Explore the way in which one of the following ideas is used in the New Testament: heaven; resurrection; eternal life. You will find it helpful to use a biblical concordance in undertaking this project.

This exercise is best undertaken by the reader without any assistance, as it encourages you to engage with the biblical text.

Give a brief summary of the way in which either Rudolf Bultmann or Wolfhart Pannenberg interpreted the resurrection.

R Bultmann:
Bultmann's program of 'demythologizing' has as its central gravity his understanding of eschatology and the meaning of the resurrection. Recalling that to demythologize was a process of interpreting Christian teaching (particularly in the New Testament) in terms of existential and individualist meaning, Bultmann thought that the biblical motif of imminent judgment (Jesus' apocalyticism) articulated in a futurist myth the truer theological truth of our existence as one under judgment. Judgment, contrary to the plain corporate sense of the gospels, was a masque of the present judgment of each person before the call of God (kerygma) to authentic lives. On hearing the kerygma the person is catapulted into crisis, the judgment of God, from which one decides on how one is to live in light of this claim by God on the self. The strength of Bultmann's position is that he does take seriously the present presence of God in interpreting the kingdom of God without sole referral to a distant parousia. Christ, or the kerygma (depending on how he is read), is not a past event awaiting a future reinstatement but an event in the history of the world. In this sense, eschatology is married to contemporary Christian proclamation. The resurrection, then, has an immediate meaning to the believer, not just a proclamation of God's unity or purposes in Christ to come.

The weakness in Bultmann is several-fold. First are the general weaknesses in his theology in regard to the notion of kerygma. It is not at all clear how closely Bultmann ties the person of Christ to the kerygma (see question 5 of chapter 12 and pp 433, 563). However, in the case of his eschatology, Bultmann's primary difficulty is his refusal to acknowledge both a corporate and a future aspect to eschatology. His 'inaugaralist' position interpreted through the prism of existentialism removes the corporate and futurist aspects of traditional eschatology. This, in turn, means that he shifts the notion of judgment from a judgment of God to a self-judgment in response to God's call. A whole host of Christian doctrines become permutated in response, especially soteriological Christology.

W Pannenberg:
See question 7 of chapter 6 and question 5 of chapter 12 for discussions of this writer.

(See Chapter 10 for more material on this topic)

Study the following list of terms: age of the spirit; demythologization; the rapture, the tribulation, the two cities. With whom would you associate each of them: Augustine of Hippo; Rudolf Bultmann; dispensationalism; Joachim of Fiore?

Augustine of Hippo: 'two cities' (p 556).
R. Bultmann: 'demythologization' (pp 563-564).
Dispensationalism: 'tribulation', 'rapture' (pp 566-567).
Joachim of Fiore: 'age of the Spirit' (p 558).

Why is it unfashionable to speak of hell in many (but not all) Christian circles today?

Two major arguments against hell derive from two very different theological locations. The more common objection is that the notion of hell seems to contradict the nature of God as love, portraying God as vindictive since the suffering of the damned serves no point in terms of effect and scope. This is an argument based in the doctrine of God for its starting points. The other argument comes from soteriological Christology and eschatology. The notion of hell, it is argued, seems to contradict the complete victory of Christ over sin and death inaugurated on the cross and brought to fruition in the parousia. The fact that evil remains, albeit in hell, seems to contradict the absolute scope of this victory. Of course, this raises the question of what exactly 'hell' is. Hell in its medieval understanding almost demands the notion of purgatory to escape the problems of the scope of God's victory and the rationale for its existence. If hell is understood as a place of active punishment, then the criticisms are direct and seemingly refute the doctrine. However, if hell is the absence of God, then the directly punitive nature and paralysis therein of God's victory is somewhat mitigated. This is a common Protestant approach to the doctrine. Nonetheless, it seems that the doctrine of hell is a difficult doctrine for Christian theologians.

Will all go to heaven?

This is a question that remains deeply personal for Christians. Without denying the sole efficacy of Christ and justification by faith, many Christians do hold to a form of universalism (inclusivism or pluralism). The reasons for this are varied, from a theological understanding of God as love and emphasizing the mercy of Christ, or from other doctrines such as election in the Barthian understanding (pp 471- 472) in which only one person - Christ - is condemned to a refusal to contemplate the exclusion of loved ones and those who have never heard the gospel (pp 544- 551). Purgatory, for example, is a marriage of the hope of universalism with the possibility that some may reject the gospel (pp 569-571). What perhaps should be stressed is not the exclusion from heaven, but the openness of God towards all persons.

(See Chapter 13 for more material on this topic)

Does the Christian hope relate to the present or to the future?

Augustine serves as a good example of the tension of hope (and the nature or character of that hope). Augustine thought that the church was called to exist in hope, claiming the promises of God as if they were already possessed. His distinction of in spe and in re is this tension (p 557). Augustine thought the life of faith was the beginning of the reward of the hope proffered in Christ and the state to which Christians ineluctably are drawn through the work and grace of God and the Spirit. To this J Moltmann's understanding of hope adds another dimension in the mission of the church as a witness (and agent) to the promise of new things for all of creation, even in the midst of a lack of hope. The hope in which Christians are called to live is not only the individual hope of the self before God, but also the hope of the entire creation awaiting its redemption by the transforming glory of God. All things, not just human reality, are to be claimed in Moltmann's understanding of hope. In both Augustine and Moltmann hope is found in the present but established in the future due to the work of the past.