Eschatological beliefs have matured alongside both biblical composition and Christian history. This evolution can be traced using cultural evolutionary studies. The process reflects attempts to adapt to new conditions and challenges—sometimes giving place to more focused views, but also sometimes to failures and dysfunctional forms or fruitless variations. It becomes a theological duty to assess this evolution better. The key element is the reception of these eschatological beliefs, to discern what expressions of them are more helpful in encouraging Christian fidelity, (...) coping with distress, and engaging with individual and societal challenges. In this article, we outline a research programme that links eschatology to anthropology, and that tries to analyse beliefs according to state‐of‐the‐art methods, such as evolutionary cultural studies and research on the believing process. We also contribute a case study based on the concept of hell to test the proposed approach. (shrink)

Part and parcel of the eschatology of the three Abrahamic faiths is the belief that sin and evil will be eliminated upon the consummation of God’s kingdom on earth. Not only do these beliefs affirm that God will ultimately “deal” with the problem of sin and evil, but that sin and evil will be no more. I refer to this eschatological belief as “the elimination of evil” (EOE). The EOE has important implications for how one understands the ontology of (...) time. In this paper, I contribute to this discussion by arguing that ontologies of time that affirm the concrete existence of past moments are incompatible with the EOE. I also argue that solutions based on theories of hypertime, such as those posited by Tyron Goldschmidt and Samuel Lebens, also fail to solve the problems posed to those ontologies of time affirming the concrete existence of the past. I conclude that the ontology of time that best facilitates the EOE is presentism. (shrink)

Purpose: This paper contends that even though the doctrine of eschatology is one of the core teachings of the Christian doctrine, the reality is that it has not always received due attention in the postmodern church. The relegation of this important doctrine to the background of church activity has therefore meant that eschatology has almost been forgotten in church circles. This research sought to establish the interaction of the church with eschatological teachings, beliefs and practices as understood by (...) the pastors, elders/deacons, leaders, and members of Christ Is The Answer Ministries (CITAM). Methodology: The study used mixed methods research design. The target population was the pastors, elders/deacons, leaders, and members of CITAM in two selected assemblies in Nairobi. The assemblies were: CITAM Parklands and CITAM Valley Road. Data was collected from a sample of 68 respondents using stratified sampling technique by use of a questionnaire. The data was then analysed by use of descriptive statistical analysis. Data collected from open-ended sections of the questionnaire were discussed and presented in narrative form. Findings: It was found that the church has done some work as regards to teaching and discussing eschatology. However, the paper also finds that what the church has done to popularize eschatology amongst its members is insufficient and inefficient. More needs to be done in popularizing eschatological themes in church circles. Recommendations: It was recommended that the church should be intentional and committed to doing more in promoting interactions with the doctrine of eschatology. It was also recommended that further studies on the methodologies and ways of systematically inducting eschatology into the everyday church activities and teachings be undertaken. (shrink)

Traditional eschatology clashes with the theory of entropy. Trying to bridge the gap, Robert John Russell assumes that theology and science are based on contradictory, yet equally valid, metaphysical assumptions, each one capable of questioning and impacting the other. The author doubts that Russell's proposal will convince empirically oriented scientists and attempts to provide a viable alternative. Historical‐critical analysis suggests that biblical future expectations were redemptive responses to changing human needs. Apocalyptic visions were occasioned by heavy suffering in postexilic (...) times. Interpreted in realistic terms, they have since proved to be untenable. The expectation of a new creation without evil, suffering, and death is not constitutive for the substantive content of the biblical message as such. Biblical future expectations must be reconceptualized in terms of best contemporary insight and in line with a dynamic reading of the biblical witness as God's vision of comprehensive optimal well‐being that operates like a shifting horizon and opens up ever new vistas, challenges, and opportunities. (shrink)

This essay examines the relevance of eschatological themes to the political theory of Michael Walzer. A distinctive eschatological hope is identified, which functions as a guide to thought throughout Walzer's writings, even though he seldom expresses it (and sometimes denies it). This analysis of Walzer's work demonstrates that eschatology is relevant to the contemporary discussion of justice, and conversely, that contemporary political theory can be a guide for the construction and evaluation of theological doctrines of eschatology. Any (...) class='Hi'>eschatology that enters into political debate in a modern, pluralistic society like the United States, however, must have at least one important characteristic: it must be informed by a profound sense of limitation. (shrink)

