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The End
of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on
Eschatology
Edited by
John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker
Trinity
Press International: 2,000. ix + 309 pages.
The God
of Hope and the End of the World
Authored
by John Polkinghorne
Yale
University Press, 2002. xxv + 154 pages.
Reviewed by
David R. Larson
Christians and others have long discussed what
religion and science tell us about the past. Particularly since Charles
Darwin published The Origins of the Species in 1859 and The
Descent of Man in 1871, but also for many centuries before that,
thoughtful persons have examined what we can learn about our yesteryears
from these two sources. Although such valuable exchanges continue, other
important conversations now focus upon what religion and science tell us
about the future. Where is the universe headed? Can we be certain? Is
there anything we can do about it? If so, what? Questions such as these
are now moving to front and center.
Christians look forward to a time when God
"will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more:
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have
passed away" (Revelation 21:4 NRSV). Meanwhile, debates persist in
many scientific circles as to how, but not whether, the universe will
perish. Will it expand and cool until everything dies? Or will it contract
in a fiery crunch that consumes all? "Freeze or fry?" is now the
question, we are frequently told. Either way, the irrevocable death of the
universe is not what those of us who are Christians usually have in mind
when we praise "the blessed hope."
These two books report on several conferences
about such issues The Center for Theological Inquiry convened in the early
1990s at its headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey and also at Heidelberg,
Germany. Edited by John Polkinghorne, a physicist and theologian at
Cambridge University, and Michael Welker, a theologian at the University
of Heidelberg, The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and
Theology on Eschatology, contains eighteen essays from almost as many
authors with a diversity of specialties and points of view. Authored by
one person, The God of Hope and the End of the World presents John
Polkinghorne’s own developing convictions in light of the discussions at
these conferences. Taken together, these books provide an excellent
introduction to the breadth and depth of the current conversations.
The essays in the Polkinghorne and Welker
collection are arranged in four clusters that examine eschatology, the
study of last things, in "The Natural Sciences," "The
Cultural Sciences and Ethics," "The Biblical Traditions"
and "Theology and Spirituality." This format enables each author
to address the topic from the strength of his or her own research and
reflection. Unfortunately, however, too often this arrangement also allows
the authors to speak past instead of with each other. If they were
recorded, the transcripts of the exchanges that took place after each
author presented his or her paper would easily fill another interesting
and informative volume. This is probably when the most stimulating
dialogue took place!
The essays by Kathryn Tanner, at the
University of Chicago, and Jurgen Moltmann, from the University of
Tuubengin, are representative of the diversity of views within the
anthology. Moltmann’s more traditional essay assesses a number of past
and present answers to the question, "Is There Life After
Death?" Tanner’s less traditional one on "Eschatology without
a Future?" explores what Christians might still affirm if they
embrace the idea that the universe is headed for permanent destruction.
The other essays fall at various points between these alternatives.
Both in his essays within the anthology and in
his book, John Polkinghorne contends that our universe undoubtedly will
perish but that its death will be followed by a new order that will be
continuous with the present one in some ways and discontinuous with it in
others. On the one hand, the temporality, relatedness, patterns of
organized occurrences and mathematical precision of the way things now are
will continue. So will those persons whose ongoing identities will be made
possible by God’s recollection of the formal character of their lives
and the subsequent re-embodiment of these patterns at the resurrection of
the dead. On the other hand, although those who live in the next cosmic
epoch will be embodied as we are, the matter of which their bodies will be
composed, like the "physical fabric" of the entire new creation, will be different.
Among other things, it will no longer require a predatory ecological order
in order to support life. Neither will it require enough distance from God
to make doubt a live option. Polkinghorne derives these anticipations from
his study of Scripture and the scientific evidence. God’s steadfast love
is the ultimate basis for all human hope, he writes.
Although in general I find Polkinghorne’s
proposals very helpful, I also believe there are several items that
deserve further study and thought. One of these is God’s continuous
participation in the life of this universe and any other that may follow.
In these publications, Polkinghorne attributes the ongoing flow of all
things to the primordial potential God initially provided, the patterns of
regularity we used to call laws of nature and the trials and errors of
chance. As he probably expounds elsewhere, however, this explanation,
which is so abbreviated that it could be mistaken for Deism, pays
insufficient attention to the ways God is a non-coercive influence for
good in each and every circumstance (Romans 8:28). Also, in my view his
treatment of mathematical realities is sometimes too similar to Plato’s,
although he is right, I believe, that they are not merely human
projections. In addition, I do not share his sympathies for the doctrine
of purgatory.
These books deserve to be studied and
discussed. Because it is more accessible, it might be best to begin
with John Polkinghorne’s book and then turn to the more technical essays
he edited with Michael Welker. If we do our homework, and if we presume
that other people are as honest in their beliefs as we are in ours, we
will be able to participate in these important conversations in positive
ways. Doing so would help keep hope alive! |