Beyond The Hope Of Imagination

The end of a narrative brings concord between its beginning, middle and conclusion while the eschatological imagination of theology could organizes and harmonizes the themes of Catholic dogmatics. The present dissertation is to comprehend the eschatological thoughts of modern catholic theologians and writers, with a comparison of eschatologies from other Christian traditions, and to present the modern theological imaginations in catholic theology, and to disclose the inner logic and the dominant charaters of modern catholic eschatologies.With modern catholic eschatologies as the foci of the exploitation, the present dissertation is to analyze the symbols and images of the escchatologica imagination, and to base the whole eschatological thinking on the paschal mystery of Christ as the anticipatory symbol of hope. The present dissertation is to narrate the eschatological imagination from the theological pardigam of the personal relations between God and man. Through the analysis of eschatological symbols, including death, judgment, purgatory, universal restoration, and new heaven and new earth, the present dissertation is to disclose the main contents and characters.In the Introduction, the present dissertation is to situate the eschatological imaginations from the perspective of its Christological foudation. The paschal mystery of Christ is the key to understand modetn catholic eschatologies. The descent of God, in incarnation, passion, death and the descent into the dead, anticipates the solidarity of God with his Creation and dramatizes the economy of salvation. The scandal and crux of Christianity rests upon the paschal mystery of Christ and also invites radical imaginations of the eschaton and eschata.The analysis through chapter two to chapter four is to focus on the traditional concepts of death, judgment, and hell with the aim to display the modern renewal of them. The chapter on death is to compare two kinds of death, the consummation and the fulfillment, and to expose modern catholic views on life and death. The chapter on judgment is to formulate the modern thougts and to reveals the modern emphasis on the rectifying natue of judgment. The chapter on hell is to renew the biblical imaginations of hell and to emphasize that the self-diclosue of the humanity to God is key paradigam of modern imagination of hell.The universlism and the new heaven and new earth is the topics of chapter five and chapter six respectively. Among modern catholic theologians and writers, the universalism witnesses both favor and reserve. The present dissertation is to enlighten universalism from modern catholic understanding of the sacramental nature of Christ and his church. The last chapter is to exmines the cosmic imagination in modern catholic eschatologies. The symbol of the new heaven and new earth is to chanllenge the ecological and cosmic imagination of the Christian faith. The incarnate Christ is also the cosmic Christ who brings the restoration and transformation of the whole universe.The present dissertation draws a brief conclusion on the features and weak sides of modern catholic eschatologies. The Christ-centric approach, the theological paradigam of interpersonal relationship, the methodology of imagination in theological epistemology, and the tension between always-already and not-yet, are the main features of modern catholic eschatologies. The over-transcendal nature of the interpersonal relationship models and the lack of inter-faith analogy are the weak sides of modern eschatological discussion.