want to know is the entirety of truth regarding God’s relationship with the actual world? Does he want to know God in His aspect as the first cause of the world, or does he want to find out (1) not merely what is actual but what is possible; and (2) not merely what is possible but God’s self-knowledge of His inner self, isolated from both the possible worlds and the actual world.
We go from the actual world to possible worlds to God’s essence; God goes from His essence to possible worlds to the actual world. I‘d like to meet God in His inner core, unless it is impossible. Is it?