Abstract
This essay deals with Christian eschatology as a “new creation” based on the bodily resurrection of Jesus, in contrast to scientific cosmologies that predict a “cosmic freeze” and the end of all life and matter in the universe. The seemingly impossible challenge science poses to theology arises from a philosophical assumption that the predictions of science must come to pass, when there are good reasons for applying a theological scenario to discussion of the future of the universe. Creative dialogue between Christian eschatology and scientific cosmology holds potential benefit for both sides of the debate.
Keywords
Introduction
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By God’s great mercy we have been given a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Pet 1:3,
The bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is, for many Christians (including me), the defining kerygma of Christian theology. 1 Here, “bodily” stands for the transformation of the total person of Jesus into a new form of somatic existence and eternal life with God. According to this interpretation, the resurrection of Jesus is more than resuscitation (in which the revived individual presumably will die again, at a later date), such as the raising of Lazarus (John 11:38–44) or the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:22–24, 35–43). Nor is bodily resurrection to be given a spiritualized or, more reductively, a subjectivized interpretation, such as are offered by Rudolf Bultmann and many members of the Jesus Seminar. The resurrection is also more than a miracle confined to the person of Jesus and played out against the backdrop of an ordinary world, following the Humean view of miracle (i.e., as a violation of the laws of nature). Instead, the accounts of the risen Lord include what appears to be an environment already showing signs of radical transformation, as suggested by his appearances and ascension. This view of the resurrection leads to an eschatology in which all of creation is to be transformed into the new creation, an environment called a “new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1). According to Christian belief, this new creation was first instantiated by God’s act at Easter that signals the future for all creatures when Christ comes again in glory (see, e.g., Mark 13:26–27; 1 Cor 15:21–24; 1 Thess 4:13–17).
For all the hard-won progress in constructive engagements termed “theology and science” over the past half-century, the challenge scientific cosmology poses to bodily resurrection and new creation eschatology has received little attention. Throughout the literature on theology and science, the concept of “creation” has referred almost unequivocally to the “Big Bang” models of an expanding universe that is some 13.7 billion light years in size. The assumption made in this literature is that the “creation” that will be transformed into the “new creation” must unequivocally refer to that same “Big Bang” universe. Regardless of the scientific model chosen (including, among others, Big Bang, inflationary Big Bang, and quantum cosmology), the scientific portrait of the future of the universe is certainly not anything like the biblical/theological “new creation.” Indeed, as Ted Peters has acknowledged, “should the final future as forecasted by the combination of big bang cosmology [i.e., endless expansion] and the second law of thermodynamics [i.e., endless cooling] come to pass . . . we would have proof that our faith has been in vain. It would turn out to be that there is no God, at least not the God in whom followers of Jesus have put their faith.” 2
The purpose of this essay is to take some steps towards a response to these issues. 3
The Challenge of Big Bang Cosmology
[I]f it were shown that the universe is indeed headed for an all-enveloping death, then this might . . . falsify Christian faith and abolish Christian hope.
4
To consider the universe from a scientific perspective, we must turn to physics, specifically to Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity and Big Bang cosmology. By 1915, Albert Einstein had constructed his “General Theory of Relativity,” using his “Special Theory of Relativity” as its basis, and applying it to the problem of gravity. The General Theory of Relativity combines space and time into space-time, sets it on an equal ontological footing with matter, and allows for their interaction. As a famous interpretation goes, in general relativity, “space tells matter how to move . . . and matter tells space how to curve.” 5 During the 1920s, astronomers such as Edwin Hubble (for whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named) discovered that the light from distant galaxies shifted towards the red end of the color spectrum, and that the amount of shift was linearly related to the distance to the galaxy. These observations, in turn, could be interpreted as showing that galaxies in all directions in space are receding from Earth at a velocity (v) proportional to their distance (D), as given by Hubble’s law: “v=HxD.” The implication is that the universe itself is expanding in time.
Stephen van Vuuren.“Big Bang,” ©2007. Photo montage made from 350,000 photographs of a star.
There are three possible types of expansion. In the “closed” model, the universe has the shape of a three-dimensional sphere of finite size that expands up to a maximum size (approximately 500 billion years from now), then re-contracts to zero size with infinite temperatures and density. The two “open” models include the “flat” and “saddle-shaped” models, in which the universe already is infinite in size and will expand forever, while it cools inevitably towards absolute zero. All three models came to be called “Big Bang” because they describe the universe as having a finite past life of 13.7 billion years that began at zero-time (“t=0”) in an event of infinite temperature, density, and zero volume.
