Page 29 - Remembering the Future Preview Pages

Chapter Two ESCHATOLOGY AND CREATION
WIntroduction: The Ontological Content of the Eschata
hat does God promise to give us in his Kingdom? In the minds
of most believers as well as in many strands of the theological traditions of both Eastern and Western Christianity, the ontological content of the eschata has been so weakened as to almost disappear. In the medieval Western tradition, the Kingdom of God has been identified mainly with participation in the bliss and beatitude of God,1 while in the East, the dominant theme is the vision of God and participation in his glory.2 In the Protestant tradition, the theme of justification dominated the scene for much of its history, while in more recent times, the emphasis has been put on the restoration of divine rule and justice in the world, which seems to preoccupy the Judeo-Christian literature of biblical times.3
In all of these cases, it is the bene esse and not the very esse that the eschatological state offers to humanity and the world. The being of creation is established protologically and is taken for granted in dealing with the Last Things. The eschata do not seem to concern the being but the well-being of creatures.
The reasons for such an unontological approach to eschatology are manifold. In the first place, the doctrine of creation seems to be exhausted in its consideration of the beginning of things in almost all manuals of Christian dogmatics. The world’s being is securely es- tablished at the beginning when creation was declared by God to be
1 For example, Dante’s “beatific vision” and Pope Benedict XII in his constitution Benedictus Deus (1336) followed by the councils of Florence, Trent, etc.
2 Cf. V. Lossky, The Vision of God (Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire: Faith Press, 1963). The theme of glory as the characteristic of the eschatological state of creation was already emphasized by S. Bulgakov, The Bride of the Lamb, pp. 401, 451, and elsewhere.
3 See G. Sauter, “Protestant Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, ed. J.L. Walls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 248–262.
–113–