(See here and here for previous posts.)

The third part of The God of Hope and the End of the World is Polkinghorne’s attempt to construct a positive theological vision out of biblical insights, but one informed by what scientific cosmology tells us about the nature and destiny of the universe. The resurrection of Jesus, in its illustration of the principle of continuity/discontinuity, provides the key to understanding the future of the cosmos as a whole. Polkinghorne takes seriously the biblical promises that God will redeem the entire creation, not just human beings. He envisions a transmutation of the material cosmos into a new cosmos that parallels the transmutation of Jesus’ dead body into his glorified raised body (Polkinghorne suggests that part of the significance of the empty tomb is to be found here; matter is not to be discarded, but taken up into something new).

Eschatology is concerned with hope. What can we hope for in a world in which it appears that human aspirations, both individual and collective, are destined for ultimate defeat? “Hope,” says Polkinghorne

is the negation both of Promethean presumption, which supposes that fulfillment is always potentially there, ready for human grasping, and also of despair, which supposes that there will never be fulfilment, but only a succession of broken dreams. Hope is quite distinct also from a utopian myth of progress, which privileges the future over the past, seeing the ills and frustrations of earlier generations as being no more than necessary stepping stones to better things in prospect. (p. 94)

But what is hope’s positive content? It’s the conviction that “all the generations of history must attain their ultimate and individual meaning” (p. 94). But the only thing that can guarantee this kind of meaning is “the eternal faithfulness of the God who is the Creator and Redeemer of history” (p. 94). Polkinghorne says that a “thick” eschatology requires an equally “thick” theology and Christology. “To sustain true hope it must be possible to speak of a God who is powerful and active, not simply holding creation in being but also interacting with its history, the one who ‘gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist’ (Romans 4:17)” (p. 95).

This is a robust, “supernaturalist” eschatology, wherein God will act to bring about a new creation that will supplant the old. Polkinghorne’s background as a physicist may give him a more cosmic perspective here. Theologians frequently seem to reduce eschatology to concerns with human destiny, sometimes even to political aspirations. Polkinghorne distinguishes his view from a fully “realized” eschatology that doesn’t privilege the future over the present (a view he attributes to Kathryn Tanner; I’m not sure if this is right since I find Tanner pretty obscure on that point), as well as from the concept of “objective immortality” favored by some process theologians. Both of these options condemn the lives of countless beings to permanent incompleteness. “Actual eschatological fulfilment demands for each of us a completion that can be attained only if we have a continuing and developing personal relationship with God post mortem” (p. 100).

Polkinghorne thus stakes out a position between a fully “realized” eschatology and a strictly “futurist” one which he calls an “inagurated eschatology.” The pledge of God’s future victory of sin, death, and suffering has been given in the resurrection of Jesus, but the final consummation is still in the future. We can to some extent participate in that future now by being incorporated into Christ’s body through his church and the sacraments. Ethically, this means that follow the way of the crucified and risen one, even though we can’t see exactly where that way is leading us. But we can be assured that “our strivings for the attainment of good within the course of present history are never wasted but will bear everlasting fruit” (p. 102).