Since the 1970s, 6 a variety of technical problems in the standard Big Bang model have led scientists to pursue an “inflationary Big Bang” model and a “quantum cosmology” model. According to the inflationary Big Bang model, at extremely early times (in Planck time, 10-43 seconds after t=0), the universe expanded at a staggering rate, then quickly settled down to the slower expansion rates of the standard Big Bang model. During inflation, countless domains separated the overall universe into many universes. In each of these universes, the natural constants and specific laws of physics can vary. In most quantum cosmologies, our universe is part of an eternally expanding, infinitely complex mega-universe. Quantum cosmology, however, is a highly speculative field. Theories involving quantum gravity, which underlie quantum cosmology, are notoriously hard to test empirically.
Although inflationary and quantum cosmologies describe the universe “before” t=0 in different ways, they describe the far future universe with Big Bang cosmology. The most likely scenario for the far future of the universe is called “freeze.” According to this scenario, the universe is open (i.e., already infinite in size). It will expand forever and cool from its present temperature (about 2.7o K), endlessly approaching absolute zero. Recent astrophysical data, beginning in 1998, indicate that the rate of expansion of the universe is actually accelerating in time. Hence, any two physical systems, from clusters of galaxies to planetary systems, will eventually be so far apart as to be causally disconnected. The most generally accepted, though still speculative, explanation of the acceleration is the presence of “dark energy,” which is spread uniformly throughout the universe and causes what can be thought of as a sort of pressure that leads to the acceleration. 7
What about the future of life in the universe? It turns out that the overall picture is bleak, at best. 8 In five billion years, the sun will become a red giant, engulfing the earth and Mars. In forty to fifty billion years, star formation will have ended in our galaxy. In 1012 years, all massive stars will have become neutron stars or black holes. In 1031 years, protons and neutrons will decay into positrons, electrons, neutrinos, and photons. In 1034 years, dead planets, black dwarfs, and neutron stars will disappear when their mass completely converts into energy and will leave only black holes, a plasma of elementary particles, and radiation. The upshot is clear: Life will vanish from the universe, and all trace of it will be wiped out in the universe’s endless expansion and cooling.
Now we can return to our key question: Can Christian eschatology be seen as consistent with this scientific scenario?
Debates over the Interpretation of Jesus’s Bodily Resurrection in the New Testament
In this article I will adopt as a working hypothesis the view of eschatology as a “new creation.” God will bring a new creation out of the existing creation as a future (and yet already present) completion of God’s eschatological promise beginning with the cross and resurrection of Jesus. The new creation is not a second, separate creation ex nihilo (having no material continuity with the present creation), nor is it simply a material extension of the present creation marked by complete continuity with its routine natural processes. Instead it is a creation that has continuities as well as discontinuities with the present one. This approach is based on the interpretation of the resurrection of Jesus as “bodily”: neither a resuscitation (such as the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11:38–44), nor a gnostic spiritualized flight of the soul from this world, nor a mere “psychological” event in the lives of the disciples described with mythological language. The new creation, as analogous with the resurrection of Jesus, poses the most profound challenges for theology when scientific cosmology is taken seriously.
In a bodily resurrection interpretation, something “new” happened to Jesus of Nazareth after his crucifixion, death, and burial, with the result that he now lives forever with God, and he is present to us in our lives. In short, God the Father raised Jesus from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit. 9 The experience of seeing the resurrected Jesus caused the first disciples to know and believe something new about Jesus of Nazareth after his crucifixion. The New Testament language about the resurrection of Jesus is more than a mythological way of speaking about the inner existential experiences of the disciples. 10 The language is about post-mortem events in the new life that God gave to Jesus after his death and burial.
The bodily resurrection of Jesus emphasizes elements of continuity and of discontinuity between Jesus of Nazareth and the risen Jesus, holding these in a tension connoted by phrases such as “identity-in-transformation.” 11 These elements of continuity between the pre- and post-resurrection Jesus include everything about the human person of Jesus: there is at least a minimal element of physical/material being as well as personal, interpersonal, and spiritual continuity between Jesus of Nazareth and the risen Jesus.
