Eschatological Encounter with God

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017 VoL. XXXVII APRIL, 1973 No.~ ESCHATOLOGICAL ENCOUNTER WITH GOD RECENT DISCUSSIONS and debates over the nature of Christian eschatology have concentrated on the question whether theological interpretation should emphasize the present or the future reality of the reign of God. Should we accept the futurist, apocalyptic option of a Pannenberg 1 or the" presentative," existentialist eschatology of Bultmann 2 and 1 Cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg, ed., Revelation as History, trans. D. Granskou (Toronto: The Macmillan Co., 1963); James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr., eds., Theology as History: New Frontiers in Theology, III (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); also W. Pannenberg, "Heilsgeschehen und Geschichte," Kerygma und Dogma, V (1959), ~18-37, and ~59-88. A futurist, but less apocalyptic interpretation is oflered by Jii.rgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, trans. James W. Leitch (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). More recently, cf. Klaus Koch, Ratlos vor der Apocalyptik (Gerd Mohn: Guterslaher Verlagshaus, 1970). 2 As set forth most explicitly in Rudolf Bultmann, History and Eschatology, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 196~); Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958); Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann (New York: Meridian Books, 1960); Jesus and the Word (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934), p. 51, "Future and present are not related in the ~71 JOHN F. HAUGHT his students? 3 Though hotly debated, both alternatives seem to express elements of obvious value to Christian faith. Yet a common conceptuality, the prerequisite for fruitful discussion, seems to be lacking between those on the one hand who envision the eschaton as an essentially future, developmental or final eventuality , and those on the other who see the present moment of authentic self-disposing decision as the occasion for the exhaustive outpouring of God's eschatological presence. This impasse is the result of divergent philosophical-theological commitments as well as of correspondingly disparate readings of Scripture on the part of each side. The" futurist" approach is generally one in which the physical, corporeal, cosmological , and calendrical dimensions of space and time are assumed to fall within the sphere of either a proleptically, developmentally or an apocalyptically interpreted eschaton. And the " existentialist " approach is one which philosophically (sometimes gnostically) prescinds from the natural-objectivehistorical order for the sake of locating eschatology in the sphere of a " subjectivity " which is somehow disengaged from the strictly cosmological elements of time and space. The futurist position often stresses the liberating, even political-revolutionary implications of the radical relativization of the present order in the face of an absolutely future eschaton, while the existentialist hermeneutic of eschatology accentuates the significance to faith of complete involvement in each present moment, leaving the future completely open and free from the apparently deterministic overtones of apocalyptic enthusiasm. sense that the Kingdom begins as 31 historical fact in the present and achieves its fulfillment in the future." 8 For example, Gerhard Ebeling, Word and Faith, trans. James Vi. Leitch (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963); cf. especially Robert W. Funk, ed., Apocalypticism: Journal for Theology and the Church, VI (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969); James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr., The New Hermeneutic: New Frontiers in Theology, II (New York: Harper & Row, 1964). The severe debate among post-Bultmannians over the significance to Christian faith of the apocalyptic horizon of Jesus's proclamation has not issued in any substantial appropriation of apocalyptio eschatology on their part. The valuable research by Ernst Kasemann (cf., in particular, Funk, ed., Apocalypticism) has been of less theological benefit to himself than to the disciples of Pannenberg: cf., for example, Carl Braaten, Christ and Counter-Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 197~), pp. ~-19. ESCHATOLOGICAL ENCOUNTER WITH GOD 273 The present article, while in no way striving for synthesis, will attempt to exploit the possibilities of each of these apparently antithetical interpretations. Eschatology must be so interpreted as to have a bearing on present as well as future. This much every Christian can accept. The problem is precisely how to understand present and future as inextricable categories in eschatological understanding. I shall propose that...