Apocalyptic thinking has a long religious and political tradition, but what place does it occupy within the temporal universe of contemporary capitalism? In this essay, we use the figure of the eschaton to draw out the loaded and ambiguous character of the future as it emerges through the condition of indebtedness. This entails a departure from political economy accounts of capitalist futurity, which stress the structural logic of financial speculation, in favour of an existential account that begins instead with the (...) cosmology of money and debt. We argue that finance capital’s fixation on the future has produced a very specific form of apocalyptic imagination, characteristic of financial society and built on a libidinal economy of leverage. Rather than offering an ecstatic end to the global process of financialization, financial eschatologies bind the contemporary subject to debt and indebtedness to the very end: an endless apocalypse, premised on the ends of finance itself. (shrink)

Paul Tillich's eternal now is the ground from which all things emerge and perish in each and every moment. A Tillichean eschatology involves the gathering of all things finite into the eternity of the present moment, into God. Salvation is present moment. But is the “eternal now” enough? This essay offers biblical and theological critiques of Tillich's present eschatology and posits an eschatology that combines Tillich's “eternal now” with Wolfhart Pannenberg's “end‐oriented eschatology.” The result is an (...) eschatology that recognizes the eternal now in which all things (including all time) belong to God yet with an eye toward the God‐given possibilities of the next moment, the future. The end of being is not cessation; rather, it is the fulfillment of time, the consummation of all things. (shrink)

The present work sets out to examine the intersection between Igbo eschatology and environmentalism. It seeks to determine how the tenets of Igbo eschatology impact on environmental conservation. The approach is conversational. Given that the work centers on a particular cultural area, an ethnic nationality in West Africa with unique cultural symbols, the paper also employs the tool of hermeneutics. It is discovered that the Igbo eschatology is characteristically this-worldly, cyclic and perceives human existence as continuous given (...) the possibility of reincarnation. Accordingly, it impacts a sense of permanence or semi-immortality on the evanescent earthly existence thus rendering the optimism or motivation which environmentalism, a futuristic endeavor, demands. This is unlike an otherworldly, linear and terminal eschatology which forecloses the possibility of continuous existence and demotivates for the care of the environment. Secondly, given the animistic and this-worldly orientation, the symbolic presence of the eschata such as the ancestors and spirits in the mundane world elevates the status and compels respect and care for nature or the environment. The paper therefore submits that the Igbo eschatology is pro-environmentalism. (shrink)

In much environmentally concerned literature, there is a burgeoning concern for the status and sustainability of human hope. Within Christian circles, this attention has often taken the form of eschatological reflection. While there is important warrant for attention to eschatology in Christian examinations of hope, I claim that to move so quickly from hope to eschatology is to confuse a species of Christian hope for a definition of hope itself; as such, it is important for theological ethicists to (...) examine hope also from the experiential perspective of the human hoper. In particular, this is important today given the shortcomings of an eschatological focus in addressing anxieties arising due to the environmental crisis. Through examining hope as a fallible human activity, one can come to better understand hope's importance to human life, its profound ambiguity, and the potential threat that the environmental crisis poses to it. (shrink)

Argues the eschatological longing of bodily obsession. Impact of culture and religiosity on use of the body; Views of feminist Judith Butler on gender performativity; Theory of gender transformation; Relation among gender, transformation and God.

Eschatology is the study of end things—death and what lies beyond. Nearly all religions tackle the topic in one way or another. Theologians debate the different concepts of death, interment rituals, funeral rituals, final judgment, and the afterlife. Traditional African religions are no exception. -/- However, among scholars, the subject of African eschatology has lacked consistency and a coherent view. African Eschatology presents the concepts of end things as they are viewed in Africa as a whole but (...) focuses especially on the perspective of the Igbo culture of southern Nigeria, using it as a lens through which to examine African religious beliefs more generally. -/- Author Aloysius N. Ezeoba explains that Igbo culture perceives death not as an ultimate end but as a transition to another stage of existence. Judgment is passed by the living, by deceased ancestors, and by deities, for only through successful judgment may the Igbo rejoin their family members in a peaceful afterlife. The profound impact of death on the behavior of the living is unmistakable. -/- African Eschatology fills the gap that presently exists in the scholarly exploration of African traditional religions. It thus serves as a guide for both enculturation and inter-religious studies and communication. (shrink)