Many of the New Testament scholars and systematic theologians who support a literal understanding of the bodily resurrection of Jesus approach eschatology by analogy to the resurrection and posit that the universe (the present creation) will transform into the “new creation” that consists of a “new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1; cf. Rom 8:18–23). These scholars connect Jesus’s resurrection with the general resurrection at the end of time (cf. 1 Cor 15:21–24, 52–54; 1 Thess 4:13–17). They view the “new creation” as a transformation of the whole world and all that is in it. Curiously, however, they seldom respond to the challenge raised by scientific cosmology.
New Research in Scientific Cosmology and in Eschatology
The project begun here is clearly a long-term undertaking that will require the participation of scholars from a variety of fields, including the sciences, philosophy, biblical studies, and theology. How are we to proceed? My sense is that we first need some initial proposals that will help point us in a fruitful direction.
First we must deal with the fundamental challenge physical cosmology poses to the kind of eschatology we are considering here: namely, one based on the bodily resurrection of Jesus. In bare form, the challenge is stark: if the predictions of contemporary scientific cosmology come to pass, then the parousia will not merely be “delayed”—it will never happen. Moreover, if this is so, then the inexorable logic of Paul makes the challenge starkly clear: if there will never be a general resurrection, then Christ has not been raised from the dead, and our hope is in vain (1 Cor 15:12–14). Still, theology also challenges science: if it is, in fact, true that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, then the general resurrection cannot be impossible. But scientific claims about a universe that expands and cools forever make it difficult to imagine the general resurrection as a future event within the universe. Theologically speaking, this means that the future of the universe will not be what scientific cosmology predicts. 12
We seem to be at loggerheads. How are we to resolve this fundamental challenge? My response is that the challenge does not come from science per se, but from the way we approach science. We routinely bring a philosophical assumption to science, namely that scientific predictions must come to pass, as theorized, without qualification. It is quite possible, however, to accept a very different assumption about the future, even while accepting all that science explains about the past. The first step is deciding whether the laws of nature are descriptive or prescriptive. Does nature “obey” the laws of physics in such a way that these laws causally determine what will happen in the processes of nature (prescriptive), or do these laws merely describe the regularities of natural processes (descriptive), so that these processes might possess their own natural causality? As Bill Stoeger argues, science alone cannot settle the matter. 13
A strong case can then be made on philosophical grounds that the laws of nature are descriptive, not prescriptive. The second step is to claim, on theological grounds, that the processes of nature are the result of God’s ongoing action as Creator and not the result of nature acting entirely on its own. The regularity of natural processes is ultimately the result of divine causality, even if God bequeaths a significant degree of causal autonomy to nature (as Aquinas argued). Finally, if God is free to act in radically new ways in the ongoing history of the universe, then the future of the cosmos may not be what science predicts. This is the theological view I take here. Accordingly, I believe that the cosmic far future will be based on a radically new kind of divine action that began with the radically new divine action in the resurrection of Jesus, and that this new act of God cannot be reduced to, or explained by, the current laws of nature, that is, by God’s regular action in the past history of the universe.
We could say that the “freeze” prediction for the cosmological future would have applied had God not acted in Easter and if God were not to continue to act to bring forth the ongoing eschatological transformation of the universe. Because of Easter and God’s promise for the resurrection’s eschatological completion, however, the “freeze” predictions will not come to pass. This theological move undermines scientific cosmology’s challenge to biblical eschatology and reframes the challenge as a dialogue. The challenge that arises from a philosophy of science in which the laws of nature are prescriptive and efficacious disappears when we shift to a philosophy of science in which the laws of nature are descriptive.
Second, any eschatology we might construct must be scientific in its description of the past history of the universe. 14 This means we must be prepared to reconstruct current work in eschatology in light of Big Bang cosmology, contemporary physics, and evolutionary and molecular biology as they describe the past 13.7 billion-year history of the universe and the evolution of life on Earth.
