Our own efforts, our ecological commitments, our struggles for justice, our work for peace, our acts of love, our failures, our own moments of quiet prayer, and our sufferings all have final meaning. Human history and our own personal story matter to God. The Word of God has entered into history for our salvation. History is embraced by God in the Christ-event. In the resurrection, part of our history—the created humanity of Jesus—is already taken into God. We are assured that all of our history has eternal meaning in God. This means that our stories have final significance, as taken up into God and transformed in Christ.
Denis Edwards, How God Acts: Creation, Redemption, and Special Divine Action (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), p. 159
While I appreciate the sentiments expressed in this quotation, a part of me struggles wholeheartedly to agree with them. There’s just something here that leads me to read an ‘end justifies the means’ type of eschatology; that whatever happens in the here and now, no matter how good or bad, somehow attains its full meaning in the age to come. And this leads me to ask: Is it possible – really possible – to talk about the age to come without adopting this kind of eschatology?
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