Creation and Eschatology

The eschatological tension of theological method

“…on indirect inquiry' . 7 The task of the theologian is, for him, to look directly at big questions and not to avoid them. Without that desire to have the answers now, there is no point to the exercise.…”

“…to tell us what is the case.' 9 This future is a vast, yet to be accessed horizon that spreads farther beyond us than the beginning has stretched towards us; 10 that we should seek to understand the end of that vast horizon now is illustrative of humanity's impatient desire for knowing.…”

“…The impatience of the theologian is the proper impatience of a creation orientated in an eschatological direction; it is the impatience of the movement of temporality and history in which both 'nature and history are drawn to an as-yet-not-fully-specifiable realisation'. 11 This proper impatience for deep answers requires an appropriate patience in order to engage in that direct and deep searching into the creation as it is led to its realization. Being able to see only in a mirror dimly brings both a longing to see clearly and the resultant need to look more carefully and patiently in order to interpret the images which one can perceive now.…”

“…2 Moreover, for Dan Hardy, the eschatological nature of all theological articulation was innate to his own theological method: his was not only a theology but also a ministry of pointing forwards. Never content with where theology had arrived at, he sought to push the discipline on towards a theology which 'needs to pass any particular era in history in its endeavour to reconstitute itself in relation to current understandings'; 3 for him, theology had always to be dynamic. To do justice both to the topic of this piece of his writing and the theological predisposition of the man, the present article does not seek to be a piece of comprehension which attempts to think towards Dan Hardy, but a formative theological reflection which attempts to think with and perhaps even from his thinking.…”

“…The article does not intend simply to repeat or arrogantly to add anything to his work on creation and eschatology, but intends instead to allow that work to inform consideration of theological method in a created world orientated towards its eschaton (though there will be little herein that a careful reader of Hardy could not detect by herself). To aid this thinking and to focus on Hardy's language of 'refraction' in his essay, 4 some words of St Paul to the Corinthians will form the central motif around which the ideas in this article will be arranged: 'For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully even as I have been fully understood.'…”