Our starting point, based on the bodily resurrection of Jesus, is that the new creation is not a replacement of the old creation, or a second and separate creation ex nihilo. Instead, God will transform God’s creation, the universe, into a “new creation” based on analogy with the resurrection of Jesus. Just as Jesus’s body was transformed into the risen and glorified body, so the matter of this new environment must come from the transformed matter of this world. As John Polkinghorne writes, “[T]he first creation was ex nihilo while the new creation will be ex vetere . . . the new creation is the divine redemption of the old. . . . [This idea] does not imply the abolition of the old but rather its transformation.” 15 Clues to what the “new heaven and new earth” will be like come from the themes of continuity and discontinuity found in the Gospel accounts of the resurrection. Moreover, science may have something to contribute to our understanding of this transformation. The continuities might lie within the province of science (or, more precisely, what Polkinghorne calls “metascience”). 16
If we accept Polkinghorne’s view as a starting point, it follows that God must have created the universe such that it is transformable; that is, it can be transformed by God’s action. In particular, God must have created it with precisely the conditions and characteristics that are necessary as preconditions in order to be transformable by God’s new act. Moreover, if it is to be transformed and not replaced, God must have created it with precisely the conditions and characteristics that will be part of the new creation.
That science offers a profound understanding of the past and present history of the universe means that science can be of immense help to the theological task of understanding that transformation. We must find a way to identify, with at least some probability, these needed conditions, characteristics, and preconditions. I will refer in general to these conditions and characteristics as “elements of continuity.” Science might also shed light on which conditions and characteristics of the present creation we do not expect to be continued into the new creation; these can be called “elements of discontinuity” between creation and new creation. Thus physics and cosmology might play a profound role in our attempt to sort out what is truly essential to creation and what is to be left out in the healing transformation to come.
I call the preceding idea the “first instance of a new law of nature.” 17 In one sense, this refers to first instances of phenomena within creation, such as the emergence of life on Earth. Here, however, in the context of the resurrection of Jesus, a “first instance of a new law of nature” refers to the first instance of a radically new phenomenon. Within the context of the coming new creation, the resurrection of Jesus will be the first instance of a general, regular phenomenon, the general resurrection from the dead and life everlasting. It might better be termed “the first instance of a new law of the new creation.”
Another important avenue into our exploration of eschatology comes from a different area in systematic theology: the problem of evil and theodicy both in the human, moral sphere (sin) and in pre-human biological and physical nature (natural theodicy). Any acceptable eschatology we might construct in light of scientific cosmology must also address the problems of evil and theodicy. I have studied the problem of theodicy through the nearly four-billion-year history of natural evils on planet Earth, including both biological “evil” (suffering, disease, predation, death, and extinction) and physical “evil” (tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, collision with asteroids). 18 I have explored two approaches. The first is based on the Augustinian tradition as developed in the twentieth century by Reinhold Niebuhr. The second is based on John Hick’s appropriation of the theodicy of Friedrich Schleiermacher. I have shown in detail how these formulations of theodicy can be used creatively to generate criteria that any acceptable eschatology must address. In what follows, I provide a brief summary.
Augustine and Niebuhr: The End of Moral and Natural Evil?
The Augustine-Niebuhr theodicy offers a crucial insight into what eschatology must include. The assumption lying behind Augustine’s version of this theodicy is the historic “fall” of Adam and Eve. According to Augustine, in the Garden of Eden it was possible for Adam and Eve not to sin; after the fall, it became impossible for humans not to sin (without the grace of God). Niebuhr transformed this concept of sin as follows: in the present world, sin is unnecessary but inevitable. 19 For Augustine, in the eschatological new creation, it will be impossible to sin. While the idea of a historical fall is undermined by evolutionary biology, the essence of the idea of sin can be retrieved without an appeal to the fall. In the new creation Augustine’s insight remains: it will be impossible to sin. What I am proposing is that we view this insight as a criterion of eschatology. If in the new creation it will be impossible to commit moral evil, then it is reasonable to suppose that the new creation will not include natural evil, either. I have argued that the physics of thermodynamics is a necessary precondition for the possibility of both moral and natural evil: one need only consider the fundamental role that the law of increasing entropy plays in all forms of decay and death. If natural evil will not be part of the new creation, however, this has enormous implications for the role of thermodynamics, not only in creation but in the new creation.
These implications could be taken in a couple of ways. In its most simple form, the new creation will not include such processes as thermodynamics, since thermodynamics contributes to natural evil. In a slightly more complex form, it might mean that the new creation will include processes of thermodynamics only to the extent that that they contribute to natural good, not natural evil.
Schleiermacher and Hick: Soul-making and the Redemption of All Life?