In this essay, I show how Thomas Aquinas circumscribes epistemological questions concerning both the possibility and character of our knowledge of God within a larger eschatological framework that acknowledges the beatific vision as the ultimate good that we desire as well as the ultimate end for which we were created. Thus, knowledge of God is possible and actual on Aquinas's view because it is eternally rather than merely temporally indexed—that is, properly attributable to the blessed in heaven and only derivatively (...) attributable to persons of faith. I further argue that interpreting Aquinas's account of faith in the light of his account of the beatific vision allows us to carve out polemical space for the theologically realist claim that there can be and in fact is objectivity in our knowledge of God, whether that knowledge comes through faith (in this life) or the beatific vision (in the next life). (shrink)

This paper argues that the eschatological dimension of religion is distinct from other fundamental dimensions, including moral grounding, the ontological basis of reality, and the constitution of persons. It responds in particular to Tibor Horvath's conception of the category of ultimate reality. It also argues that eschatological hereafters imply something akin to an higher-time A-series, in that the hereafter can be conceived as a temporal order beyond currently existing time.

_Occidental Eschatology_, originally Jacob Taubes's doctoral thesis and the one book he published in his lifetime, seeks to renegotiate the historical synthesis and spiritual legacy of the West through the study of apocalypticism. Covering the origins of apocalypticism from Hebrew prophecy through antiquity and early Christianity to its medieval revival in Joachim of Fiore, Taubes reveals its later secularized forms in Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard. His aim is to show the lasting influence of revolutionary, messianic teleology on Western philosophy, (...) history, and politics. Combining painstaking scholarship with an unmatched scope of reference, Taubes takes a comprehensive approach to the twin focuses of political theology and philosophy of history. He argues that acceptance of the idea that time will one day come to an end has profound implications for political thought. If natural time is experienced as an eternal cycle of events, "history" is the realm of time in which human actions can make decisions to alter the progression of events. This philosophy asks that individuals take responsibility for their own actions and resist authority that claims to act on their behalf. Whereas universal history is written by the victors, the messianic or apocalyptic event enters history and gives a voice to the oppressed. (shrink)

The powerful impact which Christianity has had on the distinct culture of the Occident can hardly be overstated. Indeed, its tremendous influence in virtually every single aspect of the European existence is ultimately recognisable in many secular quarters. In order to understand the link between the project of modernity and European Christendom and its state in the present, it is necessary to trace the development of several key features. Thus, the paper consists of two major parts dealing with: 1) the (...) Joachimist tertius status 2) aspects of the Löwith-Blumenberg debate and 3) depicting the connections – at times, the concordance – between eschatology, utopianism and totalism, and their role in the triumph, decline and transformation of European Christianity. (shrink)

In this paper, I review evidence which strongly supports the claim that life will eventually be extinguished from the universe. I then examine the ethical implications of this evidence, focusing, in particular, on the question whether it is a bad thing that life will eventually die out.

In this study, Brian Carrier provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that seismic language plays within the Matthean Gospel narrative. After reconstructing what connotations seismic language likely carried in Matthew's cultural context, the author utilizes an historically informed author-oriented narrative criticism that is complemented with redaction criticism to analyze the relationships that Matthew's seismic references display with regards to each other and to the overall narrative. This analysis leads to the conclusion that Matthew's seismic references collectively indicate that the (...) life, death, and resurrection of Jesus together represent the partial fulfillment of the Old Testament eschatological Day of the Lord. (shrink)

In the last years of his life, between 1292 and 1298, the Franciscan Peter of John Olivi wrote a series of short devotional texts, known as Opuscula, aimed at the religious edification of the laity. Olivi's perspective was strongly eschatological: in his opinion, the imminence of the end of time made lay religious experience more authentic than that of the clergy, which would eventually oppose the final evangelical renewal.Among the twelve surviving Opuscula, the most eschatologically oriented is titled Remedia contra (...) temptationes spirituales. The Remedia are characterized by a cautious and rigorous judgment on spiritual gifts, such as visions and raptures. According to Olivi, these phenomena are particularly... (shrink)

The rapid advancement of technology has led to an explosion of speculative theories about what the future of humankind may look like. These "technological futurisms" have arisen from significant advances in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology and are drawing growing scrutiny from the philosophical and theological communities. This text seeks to contextualize the growing literature on the cultural, philosophical and religious implications of technological growth by considering technological futurisms such as transhumanism in the context of the long (...) historical tradition of technological dreaming. Michael Burdett traces the latent religious sources of our contemporary technological imagination by looking at visionary approaches to technology and the future in seminal technological utopias and science fiction and draws on past theological responses to the technological future with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Ellul. Burdett's argument arrives at a contemporary Christian response to transhumanism based around the themes of possibility and promise by turning to the works of Richard Kearney, Eberhard Jüngel and Jürgen Moltmann. Throughout, the author highlights points of correspondence and divergence between technological futurisms and the Judeo-Christian understanding of the future. (shrink)

