The Eschatological Person
Alexander Schmemann and Joseph Ratzinger in Dialogue
- 240 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
Both Alexander Schmemann and Joseph Ratzinger insist that the human person remains shrouded in mystery without God's self-disclosure in the person of Jesus Christ. Like us, Jesus lived in a particular time and location, and therefore time and temporality must be part of the ontological question of what it means to be a human person. Yet, Jesus, the one who has time for us, ascended to the Father, and the bride of Christ awaits his return, and therefore time and temporality are conditioned by the eschatological. With this in mind, the ontological question of personhood and temporality is a question that concerns eschatology: how does eschatology shape personhood? Bringing together Schmemann and Ratzinger in a theological dialogue for the first time, this book explores their respective approaches and answers to the aforementioned question. While the two theologians share much in common, it is only Ratzinger's relational ontological approach that, by being consistently relational from top to bottom, consistently preserves the meaningfulness of temporal existence.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Schmemann: Eschatology as Context
- Chapter 2: Schmemann and Personhood: Eucharistic Beings
- Chapter 3: Ratzinger: Eschatology as Christology
- Chapter 4: Ratzinger and Personhood: âBeyond the Selfâ
- Chapter 5: Conclusion: A Matter of Time
- Bibliography