The Schleiermacher-Hick theodicy pivots on the claim that the world must be one in which “soul-making” is possible. 20 In essence, the world must be such that we grow in virtue by learning to choose the good for its own sake, not merely for a reward. It is a world in which the existence and presence of God are veiled, so that we must grow in character on our own. The gravest challenge raised against the Schleiermacher-Hick theodicy is the combination of excessive suffering in the world and the attempt to justify it by an argument in which the means is justified by the end. Against Schleiermacher-Hick, there are some forms of suffering (such as the Holocaust) that are never justifiable as a means for the sake of soul-making, and a world in which humans have an opportunity to grow in virtue is unjustifiable, given the billions of years of animal deaths before there was any possibility of human moral growth. Hick’s response to this criticism was that the overall goodness of creation lies not in the present, as with Augustine, but in the eschatological future. 21 Whether he addressed the “means-end” argument sufficiently is an open question.
In response to the view of Hick, I believe that the eschatological new creation must include not only humanity but all the species and individual creatures in the history of life on Earth. Specifically, the new creation must include the concrete details of their lives, capacities, and characteristics, and not merely as part of the human experience of redemption. In particular, every moment in the history of the evolution of life, not just the end of historical time, must be taken up and transformed eschatologically by God into eternal life. Ultimately, this eschatological vision must include the redemption of all life in the universe.
The new creation also must be structured on a Trinitarian doctrine of God based on the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Thus, the involuntary suffering of all of nature—each species and each individual creature—must be taken up into the voluntary suffering of Christ on the cross and through it the voluntary suffering of the Father. All this must be communicated between the Father and the Son, and between them to the rest of creation, by the Spirit.
Finally, we must ask whether such revisions in theology might be of any interest to contemporary science—at least for individual theorists who share eschatological concerns and who are interested in whether they might stimulate creative insight into research science. This possibility takes two forms: first, theology might suggest certain criteria for choosing between existing scientific theories. Second, theology might suggest ideas that would lead to the creation of new scientific research programs. Of course, the basis of all scientific research programs is evaluation of evidence, but in postmodern times, the process of adjudication is much more complex than we previously thought in empiricist and positivist days.
Suggestions for Research Programs in Theology and Science
In order to move ahead, and in light of the preceding discussion, I suggest the following directions for theological research in reconstructing eschatology in light of science: a reconstruction of Christian eschatology as “transformation of the universe” and suggestions for potential research programs in physics and cosmology.
Christian Eschatology as Transformation of the Universe
We start by focusing on continuities, discontinuities, and their preconditions in the present creation that are part of the eschatological transformation. These may be found in certain eschatological hints gleaned from the resurrection of Jesus and the reign of God depicted in the New Testament and in the living body of Christ, the church.
Continuities between present creation and eschatological transformation include the biblical accounts that the resurrected Jesus could be touched (Luke 24:39; John 20:17, 27–28), eat (Luke 24:42–43), break bread (Luke 24:30), and be seen, heard, and recognized (Matt 28:16–20; Luke 24:13–53; John 20:11–29; 21:1–23). These instances of “realized eschatology” are suggestive of an extended domain of the new creation proleptically within the old, a domain that ceased with Jesus’s ascension, but that for a period of time included Jesus, the disciples, and their surroundings.
Discontinuities between the present creation and new creation include the fact that all life dies and decays. Also, though it will not be possible to sin in the reign of God, sin still abounds in the world.
The next step is to undertake a reconstruction of Christian eschatology in light of these arguments and in light of contemporary science and cosmology regarding the past history and present state of the universe. A crucial argument here, one that is shared widely among contemporary theologians, is that eternity involves a richer concept of temporality than either timelessness or unending time. In essence, eternity is the source of time as we know it, and of time as we will know it in the new creation. Eternity is the fully temporal source and goal of time. In this approach the relation between time and eternity is modeled on the relation of the finite to the infinite. Here the infinite is not the negation of the finite (as in the Platonic/Augustinian view of eternity as timelessness); instead, the infinite includes the finite, while it ceaselessly transcends the finite.
Eternity includes at least five distinct themes:
Co-presence of all events: distinct events in time are present to one another without destroying or subsuming their distinctiveness.
Flowing time in nature: each event has a past/present/future structure embedded in an “inhomogeneous temporal ontology,” in which the ontology of time in this world holds for the continuing differences between past, present, and future of individual events. But in eternity, all events are co-present, as individually present events held in the temporal/eternal sequence of present events of the living God. 22
Duration: each event has temporal “thickness” in nature as well as in human experience; events are not points in time that lack an intrinsic temporal structure (i.e., “objective time” has duration in nature in contrast with subjective human experience).