While heightening the nihilistic tension underlying the discourse of Richard Kearney, I highlight the positive contribution his book The God Who May Be makes to the debate concerning the need for a postmodern revitalization of religious symbolism. I argue for three qualifications of Kearney's argument, suggesting, in response to Kearney's exclusionary approach to the God who “neither is nor is not but may be,” a God whose possibility for meaningfulness arises as an “eschatological theogony” from out of the chaos (confusion (...) and openness) of contemporary religious symbolism. Arguing that such a radical reenvisioning of God must be tempered and given meaning through reentering and reaffirming onto‐theology in a qualified (hermeneutical) sense, I sketch a possible renewal of meaning for the traditional Christian parousia‐concept as a hermeneutical circle between Hegel's systematic closure of Western metaphysics and Heidegger's deconstructive appropriation of the hidden possibilities of presence within the onto‐theological tradition. (shrink)

In Aquinas's Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance, Matthew Levering argues that Catholic ethics make sense only in light of the biblical worldview that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God by pouring out his spirit. Jesus has made it possible for us to know and obey God's law for human flourishing as individuals and communities. He has reoriented our lives toward the goal of beatific communion with him in charity, which affects the exercise of the moral virtues that (...) pertain to human flourishing. Without the context of the inaugurated kingdom, Catholic ethics as traditionally conceived will seem like an effort to find a middle ground between legalistic rigorism and relativistic laxism, which is especially the case with the virtue of temperance, the focus of Levering's book. After an opening chapter on the eschatological/biblical character of Catholic ethics, the ensuing chapters engage Aquinas's theology of temperance in the Summa theologiae, which identifies and examines a number of virtues associated with temperance. Levering demonstrates that the theology of temperance is profoundly biblical, and that Aquinas's theology of temperance relies for its intelligibility upon Christ's inauguration of the kingdom of God as the graced fulfillment of our created nature. The book develops new vistas for scholars and students interested in moral theology. (shrink)

The sex aetates mundi was the central framework of Early Christian, Late Antique, and early medieval Christian eschatology and historiography. This article is the second part of a study of the development and history of this motif. Part I summarised the emergence of this framework in biblical and patristic writings up to the late fourth-century, concluding with the work of the North African theologian, Tyconius. The second part of this study investigates the treatment of this subject in the writings (...) of Augustine of Hippo, Dionysius Exiguus, Isidore of Seville, and the Venerable Bede. The majority of the examination is devoted to tracing Augustine’s understanding of the six ages – which was strongly influenced by Tyconius – since Augustine is frequently credited with being the main proponent of this conceptualisation of sacred history. This investigation of Augustine’s writings is mostly focused on De civitate Dei, the work that addresses the six ages framework most thoroughly, but analyses references to this historiography throughout his corpus. The conclusion of this examination argues that Augustine engaged with this commonplace view of history, but only insofar as it points mankind towards reflection of the world to come. This study argues that Isidore is the scholar who should be credited with popularising this notion in the early medieval Latin West. How the developments in calendrical reckoning put forward by Dionysius Exiguus and Bede intersect with and influence the six ages model is also charted. Overall, this study provides an in-depth examination of the six ages of history model in the thought of the fathers of Late Antique and early medieval Latin exegesis, pinpointing key moments in the evolution of the sex aetates model. (shrink)

Teyyar eschatology, as a doctrine of the ultimate destiny of mankind, is deeply rooted in the concept of the ultimate goal, which is regarded as a true result, though it emerges as a tool designed to fill some of the emptiness created by humanity in the course of natural science practice. Teillard felt that the deplorable state of modern mankind was the result of his neglect of eschatology, his inability to adapt to the needs of his activities, and (...) his lack of courage in further design. "A lighter skyscraper of hope is being constructed," G. Grespi notes. The belief that the Earth is exhausting its limited resources necessarily leads to the thought of the destruction of the Earth. (shrink)

