Part 1: Presuppositions for Understanding Eschatology

[Guest guest]

>

> i) All Holy Scriptures declare life is eternal;

> ii) The resurrection of Jesus Christ demonstrated that human

> evolution into the eternal spirit, a fundamental promise of all

> Holy Scriptures, is a fact;

> iii) The Advent and Message of Shri Mataji as the Comforter/Holy

> Spirit/Ruh meets the exacting requirements of eschatology;

> iv) Shri Mataji is verily the incarnation of the Adi Shakti/Holy

> Spirit/Ruh of God Almighty;

> v) adishakti.org is the only unassailable evidence available for

> those who want to confirm all the above before pursuing life

> eternal.

>

> Almost daily adishakti.org reminds me that the Divine Feminine

> within is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), and

> omnipresent (always present everywhere). These attributes solely

> belong to God Almighty and His Power (Shakti), and adishakti.org

> confirms those attributes. Unlike the vast majority, my faith in the

> Divine is based on the experience, evidence and enlightenment of

> eschatological evolution. Can you name even a single priest, pastor,

> reverend, bishop, pope, rabbi, cleric, imam, mullah, shaikh, ulema,

> ayatollah, guru, swami, pandit, brahmin, acarya, bhagwan, amma,

> granthi, giani, lama, monk, or dalai lama capable of giving you that

> experience, evidence and enlightenment of eschatological evolution?

>

 

The Foundations of Karl Rahner

Paperback: 224 pages

Publisher: Herder & Herder

Publication: November 25, 2005

ISBN: 0824523423

 

Paraphrase by Mark F. Fischer

 

Chapter Nine: Eschatology

Chapter Nine has three parts. In the first part, Rahner lays out the

presuppositions for understanding eschatology, the doctrine of the

last things. He states that we must understand eschatological

statements as a projection by the Christian community about its own

future. That future is not to be understood merely as the future of

individuals, but also as the collective destiny of all persons. It

cannot be reduced to a single scenario.

 

In the second part of the chapter, Rahner examines the individual

aspect of eschatology. Rahner distinguishes individual eschatology

(the destiny of the individual at death) from collective eschatology

(the destiny of creation as a whole). He rejects, however, the idea

of two eschatologies, for together they make up a single reality.

 

The eternal life that is God's will for human beings is their

participation in the good, the good which God invites them to choose.

Once they have chosen it, their participation in God has communal

consequences.

 

The third part looks at the collective dimension of eschatology. The

death of an individual is not simply a moment of his or her escape

from history. It is rather the moment in which the individual's

contribution to history -- i.e., to the fulfillment of human destiny -

- begins to achieve its final form. The individual's concrete acts of

love are a participation in the salvation and love of God and

contribute to it.

 

 

Part 1: Presuppositions for Understanding Eschatology

 

Eschatology is traditionally the doctrine of the " last things " --

death, judgment, heaven, and hell. But fundamentally, says Rahner, it

is about the human being, " a being who ex-ists from out of his

present 'now' towards his future " (431). This means that the human

being lives by anticipating and choosing. We are creatures and we

cannot dispose of our future as if it were wholly in our control. But

we can say what possibilities we hope will be freely given to us and

freely accepted by us.

 

In this first part, Rahner begins with the hermeneutical distinction

between traditional statements about the last things (often made in

the language of apocalyptic) and the eschatological reality they are

meant to convey (A). He then introduces the concept of a unified

eschatology, in which the entire person, body and soul, experiences

death, judgment, and final destiny (B). Finally, he speaks about

the " hiddenness " of eschatology, an eschatology that rejects the

temptation to predict the future and instead focuses on the

incomprehensible mystery of God ©.

 

A. On the Hermeneutics of Eschatological Statements (p. 431). When

Christians read eschatological statements in the Bible, they are

tempted to interpret them " as anticipatory, eyewitness accounts of a

future which is still outstanding " (431), in other words, as

predictions. But although the Bible and the Church say a lot about

the future, Rahner asserts that their statements should not be read

as if they denied the human ability to make choices. Eschatological

statements do not destroy human freedom.

 

To be sure, every human being is a member of a community. That means

that every human being belongs to a collective history. One corollary

of this " belonging " is the existence of a collective eschatology. It

makes sense to say that all human beings will face the last things.

But a collective eschatology does not mean that every person will

share the same fate. Eschatology is the realm of freedom. Christian

statements about the future, says Rahner, speak of this eschatology

as " the milieu and environment of transcendental spirit " (432). We

are not merely actors reading our lines, but manifest the human

spirit in our choices. Hence eschatological statements are not the

plot outline of a drama whose final act we know in advance. They are

rather " conclusions from the experience of the Christian present "

(432). They are the Christian community's collective projections

about the future. We project our own future and understand the

present as its coming-to-be.

 

Rahner distinguishes between eschatology and apocalyptic. Eschatology

is a view of how the future " has to be " if the Christian's view of

the present is correct. Apocalyptic is a mode of expression that

takes seriously the concreteness of the eschatological future.

Biblical apocalyptic speaks of the future as if the writers were

eyewitnesses. Eschatology is what the apocalyptic writers mean. They

are projecting their interpretation of the present into the future.

We have to distinguish between the apocalyptic form of thought and

expressions, on the one hand, and the true content, on the other.

 

Apocalyptic images speak of what is real, namely, our hope for the

future. It is real because it is based on a real experience of the

present. But often the images suggest a future that we, with our

present Christian anthropology, may not be able to affirm. As an

example (an example not proposed by Rahner), consider the statement

by the author of Revelation (7.4) that the number of those " sealed "

(under God's protection) is 144,000. It is hard to believe that the

number of the saved is so small. A deeper analysis suggests that this

apocalyptic number does not predict the number of the saved, but

connotes an eschatological truth. It is the truth that God's

salvation will be a complete salvation. Rahner urges us to use

caution when interpreting apocalyptic statements.

 

Undoubtedly there are implications in Biblical apocalyptic from which

we can learn. That is the task of hermeneutics, to discern the truth

that the Biblical authors intend. But Rahner warns against

extravagant claims. " We know no more about the last things, " he

writes, " than we know about people who have been redeemed, who have

been taken up into Christ, and who exist in God's grace " (434). We

know about them only from their life in our midst. We do not know

about their present experience in the " afterlife. "

 

B. The Presupposition for a Unified Eschatology (p. 434). A unified

eschatology includes both the body and the soul. Rahner contrasts it

with the partial eschatology that looks only to the salvation of the

soul. Rationalists in the style of the Enlightenment understood

eschatology in this partial way. The problem with this partial

understanding is that it ascribes immortality to the soul as an

abstraction from the body. It is an individualistic and private

salvation. But the destiny of the soul, Rahner asserts, depends

on " the transformation of the world " and is not independent of the

resurrection of the flesh. To be sure, it is correct to speak of the

immortality of the soul. It is a part of the salvation of the single

person. But there is more to eschatology than the fate of the

individual. The last things have to do, not just with the individual

soul, but with the body in general. They have to do with the

collective destiny of all persons.

 

C. The Hiddenness of the Last Things (p. 434). An eschatology

that " is not apocalyptic " (one that does not mistake the language of

allegory for the realities it expresses) remains focused on the

incomprehensible mystery of God. It is hidden. Such eschatology

cannot speak as if it could predict the future. When Christians speak

about eschatology, they should move " beyond all images into the

ineffable " (434).

 

Part 1: Presuppositions for Understanding Eschatology