Studentenalmanak 1960 - pagina 215

Under this title — which I hope will not be too forbidding for

non-theologians — I shall make some observations which, I trust,

will be of more than purely academic interest. My assumption

will be that the relevancy of the gospel to the issues of life will

be generally acknowledged. But is the same true of eschatology?

With regard to eschatology all sorts of questions have been raised

in our day. Is not the gospel distressingly burdened down when

it is linked with eschatology? Is there not then a shifting of

responsible concern with the present realities to a quiescent

occupation with apocalyptic visions regarding the future? If the

Christian faith could be divorced from a watchful waiting for the

dawn of a new age, would not the Church be prepared as never

before to engage in its mission to the world? Indeed, is not the

gospel itself basically misunderstood if the hope of a future state

of bliss is accepted as an essential ingredient?

The answers to such questions as these have on a wide front

reflected a readiness to minimize or discount, if not altogether to

deny, the place of eschatology within the gospel. Quotations

supporting this estimate of modern opinion could be multiplied.

Reinhold Niebuhr in America, C. H. Dodd in England and Rudolf

Bultmann in Germany are a few prominent representatives. Thus

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