In The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien used the image of a single, lidless eye to describe the way Sauron seeks to secure total control over Middle Earth. This is an apt picture of the distortion that results when creatures strive to become like God, who with his all-seeing eyes looks down upon all creation as beneficent ruler and righteous judge (see Pss. 11; 33; 113; 139). While the Lord’s looking down upon the world is a matter of holy love and providential care, Sauron exerts his gaze so he can use whatever he sees to advance his imperious agenda. And even though the wide-ranging scope of his eye makes it seem almost godlike, it is really subhuman. This is evident in the fact that it is a solitary eye, marked by a deficiency in perspective that makes his seeing a matter of blind lust. The contrast between the eye of Sauron and the eyes of the Lord points to the difference between two kinds of human seeing: seeing as using and seeing as knowing and loving.

Seeing as Using

When the Lord commissioned the prophet Isaiah for a ministry in which he would harden rebellious Israel in their unbelief, he told him, “Go, and say to this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive’” (Isa. 6:9). This shows that the mere use of the human senses does not guarantee that they will be employed toward their proper end. Due to the fall, we use our senses to advance our own sinful and selfish ends, and the result is not knowledge but misery. The Scriptures make this point in their treatment of idolatry, telling us that, when men fashion deities according to their own imagination, they end up becoming like the deaf and dumb gods they revere (Ps. 115:4–8). This takes place because the idolater is not interested in knowing the supposed god he worships, but in using it to advance his purposes. We see the same thing in our day when people construct and embrace an ideology, a vision of the world that is imposed upon reality rather derived from it. The adherent of an ideology seeks to make reality conform to the contours of his imagination, thus unmooring his innate moral impulse from the natural moral order and rendering himself morally blind. This explains why a significant number of people in our society have condoned and even celebrated such murderous acts as the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens and the assassinations of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

As far as how the fall affects the way we see our fellow human beings, this is especially evident in the impact pornography has had on so many people’s lives. When a person consumes images of others for his own gratification, he is objectifying and debasing those made in the image of God. As with idolatry, the effects are tragic. While God designed sex to bring people into the most intimate of creaturely unions, porn use impedes the forming of healthy relationships and often leaves people stuck in a tawdry virtual world. Moreover, porn addiction is not merely a matter of disordered sexual desire but is a coping mechanism that intersects with a wide array of sins, including apathy, self-pity, despair, and the lust for control.[1]

Given the power that porn can exert over people’s lives, it is important to stress that those ensnared by it are not doomed to such a bleak existence. Jesus really can break the hold of this or any other sin because he has already paid sin’s debt in full for all who will come to him (Rom. 6:14; 8:1–2; John 6:37–40; 1 John 2:1–2). Of course, as with all other areas of sanctification, there is no silver bullet that makes for easy victory. Nevertheless, those who resist temptation and pursue holiness in reliance upon Christ by making diligent use of his appointed means of grace will experience the weakening of sinful patterns and the forging of holy habits and character. We will learn to look at others with a respect for what has been called the “spousal meaning of the body,” the power it has been given to express love in the self-giving union of man and wife.[2] Of course, as we fight the good fight against sin, we always must remember that Jesus came to save sinners, not people who have already cleaned up their lives on their own. Through faith in him, the blessing of purity of heart and its corresponding reward of seeing God are conferred upon believers (Matt. 5:8).

Another manifestation of distorted seeing has to do with the way modern people see and relate to the world in general. C. S. Lewis wrote about this over eighty years ago in The Abolition of Man, noting that, while the wise men of old sought to conform the soul to reality, modern man seeks to subdue reality to his own desires and wishes.[3] This is evident in our society’s embrace of a managerialism whose impulse is to commodify and control everything. One of the ways this impulse is manifested is in the fact that, for a great many people, their interface with reality largely takes place through the mediation of technological tools that let them curate the kind of world they inhabit. While there are upsides to this, we should be aware of the way it not only tends to isolate us but also diminishes the possibility of being surprised. This is more significant than we may realize, as the experience of surprise reminds us that there is a reality outside ourselves, an awareness we need to have if we are truly going to love others and not merely use them. As Iris Murdoch once observed, “Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”[4]

Seeing as Knowing and Loving

This brings us to the second kind of seeing—seeing as knowing and loving, the seeing for which our eyes were created. This kind of seeing finds its ultimate end in the beatific vision, defined as follows by theologian Samuel Parkison:

The beatific vision is the telos of humanity: the vision of God the saints will enjoy in the eschaton. The beatific vision is a vision of love, a participatory vision of God’s essence, in resurrected bodies, wherewith we will see this vision immediately and everywhere, particularly in the person of Christ, on account of our union with him. . . . United to Christ, his perfect vision of God will be our perfect vision of God, for he is the author and perfector of our faith, our forerunner and perfect federal head and restorative source. . . . Every happiness that has partial fulfillment here will be realized in full in this vision, since this vision is the destination to which all natural desires lead.[5]

While we cannot attain the beatific vision in this present age, we do nevertheless see God through faith in his redemptive revelation (2 Cor. 5:7). This is why David could speak of looking upon the Lord in the sanctuary (Ps. 63:2), even though there was no visible representation of the Lord in Israel’s tabernacle or temple. In that era of redemptive history, the sacrificial system was the key means by which the Lord mediated his saving presence to his people. The Lord continues to do this in the present day through the faithful proclamation of the gospel, by which he graciously frees people from their spiritual blindness and brings them into “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). This means the Lord’s Day is a day of mystical ascent, through the church’s administration of the Word and sacraments, to the mountain of the Lord (Isa. 2:3).

