. . . the full number of human beings - including those who have suffered, wept and shed their blood in the past - will share in it. Not a human kingdom . . .

Part 1

Part 2

In belief in God, however, as he showed himself in Jesus of Nazareth, I must start out from the fact that there can be a true consummation and a true happiness of humanity only when not merely the last generation but the full number of human beings - including those who have suffered, wept and shed their blood in the past - will share in it.  Not a human kingdom, but only God's kingdom is the kingdom of consummation:  the kingdom of definitive salvation, of fulfilled justice, of perfect freedom,of unequivocal truth, of universal peace, of infinite love, of overflowing joy - in a word, of eternal life. 

Eternal life means liberation without any new enslavement.  My sufering, the suffering of man, is abolished, the death of death has occurred. It will be the time (in Heine's words) to sing "a new song, a better song."  History will then have attained its goal, man's becoming man will be completed.  Then as Marx hoped, the state and the law, and also science, art and particularly theology will really have become superfluous.  This will be what Bloch meant by "genuine transcendence,"  Marcuses's really "other dimension,"  the true "alternative life"'

No longer will "thou shalt," will morality rule, but "thou art," being.

No longer will a relation established at a distance, no longer will religion determine the relationship between God and man, but the evident being-in-one of God and man, of which mysticism dreamed.

No longer will the rule of Christ in the interim period, under the sign of the cross, accepted in faith, prevail in the Church, but God's rule directly and solely, for the happiness of a new humanity.  Yes, God himself will rule in his kingdom, to which even Jesus Christ his Son will submit and adapt himself, in accordance with that other great saying of Paul:  "And when everything is subjected to him (the Son),  then the Son himself will be subject in his turn to the One who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all."

As I'm always having to point out, I'm a political blogger.  In real life, my concerns aren't exclusively political but that is the theme of my public writing.  The primary concern of my political orientation is how to get people to treat other people, other animals, the environment well instead of badly.   It is the problem which is the basis of this series going through the pages at the very end of Hans Kung's great trilogy of books dealing with the existence of God, of Jesus and life after death is based in.  

What is the difference in conduct that a real, really real belief in the Gospel of Jesus and the claims made about him by those who knew him and Paul who believed he encountered him, not in his natural body but in the Resurrected Jesus who was physical and far more than just physical, a few years after his death and Resurrection.  

I asked what you could expect in a next-door neighbor who really, truly believed in the teachings of Jesus and one who was a materialist, atheist who believed that there was no God, no objective moral obligations, no consequences for being selfish, self-centered, pleasure driven if only he could rig it to escape discovery or consequences.   In the case of the former, your guarantees of having a good neighbor are only as good as the sincerity of the belief in the Gospel and the belief that they would have to face the far more probing eye and hand of justice for things they did and didn't do in this life.   In the later, your guarantees are only as good as the personal whims of the neighbor, whether or not they were inclined to be friendly on a reliable basis, generous, considerate and not larcenous, malicious, sadistic, vengeful or, indeed, homicidal.   Well, there is also whether or not a bad neighbor will fear getting away with what they do, of the law or the neighborhood not catching him in the act and pinning it to him.  In the case of a nominal Christian who is inclined to be a bad neighbor, they couldn't count on the inability of human justice to catch up with them.  

I would say that the extent to which someone who professes Christianity trying to get away with violations of the teachings of Jesus is a very reliable measure of the real strength of their professed beliefs.   Someone who expects an accounting in the infallible sight and knowledge of God would probably be a very good risk to do unto others as they would have done unto them, to do for the least among us what they would do to that very God whose judgement they will face (as, in fact, that passage of Jesus's teaching says will happen to those who neglect to do so), to forgive*.

This view of the final end of Creation expounded by Kung is not one I was taught in catechism though it is certainly one that is far more consonant with the Second Testament than the pseudo-medieval, 19th century apocalypse conceptions that are too narrow in their focus. It is also a view which, to my surprise, I found was a very early interpretation of the Second Testament and the First one by some of the earliest commentators on those in the Christian tradiion.  I would ask how you could expect someone who believed in it to behave, to act, to live, as opposed to the gloomy heat-death view of the universe, the futility of human (and all other) life, the utterly depressing view of existence as cynically celebrated in the The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in the tediously perpetually retreaded tiresome one-trick pony of Douglas Adams.  