The fundamental insight that N. Berdyaev obtains in his historiosophical reflections is that history is antinomic and the historical process is catastrophic since it has to end, because “the world cannot exist eternally”. In its global, empirical (objective) dimension, history resembles an absurd comedy “in which nothing ever succeeds”. The idea of history as a long duration (long duree) and permanent progress misses its essence. According to Berdyaev, such history is meaningless, and it has to end. Its true meaning is (...) revealed only in “its end” and “before the face of eternity”. Terrestrial history does not have its epilogue and the final solution in historical time but in celestial history when the boundaries between the immanent and the transcendent world disappear. History is the path to another and different, sublime and spiritual (noumenal) world that lies beyond the boundaries of everything historical. The destiny of man, which lies at the heart of history, assumes a meta-historical goal and a trans-historical solution to the destiny of history in a different, eternal time. To summarize, history has an eschatological meaning. Although there is an unsolvable tragic conflict between the individual human destiny and the destiny of humanity as a whole within the framework of history, Berdyaev, following the entire tradition of Russian religious philosophy, is convinced that the overcoming of that contradiction on the historical level is possible with love as the salvation and the main driving force of the soul and the source of all the spiritual creation of man. (shrink)

This study focuses on the importance of eschatological life for Christian living and mission. This renewed call for eschatological life among Christians is set in the context of modern materialism and secularism. The study reflects on eschatological perspectives based on the New Testament teachings, their implications for mission as applied both to proclamation and social engagement.

Heidegger's Eschatology is a ground-breaking account of Heidegger's early engagement with theology, from his beginnings as an anti-Modernist Catholic to his turn towards an undogmatic Protestantism and finally to a resolutely a-theistic philosophical method.

IN MANY CHURCH-BODY DISPUTES OVER THE MORAL STATUS OF SAME-gender unions, the last line of defense against the affirmation of such unions is often an appeal to homosexual orientation as inherently "disordered," rendering same-gender unions unacceptable regardless of the loving and just qualities they may embody. On the basis of a biblical anthropology shaped by the eschatological orientation of the scriptures and further enhanced by contemporary Trinitarian discourse, this essay engages and challenges this traditional view as it has been developed (...) in the theological ethics of Helmut Thielicke. In so doing, the essay raises a key metaethical question of the theological foundations that inform Christian sexual ethics in general. (shrink)

The world in which we find ourselves is religiously ambiguous. It is possible for different people to experience it both religiously and non-religiously; and to hold beliefs which arise from and feed into each of these ways of experiencing. A religious man may report that in moments of prayer he is conscious of existing in the unseen presence of God, and is aware - sometimes at least - that his whole life and the entire history of the world is taking (...) place within the ambience of the divine purpose. But on the other hand the majority of people in our modern world do not participate in that form of experience and are instead conscious of their own and others' lives as purely natural phenomena, so that their own experience leads them at least implicitly to reject the idea of a transcendent divine presence and purpose. If they are philosophically minded, they may well think that the believer's talk is the expression of what Richard Hare has called a blik , a way of feeling and thinking about the world which expresses itself in pseudo-assertions, pseudo because they are neither verifiable nor falsifiable and are therefore factually empty. 1 The religious man speaks of God as a living reality in whose presence we are, and of a divine purpose which gives ultimate meaning to our lives. But is not the world the same whether or not we suppose it to exist in God's presence; and is not the course of history the same whether or not we describe it as fulfilling God's purposes? Is not the religious description thus merely a gratuitous embellishment, a logical fifth wheel, an optional language-game which may assuage some psychological need of the speaker but which involves no claims of substance concerning the objective nature or structure of the universe? Must not the central religious use of language then be accounted a non-cognitive use, whose function is not to assert alleged facts but to express a speaker's, or a community of speakers', emotions within the framework of a factually contentless blik , ‘slant’, or ‘onlook’? (shrink)

Because of its uncompromising categoricalness, death is a subject that often causes an anxiety in a person and thus burdens his entire life on the earth. Christianity is a religion that preaches a marry annunciation – euangelion – which is God’s redeeming intervention that saves man from being enslaved by sin and death. Even though the Christian eschatology is essentially directed towards the reappearance of the Christ at the end of days and thereby related last judgement, there are some (...) differences in the thought of individual Christian churches. These differences mostly appear in the concept of individual issues, related to the state of the deceased or his soul immediately after his death and in the interpretation of events, a person is subjected to until the last judgement. The protestant eschatology, significantly defined by the Luther’s doctrine of justification, categorically refuses the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, prayers for the dead (practiced by the Catholic and the Orthodox church) and any possibility of change in the state of the deceased. Since the Protestant church is pretty diverse, this paper shall focus on the Luther’s eschatological doctrine and thereby on the teaching of the Lutheran or Evangelical Church, which directly origins from the reformation and is most true to its founder’s teaching. (shrink)