One of the key features of the beatific vision, and our shadowy experience of it in this life, is that seeing God transforms us so that we become like him. As Paul says in

2 Corinthians 3:18, as we behold the glory of God in Christ, we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” Similarly, John says in his first epistle that “when [the Lord] appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2–3). Thus, our future hope of glory has the present effect of causing us to strive for holiness in this life. This transformation marks the fulfillment not only of our moral nature but also of our aesthetic sensibilities. As C. S. Lewis explained, “We do not want merely to see beauty. . . . We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”[6] As another writer puts it, human beings are marked by a “spiritual longing to metabolize the beautiful.”[7] Only the beatific vision can satisfy that longing.

The transformative blessing of having God’s face shining upon us has an analogy in something that can take place through the human countenance. We find an illustration of this in the section of The Lord of the Rings that describes the fellowship’s arrival in the elven realm of Lothlorian. This was an awkward visit for Gimli the dwarf, as there was bad blood between the dwarves and elves of Middle Earth. Nevertheless, when Gimli’s eyes met those of the elven queen Galadriel, “it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding.”[8] This reminds us that the face is the most basic medium through which we see love and convey it to others. It is no surprise that studies have shown that even the briefest of friendly, face-to-face interactions with strangers and casual acquaintances have a positive impact on one’s state of mind.[9] This is also why face-to-face encounters have the best potential to present us with opportunities to talk about the hope we have in Christ.

The significance of seeing human faces brings to mind our recent experience with the mask mandates of the Covid era. While those who implemented and supported compulsory masking may have had good intentions, it does not seem that they ever reckoned with the immense costs of this mitigation strategy. This is all the more tragic given that, in spite of many claims to the contrary, the scientific evidence both before and after the pandemic has consistently attested to the ineffectiveness of masks in reducing the spread of respiratory viruses.[10] The same is true of the other draconian measures that so radically suppressed human interactions.[11] These factors have led psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty to offer this counsel:

I suggest that we never again force one another to become nondescript entities, lacking character or individuality, unidentifiable, anonymous, remote, impersonal, or unseen. The face is not only the locus of human communication; it is the place where the personal dimension is most fully manifest.[12]

As for the way we see the world in general, we should look upon it not as something to bend to our will but as a source of wonder and a gift to be stewarded in a manner that is in harmony with its nature. This will allow the world’s vastness, complexity, order, and beauty to enlarge our souls, as we perceive that, in the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”[13] Or as the Belgic Confession puts it, the “universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God” (art. 2).

Conclusion

In his inventory of things that illustrate the futility of life “under the sun,” one of the statements made by Qoheleth is that “the eye is not satisfied with seeing” (Eccl. 1:8). In saying this, he does not mean that God designed the eye to be eternally unfulfilled. Rather, he is pointing to the fact that the telos of human sight is the beatific vision. To adapt the famous words from the beginning of Augustine’s Confessions, “God made our eyes for himself, and they will be restless until they find their rest in him.” This is why we should strive to align all the ways we exercise our sense of sight in this world with the ultimate end for which our eyes were created: to know and love God. Boethius provides us with a model prayer:

Grant me, O Father, that gift by which my mind can rise
after its peregrination to the seat of your majesty,
and give me the light to behold through the thick clouds of our skies
a clearer heaven in which your brightness flashes forth.
To the blessed who alone behold it, you are the sole serene
goal in which we may rest, satisfied and tranquil,
and to see your face is our only hunger, our only thirst,
for you are our beginning, our journey, and our end.[14]

Endnotes

[1] See Matthew Loftus, “Misunderstanding Porn,” Mere Orthodoxy (Dec. 2, 2025): https://mereorthodoxy.com/misunderstanding-porn.

[2] See Christopher West, Our Bodies Tell God's Story: Discovering the Divine Plan for Love, Sex, and Gender, (Brazos, 2020), 38-40.

[3] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (Touchstone, 1996), 83.

[4] Iris Murdoch, Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (Penguin, 1999), 203.

[5] Samuel G. Parkison, To Gaze upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice (IVP, 2024), 176.

[6] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (HarperCollins, 2001), 42.

[7] Jason M. Baxter, Why Literature Still Matters (Cassiodorus Press, 2024), 30.

[8] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 356.

[9] Robert Waldinger and Marc Schultz, The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (Simon & Schuster, 2023), 262–64.

[10] See Aaron Kheriaty, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State (Regnery, 2022), 195; Jeffrey H. Anderson, “The Mask of Ignorance,” City Journal (Mar. 21, 2023): https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-mask-of-ignorance; Paul D. Thacker, “The Pandemic That Broke Our Faith in Modeling,” The Daily Economy (Oct. 14, 2025): .

[11] For a summary of the evidence, see Benjamin D. Giffone, A House Divided: Technology, Worship, and Healing the Church after COVID (Libertarian Christian Institute Press, 2025), 101–21.

[12] Kheriaty, The New Abnormal, 198.

[13] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur.

[14] Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. David R. Slavitt (Harvard University Press, 2008), bk. 3, sec. 9, 85–86.

Andrew S. Wilson serves as the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Laconia, New Hampshire. Ordained Servant Online, May, 2026