The Promised End Eschatology in Theology and Literature

by Fiddes, Paul S.

• ISBN13: 9780631220848
• ISBN10: 0631220844
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-10-03
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This book brings Christian theology, creative literature and literary critical theory into dialogue on the theme of "the end". Where appropriate it also considers recent scientific views on the nature of time.'Postmodern' critical theorists and many other writers emphasize the 'open' nature of endings, but this book suggests that the mixture of openness and closure in Christian eschatology not only offers a coherent sense of an ending, but may make it possible to construct endings in the here and now. On the way to this conclusion the book provides an exegesis of novels, plays and poems by such writers as John Fowles, Julian Barnes, Doris Lessing, Samuel Beckett, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Shakespeare. Among critical theorists, postmodern and otherwise, it considers especially the ideas of Frank Kermode, Northrop Frye, Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur.The author also examines the main themes of Christian eschatology - such as death, parousia, resurrection, human destiny and the nature of eternity - and offers a critical view of the doctrines of the last things produced by major modern theologians, including Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Through this dialogue the book aims to form an image of the eternal 'wholeness' of persons in the life of the triune God that takes seriously the deconstruction of images of domination.

Author Biography

Paul S. Fiddes is Principal of Regent's Park College in the University of Oxford, and a University Research Lecturer in Theology. He is the author of a number of books and articles, including The Creative Suffering of God (1988), Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement (1989), and Freedom and Limit: A Dialogue Between Literature and Christian Doctrine (1991).

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgements	xii
Facing the End	1	(28)
The Problem of Closure	1	(4)
Theology and Literature--a Dialogue	5	(3)
The End Organizes the Human Story: Frank Kermode	8	(7)
The End Discloses a Desired World: Northrop Frye	15	(8)
Biblical Eschatology and Openness	23	(4)
Closure and Openness in Ending	27	(2)
Deferment and Hope	29	(24)
The End Defers Meaning: Jacques Derrida	31	(4)
Death and the Other	35	(3)
Openness and Relativism	38	(2)
The End Opens Hope: Paul Ricoeur	40	(5)
Hope and a Passion for the Possible	45	(4)
Hoping in the Face of Death	49	(4)
Taking Death Seriously	53	(23)
A Journey to Nothingness: King Lear	54	(3)
Human Surplus and Excess	57	(2)
Images of a Desired and Undesirable World	59	(3)
The Configuring of Time	62	(2)
Looking upon Death	64	(2)
Death the Last Enemy	66	(5)
Creation from Nothing	71	(5)
A Question of Identity	76	(34)
Resurrection and the Idea of Replication	76	(3)
Problems about Identity	79	(6)
Closing the Gap: A Modified Dualism?	85	(3)
The Person and the Finality of Death	88	(3)
Survival and Relationships: Doris Lessing's The Memoirs of a Survivor	91	(5)
Corporate Resurrection	96	(5)
The Identity of the Self: Lessing's The Making of the Representative for Planet 8	101	(5)
The Making of the Person	106	(4)
The Eternal Moment	110	(38)
The Problem of Fragmentation by Time: T. S. Eliot's `Ash Wednesday'	111	(4)
The Problem of Isolation in Time: Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway	115	(4)
Eliot and the Timeless Moment: Four Quartets	119	(4)
Eternity as Simultaneity?	123	(12)
The Healing of Time	135	(5)
Woolf and the Symbols of Eternity: To the Lighthouse and Between the Acts	140	(8)
Expecting the Unexpected	148	(33)
Two Parables of Waiting	149	(5)
The Reversal of Expectations	154	(3)
Two Plays of Waiting: Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Endgame	157	(7)
The Futility of Waiting: (a) Waiting for the `Not Yet'	164	(2)
Waiting for a Possible Future	166	(9)
The Futility of Waiting: (b) A Programmed Future	175	(6)
The Arrow of Time	181	(38)
The One-way Flight of the Arrow	181	(3)
The Arrow Moves Backwards: Martin Amis's Time's Arrow	184	(6)
The Counter-movement to Evolution	190	(6)
Cycles of Torment and Renewal	196	(10)
Preservation and Retroaction	206	(9)
The Eternal Dance	215	(4)
A Fuller Presence	219	(43)
The Desire for Presence	219	(2)
Millennium and Utopia	221	(7)
Fictional Images of Utopia: Aldous Huxley's Island and Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed	228	(8)
The Critique of Full Presence	236	(7)
Absence at the Heart of Existence	243	(7)
Theological Versions of Hidden Presence	250	(9)
The Millennial Hope	259	(3)
Our Eternal Dwelling Place	262	(27)
Participating in Triune Relationships	263	(6)
Dwelling in Triune Spaces	269	(6)
Particularity and Eschatology	275	(7)
The Eternal City	282	(7)
Index	289