With an acceptance of even the possibility that this view of reality could be true, a far wider view of life is possible, with its acceptance so much of the neurotic, psychotic features of modernism would evaporate like a hallucination that you realized was a hallucination.  I would expect that people who really believed in it would be far more likely to energetically participate in trying to establish what of justice they could as hastening the final consummation of Creation instead of wallowing in bitter, cynical self-absorption, the quite often encountered character of those who are materialists and atheists.  I am reminded of the question of Ray Hyman, when he asked why his fellow "skeptics" for which you can more honestly say scientistic materialist, atheists, were "cynical, nasty people".**  I think that this goes a long way in explaining that.  


* I think that the commandment for humans to forgive whereas God can judge makes no sense unless you take into account that God's judgement would be done on the basis of seeing and knowing the entire picture, including knowing the heart of the one being judged.  It is an acknowledgement that human justice is, at best, a pale imitation of real justice which must be done with the utmost care and with the utmost humility.  


**  George Hansen noted:  A few individuals in the national organization have expressed concern about the image projected by the local affiliates. Ray Hyman has been quoted as speaking of a “frightening” “fundamentalism” and “witch-hunting” when discussing the rise of the popular debunking movement (Clark, 1987). Hyman has also been quoted as saying: “As a whole, parapsychologists are nice, honest people, while the critics are cynical, nasty people” (McBeath & Thalboume, 1985, p. 3). Hyman (1987) wrote an article advising the local groups how to be effective critics; this was published in Skeptical Briefs and reprinted in a number of newsletters. He suggested using “the principle of charity,” saying “I know that many of my fellow critics will find this principle to be unpalatable” (p. 5, italics added).

The problems caused by cynicism and hostility have been recognized by the organization, and steps are being taken to diminish them. The severity of the problem cannot be attributed entirely to male dominance; after all, a number of other predominantly male organizations do not have such a reputation. It is likely that there are a number of other factors that contribute to the perceived demeanor.

I will note that George Hansen wrote that passage in 1992, I think, if anything, the typical atheist polemicist is more cynical and nastier than they were, even then.  

I will also note, as a political blogger from the United States, that the same description pretty well covers the Republican-fascists of the past thirty years, the poster-boy of that,  Newt Gingrich rose to power soon after that was written and that his nominal conversion to Catholicism by a neo-integralist, right-wing priest (who has subsequently been found guilty of sexual abuse) has certainly done nothing to make him live a life more in line with the teachings of Jesus, Paul, James, etc.  The vulgar materialists, even when they are such hypocrites to espouse a "christianity" of convience and opportunity, have a lot in common with the more elite brand of materialism, though, really, not much of materialism is very intellectually distinguished.  

Note:  Reading this over, I should say that I have come to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus but have found that even in the Gospels and Paul, that claimed Resurrection was not the mere animation of his corpse but was of a new body which, while fully physical was far more than merely physical.  That's something I wish the old Baltimore Catechism had acknowledged was contained in the letters of Paul and the Gospels.  The descriptions of the encounters with the risen Jesus certainly presented him as physical but far more than just that.   It's another thing that was certainly noticed by, especially, the Eastern Christian commentators from a very early period.  It is especially interesting to me that the Eastern Churches make far more of the Transfiguration in that regard, as well.  So, that's the answer the the question I wrote about here before I understood that.  I wish I had another fifty years to look at the ways in which Western Christianity was hampered by misunderstood texts badly translated into Latin and the influence those had on subsequent Western Christianity.   Though, as I've said before, the history of Eastern Christianity, especially the Orthodox Churches have their own problems, especially those involved with nationalism and the influence of those who hold power.   As Kung said, the final consummation will not be a human kingdom.  Jesus said it, too.