When Paul says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly” in 1 Corinthians 13:12, he is not speaking of seeing through a dirty windowpane but of looking into a shadowy mirror such as those manufactured in Bible times in Corinth. All our attempts to look at truth as we see it reflected in creation, in history, in our own consciousness, and even in the Bible, can give us only a dim and imperfect idea of God and of heavenly realities because of human finiteness and sin. Our perception of realities may be more or less the truth as far as our perception goes, but this is always dim and imperfect.