- Vincent Kundukulam
From time to time, we see news spreading among Christians about the end of the world. It happens usually when natural catastrophes and wars take place in different corners of the world. This is because such events resonate with the descriptions regarding the end of the world in the Book of Revelation. But such propaganda disappears as and when such calamities are over and shall emerge again when occurs another serious disaster like a sweeping disease. My point is, in those moments deep theological reflections don’t take place. It may be partly due to the ungraspable nature of the eschatological time. At the same time, we cannot ignore it as Christianity is a religion that shapes its faith-life in view of Christs’ second coming.
According to Bible, the world is not a stable cosmic order which was set up by creation once and for all. It is much less a ‘being than a ‘happening’. Although the book of Genesis gives an account of the beginning of all things, this narrative is not to be reduced to a mere protology (study of origins and first things). His creative action is described not simply as a phenomenon of the past; it takes place here and now, and is yet to come. God created a “world coming into being”. God continues creation through creatures existing as their inner core. In our activities, God is more intimate to us than our inmost self. God is the living and transcendent ground of world’s movement.
If creation is an ever-continuing act, and if God is behind the curtain of cosmic evolution, how can a Christian think that this material world shall end up in nothingness? Will it not contradict the very purpose of creation? Survey of a few passages in Bible shall demonstrate that the consummation of the kingdom of God shall not bring about the annihilation of the universe. In the second letter of Peter, we read as follows: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a loud voice, and the elements will be dissolved with fire and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed … But in accordance with his promise, we wait for the new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home” (2 Pt 3, 10, 12). Here, Peter speaks about the destruction of the existing world but not about the total extinction of the cosmos. This world would be burnt up; but there is no evidence to think that worldly substances would be fully annihilated.
A reflection based on the Logos-theology shows that the actual cosmos shall ever exist in a rejuvenated form. We read in the prologue of St. John: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … All things came into being through Him and without Him not one thing came into being’ (Jn 1, 1-3). Justin the Martyr, identified this Word (Logos) as Jesus-Christ and taught that the presence of Logos Spermatikos gives humans the capacity to form certain moral concepts and helps them to do the will of the creator.
Read once again the prologue. John says that not only human beings but also all creatures are made in and through the Word. It means, although not in the same degree, even the non-human beings share the Christ-ness to a certain extent. In other words, the entire cosmos partakes godliness. If so, without becoming a pantheist, Christians can hold the view that God will not allow his own abode to be totally perished. The present state of order in the cosmos would be only transformed at the end. The apocalyptic events described in the Bible have to be explained in the sense of regeneration or restoration. This is what St. Paul writes in Romans: “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8, 21). In brief, study of Bible leads us to believe that at the end of history, the cosmos will preserve all those elements which can enter into the fulfilment of the created spirit.
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