Resurrection, Apocalypse, and the Kingdom of Christ. Stanley S. MacLean
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book deals with a neglected subject in Torrance’s theology. I have chosen eschatology, though, not just because it has been neglected but because it is a prominent subject both in Torrance’s theology and in modern theology in general. In 1901 James Orr rightly predicted that the twentieth century would be the age of eschatology.3 Unlike preceding centuries, this century is one where eschatology is a central theme for theologians. Near the end of it, the Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten spoke about the “eschatological renaissance in Christian theology.”4 Jürgen Moltmann (1926– ) surely represents the high point of this renaissance. He has insisted that eschatology is not “one element of Christianity” but “the medium of Christian faith.”5 It is, he adds, “characteristic of all Christian proclamation, of every Christian existence and of the whole church.”
It is recognized that the renaissance began with Karl Barth, Moltmann’s teacher at one time. In his Epistle to the Romans (1922) Barth asserted that “Christianity that is not entirely and altogether eschatology has entirely nothing to do with Christ.” Torrance was not only a student of Karl Barth but a close disciple. Eschatology, then, should have been important to him as well.
Why did eschatology suddenly come to the forefront of theology in the twentieth century? There are theological and historical reasons, which we can only sketch out here.6 Theologically, the change begins with the German scholars Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. Their biblical research showed that an apocalyptic eschatology was at the core of Jesus’ preaching.7 Jesus expected God’s kingdom to break dramatically into history in his lifetime.
The conclusions of Weiss and Schweitzer turned on its head the liberal theological establishment, which had dismissed biblical eschatology as part of an outmoded Hebraic world-view. Albert Ritschl was one of the first to identify the kingdom of God as the central idea in Jesus’ teaching, but he construed this as “moral society of nations” that can be realized on the basis of the Christian motive of love.8 For Troeltsch, in the same vein, the kingdom of God is an “ethical ideal” within us; and while this ideal can never be realized absolutely in this world, it “drives man onward” and has a transforming effect on society at large.9 In general, Christian eschatology in nineteenth-century Western Europe had become confused with the idea of worldly “evolutionary progress” that was characteristic of that time period.10 It had nothing to do with God’s intervention in history or the return of Christ.
While it became clear, after Schweitzer and Weiss, that Jesus could no longer be understood apart from his apocalyptic eschatology, the modern view of the world made this eschatology look untenable. Schweitzer himself became a mystic, for Jesus was deluded: the kingdom did not break in as he had expected; nor could it. Jesus was just another tragic hero, crushed by the “wheel of the world” which continued to run its course as it always has.
World War I brought an end (in Europe at least) to the “age of optimism.” Not only was the “consistent eschatology” of Jesus untenable now, so was faith in the natural upward ascent of humankind. Under the leadership of Karl Barth, the “theology of crisis” promised a solution to the crisis in eschatology. Eschatology is central here. However, it is an eschatology shorn of temporality. It does not have much to do with apocalyptic, with history or the future. It is about “Eternity,” as the judgment of God, breaking into time. Contrary to Schweitzer, there is no problem of the delay of the parousia. That is because the kingdom of God presses down from above onto every moment of our existence. After all, Eternity surrounds time.
Rudolph Bultmann had his own ingenious solution to the eschatological problem. One could partake of the eschatology of the New Testament without partaking of its primitive cosmology. The key was to “demythologize” the message of the gospel (the kerygma).11 What is really important in eschatology, the reasoning goes, is the “existential moment,” an encounter with God through faith alone. Yet Bultmann drives a wedge between eschatology and history.12 Eschatology has to do with Christ coming to us through faith, not with the coming of Christ on the clouds of heaven. Therefore, “every instant has the possibility of being an eschatological instant.”13
From Torrance’s own soil came an alternative to Schweitzer’s “consistent” or “futurist” eschatology. This was C. H. Dodd’s “realized eschatology,” which, like Bultmann’s eschatology, seeks to emancipate eschatology from future historical events. In The Parables of the Kingdom (1936) Dodd contends that the kingdom of God, the Day of the Lord, arrived fully in the person and ministry of Jesus. Jesus’ miracle-working power, his judgment and overthrow of evil forces, and finally his resurrection all attest to the presence of this kingdom. There is no need to look for a second coming of Christ on horizontal plane of history. This is not to say there is no eschatological reserve, but what remains will be realized in the “world beyond” this one.
Oscar Cullmann tries to do justice to both the realized and futurist elements that clearly seem to constitute New Testament eschatology.14 For him the solution is in the recovery of the biblical concept of time. This is a linear conception (chronos). The Christ-event is the mid-point in salvation history (Heilsgeschichte). This point is in the past. The kingdom of God, then, has “already” come with the advent of Jesus Christ. He is Lord. But this kingdom has “not yet” fully arrived. We must look forward to the “last things,” which include the second advent of Christ and the general resurrection of the dead. The church, therefore, has real grounds for hope.
The course of history in the twentieth century kept eschatology at the forefront. The spread of Communism in mid-century represented a complete secularization of Christ’s notion of the coming of the kingdom of God. Communism, World War II, and the general crisis of civilization forced churches in the 1940s and 50s to ponder together the meaning of hope for both the church and the world. If the bureau of eschatology was closed in the nineteenth century, then by the middle of the twentieth century it was, in von Balthasar’s words, “working overtime.”15
This is, in a nutshell, the historical and eschatological background of Torrance’s early career. This book uncovers Torrance’s eschatology and examines its origin and development against this background. It begins (chapter 1) with Torrance’s lectures at Auburn Seminary in 1938/39, for this is where his eschatology begins to take shape. Owing to the strong influence of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, these lectures leave us with a strong sense that the kingdom has come in the “Person” and “Work” of Christ. Eschatology is determined by the incarnation, the cross, and resurrection. Yet on the basis of Christ’s ascension and second advent we are given an equally strong sense that the kingdom is still to be consummated and that Christ is still carrying on his redeeming work.
We then (chapters 2 and 3) trace the development of his eschatology through his sermons at Alyth and Beechgrove. Grounded on the resurrection and ascension of Christ, this eschatology is practical and apocalyptic as well as personal and historical. Yet we find that same tension between the present realization of the kingdom and its future consummation, between the revelation of the new creation and the hiddeness of it. This tension is established by the actualization of the kingdom through the cross of Christ, which, in Torrance’s words, is “still in the field.”
Next, we examine Torrance’s eschatology in the context of the ecumenical movement (chapters 4 and 5), as it takes shape through