“Neo-Calvinism and the Beatific Vision: Eschatology in the Reformed Tradition.”
Crux 56/3 (2020): 25–29.
Abstract
Increasingly, Reformed and evangelical eschatology emphasizes the continuity between this world and the next. The concomitant effect, particularly among those building on the neo-Calvinist tradition, is a focus on the use and enjoy- ment of this-worldly goods in the eschaton. The underlying theological reason for this is connected, it seems to me, to the nomi- nalist metaphysic that has shaped modern culture. A nominalist separation between natural and supernatural ends makes it dif- ficult theologically to focus on God himself as the ultimate telos of our pilgrimage. By contrast, the earlier participatory ontol- ogy that characterized premodern thought treated this-worldly objects as pointing to and participating in the being of God himself—the ultimate supernatural end of human existence.
In this essay I limit myself to the Reformed tradition. My main argument is that recent eschatological trends within the neo-Calvinist tradition run counter not only to the traditional consensus of East and West but also to neo-Calvinism’s own Reformed heritage. The reason for this marked departure is closely linked to a rejection of the earlier tradition of Christian Platonism, with its emphases on participation in the divine life, on the beatific vision as the final end of human beings, and on God himself as the ultimate object of all human desire.