Abstract This is a study of the figure of the ?last God? as it appears in Martin Heidegger's Beiträge zur Philosophie. In what sense is this figure related to philosophy of religion as traditionally understood? It is certainly closely related to the question of the relation of time and eternity. Heidegger's earliest accounts of the relation between time and eternity are examined, and Heidegger's reflections in the Beitrage are examined in the context of the accusation of ?theosophy? which Heidegger levels (...) against the most prominent of the ancient thinkers of time and eternity, namely Plotinus. (shrink)

Eschatological images of Jesus as found in Jewish and Christian texts constitute the foundation of Edward Schillebeeckx’s positive orientation to suffering for others. Jewish prototypes provided the early Christians with an understanding of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection as the advent of the eschaton. The pre‐existing biblical figures, which early Jewish Christians appropriated in the aftermath of the devastating crucifixion, provided traditional categories through which the life and death of Jesus could be meaningfully interpreted. Jesus as the eschatological prophet‐martyr and (...) Jesus as the suffering, eschatological high priest of the Epistle to the Hebrews are the most prominent and complex of the ancient figures. In Schillebeeckx’s analysis, each of the two composite titles ascribed to Jesus is an amplification of a prophetic or priestly prototype. The use of both models is predicted on Jesus’ compassionate and redemptive response to suffering – healing the sick, comforting the bereaved, giving hope to the oppressed, and proclaiming eschatological salvation.Schillebeeckx’s historical‐critical investigation of Jesus’ perception of his anticipated death, as revealed in the Last supper narrative, and his analysis of the meaning ascribed to the crucifixion in primitive Christianity establish the basis for a theology of redemptive suffering in the early church. Schillebeeckx has critically examined three pre‐New Testament interpretations applied to Jesus’ crucifixion: the death of the eschatological prophet‐martyr in the Deuteronomic tradition of the prophets whose proclamations were typically misjudged by Israel; the fulfilment of the divine scheme of salvation through the suffering of the ‘righteous one’, who is ultimately exonerated by God; and a vicarious, atoning sacrifice. The interpretative categories examined by Schillebeeckx with respect to the crucifixion are closely related to the biblical images upon which his theology of suffering is based. (shrink)

Traditional utilitarianism, when applied, implies a surprising prediction about the future, viz., that all experience of pleasure and pain must end once and for all, or infinitely dwindle. Not only is this implication surprising, it should render utilitarianism unacceptable to persons who hold any of the following theses: that evaluative propositions may not imply descriptive, factual propositions; that evaluative propositions may not imply contingent factual propositions about the future; that there will always exist beings who experience pleasure or pain.