Global future: there is a single global future for all of creation, so that all creatures will be in community.
Prolepsis: the future is already present and active in the present while remaining future, as exemplified by God’s act in raising Jesus from the dead.
This in turn leads to three questions: (1) Which of these themes are already present in creation and thus are elements of continuity in its transformation into the new creation? (2) Which themes are not yet present in creation but represent elements of discontinuity, emerging only in the new creation? (3) Does the universe at present include the preconditions for the possibility of their coming to be in the new creation? The answer to these questions will require a careful discussion of time in physics and cosmology and will require us to reformulate these theological themes in terms of our current understanding of time as drawn from contemporary physics and cosmology. 23
Though the reformulation is only begun, I can nevertheless anticipate possible responses to the three questions. To the first, I would argue that flowing time and duration are objective features in nature. Challenges to this view arise in several ways. Time in special relativity is subject to conflicting interpretations (e.g., “block universe,” the vastly predominant view, as well as “flowing time”). Moreover, lacking co-presence, “flowing time” for us means an isolated present with a vanishing past and a not-yet-realized future. In response, I would introduce a “co-present flowing time” interpretation of special relativity into the theological discussion of time and eternity, including an inhomogeneous and relational temporal ontology (see n. 22 above). Duration is a more difficult problem, since contemporary physics assumes a point-like or duration-less view of time. I believe, however, that a case can be made for duration in nature. To the second and third questions, I would identify what I am calling “co-presence,” prolepsis, and the global future as elements of discontinuity, and thus search physics for their preconditions in nature. For example, the transformation of flowing time into co-present flowing time would seem plausible if one could argue that the inhomogeneous ontology of flowing time, such as I have proposed (above), does not logically exclude the possibility of distinct temporal events being co-present. Preconditions for prolepsis could include backward causality, violations of local causality, and violations of global causality. Finally, a global future, while excluded by special relativity, is theoretically possible in general relativity where the topology of the universe is contingent on the distribution of matter.
The theological task will now be to reconstruct eschatology with these insights in mind and with our theological concepts reformulated in light of contemporary physics. For example, time and space are treated as independent quantities in classical physics. Similarly, theological treatments of eternity and omnipresence typically take for granted independent treatments of time and space. But time and space are placed in a complex interrelationship in special relativity and further linked with matter in general relativity. Our task then will be to reformulate such theological categories as eternity and omnipresence in light of special and general relativity with an eye to “co-present flowing time” and time as duration. Similar theological reconstructions will hold for the treatment of time and space in quantum mechanics, and so on.
Directions for Potential Research Programs in Physics and Cosmology
In “theology and science” literature, we now explore ways in which an eschatology revised in light of physics can lead to a revised philosophy of nature, to criteria of choice among current theories in science, and to the construction of new scientific research programs.
We begin with our existing eschatology and the elements of continuity, discontinuity, and their preconditions listed above, then ask what directions in scientific research they might suggest. Once again, since temporality is such a predominant theme here, we could explore the implications of time and eternity for current physics and cosmology. We begin with those aspects of temporality in nature, such as “flowing time” and “duration,” which constitute elements of continuity and discontinuity in respect to the eschatological transformation of the world. Here, however, the analysis should lead to interesting questions about time in physics. We will also consider aspects of temporality that physics may have overlooked but that, from the perspective of eschatology, might be expected to exist at present, such as co-presence, prolepsis, and global future.
Research in these directions is underway, but at a very early stage. Nevertheless, I hope the reader will feel a sense of excitement and anticipation that the process is happening.
Conclusions
Many distinct areas in biblical studies and systematic theology require us to give central attention to eschatology. These areas include the bodily resurrection of Jesus and its implications for the new creation, the problem of suffering (both in humanity and in the whole sweep of biological evolution), the “crucified God” as a response to suffering and its demand for an eschatology of new creation, a relational understanding of the Trinity, and the program of “theology and science” itself. But eschatology of this sort, with its cosmic horizons, faces challenges from the scientific prognosis for the future of the universe. Even if scientific cosmology theory changes, as indeed it is doing and will do, these changes will continue to raise challenges for Christian eschatology.
