Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 73 No. 1, 2003.
Original scientific paper
Catholic Eschatology in the Light of Postmodernity
Anton Tamarut
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In the situation when it appears as though all the reserves of the sense are already exhausted, historical are assignments of the Catholic eschalology to awaken hope in the future and to bring back the trust in the sense of the personal and common history. In that sense Catholic eschatology primarily means talk about the future as God's coming and an event in Jesus Christ giving man and history His Truth; it really isn't anything else than the talk about God who in Christ is eschaton, with reference to future and the sense of all existing.
As resurrection of the dead based upon Christ's resurrection belongs into the main content of Christian hope, in the article attention is directed towards the newest discussions about the meaning of the body in the resurrection and the relation between the death and the resurrection. The character and the content of Christian hope are trying to face each other determining themselves as clear as possible towards the idea of reincarnation that is drawing attention of many Christians too. As the crisis of the future is the one characterizing the period of post modernism as closely related to crisis of the truth about man, it is being accentuated the need that eschatological thinking is to be based upon theological anthropology finding in Jesus Christ, New Adam its very center. In the contemporary inter religious perspective it shows itself in a special way as an appropriate talk about man the picture of God, for under this term according to the original Biblical meaning, man is defined as a creature in a close and friendly relationship with God. In such understanding the union and the friendship with God refer to the very essence of man; in other words, man is being determined by that which we picturesquely call Heaven.
Keywords
future; eschaton; hope; immortality of the soul; body; reincarnation; resurrection; man - the image of God
Hrčak ID:
27847
URI
Publication date:
2.7.2003.
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