The relevance of the article is due to the fact that in the modern world, various utopian concepts do not lose their ideological strength, which for more than two centuries have significantly influenced public consciousness and have caused significant transformations in the socio-cultural life of mankind. The connection among social utopias and Christian eschatology has been noticed for a long time, and the thoughts expressed on this occasion by Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann in articles and diary entries can contribute to (...) a better understanding of deep cognitive processes that largely determine modern social realities. The purpose of the study was based on the analysis of the works of this worthy representative of the philosophy of the Russian diaspora, comparing the traditional religious eschatological "prototype" and later views on the "end of history". These views contributed to the development of utopianism and ideologism in the public mind. The authors focus attention on the antinomical nature of Christian eschatology, in contrast to the various socio-utopian modifications that define social ideals in a field transcendental to everyday human activities. The striving of religious thinking towards the "non-worldly" ideal, as Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann believed, made it possible to form a Christian's attitude to earthly life, which inevitably required a qualitative transformation corresponding to the notion of the ultimate goal. However, over time, the Christian faith paid less and less attention to the eschatological dimension of human life, which contributed to the formation of new eschatologies seeking their social ideals in the immediate givenness of earthly life and affirming the belief in the possibility of their empirical achievement. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the most important factor in the formation and development of the "ideological faith" in the public consciousness, the concept of which is defined in the most general terms in the works of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, was the isolation of the dominant ideological structures based on social utopian ideas, from traditional faith grounds. Thus, ideologies ceased to be functional aspects of concrete historical religions, lost their official character and themselves became the foundation for pseudo-religious creativity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eschatology, Sacred and Profane* PHILIP MERLAN LET ME BEGINthis paper with a double motto. The first is from a German poet, C. F. Meyer. It reads in my own translation: "We hosts of the dead ones--more numerous are we--than you who tread the earth and you who sail the sea." The second is a piece of statistical information for the correctness of which, however, I cannot vouchsafe. It (...) reads: "From the time when man first appeared, 77 billion people have been born. Thus, today's population of about 3 billion represents only 4 per cent of all men ever born" (Universitas 6 [1964], p. 423). With these two mottoes in mind let me proceed. Kant is one of the great representatives of the belief both in a goal to history and in progress. As he sees it, this goal is one world-wide society living under one law, which law coincides with the demands of morality, or as we could also say, in which legality and morality at least do not conflict. Kant is convinced that nature will by-and-by compel man to establish this world-wide society characterized, among other things, by eternal peace. Thus, Kant is an optimist with regard to the future. Yet, he is profoundly pessimistic with regard to the past. For him, history is one long chain of sufferings inflicted on man by man; and on the whole he has a very dim view of man's nature. The synthesis of his pessimism with his optimism is contained in a remarkable sentence which we find in one of his last writings--1793, when Kant was 69. The title is On the Adage--This May be Right in Theory, But Is Inapplicable to Practical Purposes, and here he says: When one contemplates the evil which in the course of history man has inflicted on man, one would be inclined to give up in despair. But there is one thought on the thinking of which our mind will cheer up. It is the thought: things will improve in the future. This kind of cheer will be entirely benevolent and unselfish, for this improvement will take place after we * I am indebted for the posthumous edition of this paper of my late husband Philip Merlan to Professor Frederick Sontag of Pomona College. My husband prepared this paper for, and read it to, various philosophical groups. In the course of these readings, he made numerous pencil additions. Thus, what Professor Sontag has done, is to change the tone to suit a printed presentation and to work the additions into the text as the logic of the arguments and notes seemed to dictate. Franciszka Merlan. [193] 194 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY have been buried for a long, long time. We ourselves will not be able to harvest what we ourselves have helped to plant. (WW8, 273-13) In whose name did Kant speak? Who are the altruists who feel cheered up by the prospect of a goal which they themselves will not live to reach? No easy answer can be found in Kant's writings. However it would not be surprising if Kant, a Rousseauian in so many respects, retained some of Rousseau's belief in the innate goodness of man (in spite of his pietistic heritage which encourages him to see man as thoroughly corrupt). Thus, he expects everybody to be capable of this altruistic attitude. We all do then cheer up when we think of the prospects for mankind. This means that our altruism permits us in some way to participate in mankind's bright future, to reach the goal, if I may say so, in hope and expectation, though not physically. For Kant the problem of history was never in the center of his own interest, nor would he have admitted that it is of central importance for man. Hegel's attitude is quite different. Man's participation in history is Hegel's main topic. At this point let me remind you briefly of Hegel's fundamental ideas. The enlightenment and romanticism produced two highly characteristic interpretations of religion. According to the former, the kernel of every religion is morality. According to the latter, the... (shrink)

Before the Second Vatican Council, Edward Schillebeeckx O.P. (1914–2009) had begun to reassess and the role and nature of eschatology as a discipline within Catholic theology. He began to formulate an early theology of hope in the 1950s which he would later develop quite extensively. His reflections during the Council on the famous draft of Gaudium et Spes, and on the finished document reveal the urgency of rethinking the essential relationship between ‘church’ and ‘world’. This article examines the impact (...) of Gaudium et Spes on Schillebeeckx's work in two aspects. First, the way that it helped to orient his eschatological thought towards an emphasis on the ‘future’. The distance between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’, coupled with the essential place of creation as the site of God's salvific activity in history, began to push Schillebeeckx towards an eschatological and primarily future‐oriented understanding of Christian praxis and preaching. Second, this article will examine the anthropology that Schillebeeckx reads from Gaudium et Spes and the way in which a ‘new image’ of humanity, in light of a future‐oriented eschatology, contributed to his attempts to rethink the tension between ‘church’ and ‘world’. (shrink)