In a dialogue with science, we need not make the strictly philosophical assumption that what science predicts must come to pass. Instead we can think about the future of the universe in theological terms reconstructed in light of what the sciences validly tell us about the past and present of the universe. Such a reconstructed eschatology might, in turn, offer new insights about the present creation that could be fruitful for those engaged in scientific research and for those more generally concerned about the environment.
In sum, we are asking what a conception of nature would be like if we applied theories of eschatology as informed by science instead of “creation theology,” and what ramifications this might have, in turn, for scientific study. Taken together, the reconstruction of eschatology in light of science and the indication of directions for potential research in science from a new eschatological perspective represent an opportunity for creative mutual interaction between theology and science. Such interaction takes science seriously while articulating theological insights that are of central importance to Christian faith.
Footnotes
1
This article is adapted from Robert John Russell, Cosmology from Alpha to Omega: The Creative Mutual Interaction of Theology and Science (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 298–327. Permission granted by Fortress Press.
2
Ted Peters, God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in the Divine Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 175–76. I added the two definitions placed within brackets in the quotation.
3
For a more detailed response see Robert John Russell, Time in Eternity: Theology and Science in Creative, Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2012).
4
John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (New York: Scribner’s, 1977), 351–62.
5
Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Physics Series (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1973), 23.
6
For a non-technical introduction, see Donald Goldsmith, Einstein’s Greatest Blunder? The Cosmological Constant and Other Fudge Factors in the Physics of the Universe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). For a more technical introduction, see Chris J. Isham, “Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process,” in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding, ed. Robert J. Russell, William R. Stoeger, S.J., and George V. Coyne, S.J. (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1988), 375–408; and Edward W. Kolb and Michael S. Turner, The Early Universe, Frontiers in Physics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990).
8
William R. Stoeger, S.J., “Scientific Accounts of Ultimate Catastrophes in Our Life-Bearing Universe,” in The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology, ed. John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000).
9
Scholars who support the bodily resurrection interpretation include Karl Barth, Raymond Brown, Gerald O’Collins, William Lane Craig, Stephen Davis, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Pheme Perkins, Ted Peters, Janet Martin Soskice, Sandra Schneiders, Richard Swinburne, and N. T. Wright.
10
Scholars who support a mythological/existentialist view include Marcus Borg, Rudolf Bultmann, John Dominic Crossan, John Hick, Gordon Kaufman, Hans Küng, Sallie McFague, Willi Marxsen, Norman Perrin, and Rosemary Radford Ruether.
11
For this term, see Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 129.
12
If God brings the universe to a complete end in the future (thus dissolving it into nothingness) and then creates (resurrects) a new one, this would violate the element of continuity and privilege the element of discontinuity implied by the analogy of eschatology with the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
13
William R. Stoeger, S.J., “Contemporary Physics and the Ontological Status of the Laws of Nature,” in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert J. Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, and Chris J. Isham (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory, 1993), 209–34.
14
More precisely, it must be constrained by methodological naturalism in its description of the past: it should not invoke God in its explanation of the (secondary) causes, processes, and properties of nature. This guideline separates my proposal as sharply as possible from movements such as “intelligent design” that criticize current theories in the physical and biological sciences for not including divine agency in science. Unlike the claims of many in the intelligent design movement, methodological naturalism does not entail metaphysical naturalism; it is not inherently atheistic. On the contrary, metaphysical theism is an equally (I would say stronger) interpretation of methodological naturalism.
15
John Polkinghorne, The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 167.
16
John Polkinghorne, “Eschatology: Some Questions and Some Insights from Science,” in The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology, ed. John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 29–30.
17
See Russell, Cosmology from Alpha to Omega, 298–327, esp. 309–10.
18
Ibid., 226–72 (chs. 7–8).
19
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Volume 1: Human Nature (New York: Scribner’s, 1964), 242.
20
John Hick, Evil and the God of Love, new ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
21
Ibid.
22
By this I mean that “each event has an identity in itself, characterized in part by its own unique set of past and future events. The event as present is ‘actual’; events that are past in relation to the present event are ‘determinate but no longer actual,’ and events that are future in relation to the present event are ‘potential and indeterminate’” (Robert John Russell, “Eschatology and Physical Cosmology: A Preliminary Reflection,” in Eschatology from a Cosmic Perspective, ed. George F. R. Ellis [Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation, 2002], 266–315 [303]).
23
See Russell, Time in Eternity, esp. 317–54.