Changes that have a future – George Ille on The Eschatological Economy

The Eschatological economy makes daring and provocative claims:

`Christian thought is political. It contradicts other systems of ideas and creates a real encounter and contest of world-views…’

`Modernity is a religion… Modernity and Christianity are both forms of enlightenment, but modernity is the counterfeit version, Christianity the real one…’

`The Word of God identifies Western being as a failure of action and of relatedness, and thus as a failure of being… `

Such bold claims require a radical approach and in an important sense Douglas Knight’s book is about the totality of the real: about God and God’s action and about time and history.

`Modern thought [was] ever ready to take things apart but [was] unable to put them together again’.

Yet, while making bold claims about things theo-logical, the book is also about humanity, perhaps profoundly about humanity. After all, God’s action and being are deeply bound to humanity and there is no knowledge of the Creator God without knowledge of his creature.

From this perspective the book is about personhood, about sanctification and transformation, that is, about paideia, which becomes, in Knight’s use, a key theological term. Special attention is accorded to the `stage’ of this transformation and especially to the role of Israel in this process.

`A Trinitarian and Irenaean view of Israel’s anthropology puts human beings in touch with the creation of which they are members. Humankind is hosted by God and brought up by him into the practice of God’s hospitality.’

The sacrifice of the Son, the event of the cross is shown to be the apex of God’s labour for and with the world, through which we are integrated into the person of the Son through the Holy Spirit, becoming thus members of his body, the Church. All these things are spelled out in conversation with the contemporary (post)modern world, its claims and proposals, systems of ideas, dichotomies, utopias and above all, its idols. It is a conversation to be sure, but it is also a contest and a battle against falsehood and pretense, an affirmation of what really `is’ and what `is to come’, against a rhetoric of `being’ and self-made existence.

In this sense, the book is also about method and sources, as it advocates reflection that listens to the Scriptures and acknowledges the richness of church doctrine and tradition. Indeed, Christianity can and must tell the difference between constructive change and mere decay since `one way of being human is very considerably better than other ways’… Knight modestly claims that there’s nothing really new in his book (This reminds some of us of Zizioulas’ modest stance!)…

Yet the book offers a genuine experience of the `new’, just confirming, perhaps, an underlying theme in Knight’s book: It is only as we respond to God in obedience and praise that we allow him to do new things; we allow Him to labor `changes’ that have a future, changes that conform us to the image of His Son.

After all, the Gospel, as Knight reminds us, `is the most exhilarating thing in the marketplace’… Getting a taste of this pathos alone makes the book worth studying. A must read for all Theology students and preachers but also for philosophers, sociologists and political theorists who engage themselves in `descriptions’ or `prescriptions’ of the contemporary world.

George Ille’s Amazon review