Before the Second Vatican Council, Edward Schillebeeckx O.P. had begun to reassess and the role and nature of eschatology as a discipline within Catholic theology. He began to formulate an early theology of hope in the 1950s which he would later develop quite extensively. His reflections during the Council on the famous draft of Gaudium et Spes, and on the finished document reveal the urgency of rethinking the essential relationship between ‘church’ and ‘world’. This article examines the impact of (...) Gaudium et Spes on Schillebeeckx's work in two aspects. First, the way that it helped to orient his eschatological thought towards an emphasis on the ‘future’. The distance between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’, coupled with the essential place of creation as the site of God's salvific activity in history, began to push Schillebeeckx towards an eschatological and primarily future-oriented understanding of Christian praxis and preaching. Second, this article will examine the anthropology that Schillebeeckx reads from Gaudium et Spes and the way in which a ‘new image’ of humanity, in light of a future-oriented eschatology, contributed to his attempts to rethink the tension between ‘church’ and ‘world’. (shrink)

Among the many scholarly surveys of historical and contemporary approaches to Christian eschatology, few treat the relation between eschatology and scientific cosmology. It is the purpose of this essay to do so. I begin with a brief summary of the importance of eschatology to contemporary Christian theology. Next, an overview is given of scientific cosmology, its earlier scenarios for the cosmic far future of “freeze or fry,” and, more recently the discovery that the expansion of the universe (...) is accelerating. These predictions severely challenge those versions of Christian eschatology that are based on the bodily resurrection of Jesus and, by analogy, the transformation of the universe into the new creation. Several recent approaches to this challenge are outlined, including those of Denis Edwards, Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Ted Peters, John Polkinghorne, and my own. I conclude with some suggestions for future research in both theology and science. (shrink)

One of the great Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century, Taubes published only this one book during his life, and here the English translation finally becomes available.

This essay traces the historical development of the relationship between eschatology and statecraft in the thought of Paul Ramsey. At the outset of his career, as exemplified in Basic Christian Ethics, Ramsey outlined a position in which the Christian doctrine of eschatology could be construed as a source of positive theological warrants for engagement in politics. By the end of his career Ramsey's political realism had trumped this earlier theological position on eschatology such that eschatology was (...) seen as a permanent limiting factor that restrained what he saw as Enlightenment stained utopian Christian political schemes. (shrink)

It was already Hannah Arendt, who, referring to Kant, emphasized the difference betweentruth and meaning, between practical common sense and opinions. It is interesting that the common sense approach is still completely dominant today, even among theologians, who are so often accused of irrationality – or perhaps just because of it. Theology seems to feel compelled to appeal to common sense, to show the modern world, that it is useful, or at least that it is not harmful. Our discussion in (...) this essay concerns the relationship between religion and violence. We will try and explore the problem on the fundamental level, with no pretensions to offer yet another proposal in the style of 'how to ...', that modern requirements for practicality require and expect. (shrink)

An abiding puzzle in the Phaedo is the transition in the text from initial pessimism about the possibility of wisdom during human life to a more optimistic view. Prominent interpretations posit different kinds or degrees of wisdom at issue in the two sets of passages. By contrast, I argue that the pessimistic view rests on the implicit premise that the soul cannot be completely purified during human life—a premise which arises from an initial conception of impurity and its cause. In (...) developing his eschatology, Socrates refines this conception and rejects the implicit premise. Because the embodied soul can be completely purified, it can achieve philosophical wisdom as well. (shrink)

Novello, Henry The word 'eschatology' means doctrine about the eschata or 'last things.' In the neo-Scholastic manual style of theology that dominated Catholic theology before the twentieth century, eschatology was the doctrine of those things that awaited the individual person beyond death, as well as those things that awaited the whole of humanity at the end of time. The teaching on the last things appeared as an appendix at the end of dogmatic theology where it led a rather (...) barren existence as instruction on what comes 'after' the pilgrim life, with the result that it had little critical and transforming effect upon the state of the present world. Since the manual style of eschatology treated the last things as objects, Yves Congar described it as a 'physical' style of eschatology. Dermot Lane makes a further noteworthy observation when he criticizes the physical style of eschatology for appearing 'to claim too much' and seeming 'far too certain on matters of detail.' In no sense should eschatology be regarded as providing factual information about the details of our future existence. (shrink)

Along 19th and 20th centuries, art became a sort of new religion, sometimes coexisting peacefully with the institutional one, sometimes trying to provide what the institutional religion was not able to provide any more. Nowadays, art has adopted many of the solutions, topics and theories that theology has handled since it was born. Arthur C. Danto treats art as a reality whose history is over (and so, a escathological reality) and also as a metaxological (metaxy=between) reality dwelling between two realms. (...) Thus, we cannot decide by pure perceptive means whether something is art or not. This consideration has important consequences for art theory. (shrink)