![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&l=ur2&o=1\")
<\/em>is parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was interesting \u2013 but somewhat abstract. The second case study on atonement was fascinating and insightful. But \u2026 Shults out does himself in this third case study \u2014 and no, I don\u2019t mean in clarity of prose. This chapter is not for the faint of heart in search of light (or clear) reading. An understanding of the paraousia of Christ is, however, a topic well worth discussion and I will attempt to lay out some key points for consideration.\nFirst \u2013<\/strong> it would be useful to define parousia as Shults uses the term. \u201cIn the New Testament, the Greek work \u201cparousia\u201d itself can mean either (or both) \u201cpresence\u201d and \u201ccoming.\u201d \u2026 The doctrine<\/em> of the parousia attends to the variety of ways in which the biblical tradition witnesses to the experience of being confronted with the advent of God through Christ (for example, the coming of the \u201cSon of Man\u201d), and the relation of this arrival to the consummation of the whole created cosmos.\u201d (p. 109)
\nSecond \u2013<\/strong> as with the doctrines of incarnation and atonement the starting point in this discussion is a realization that both the biblical witness and the contemplations of the early church fathers grapple with the parousia, the presence and coming of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, in the context of the available language, philosophy, and cosmology of the day and age. The NT writers grapple with the reality of the Jesus of their experience using language which they know is inadequate to the task. Something brand new, without precedent, had turned their world upside down. The early church fathers continue to wrestle with the new reality.
\nIn articulating the parousia the church has used images of space and time, cause and effect, matter and spirit, that emerged out of their context and culture. The biblical witnesses and New Testament writers used the cosmological frame of reference they shared with their neighbors to describe their experience and expectation of the coming Christ and his relation to the presence of God; the eschatological presentations presupposed the cosmology of their \u201ccommon knowledge;\u201d they breathed this atmosphere and spoke this language as they tried to express in words the reality of the risen Lord.
\nIn the early 21st century our views of space and time have been revolutionized, as have our descriptions of cause, effect and matter. The big bang, cosmology, special and general relativity, quantum indeterminacy, quarks and gluons all impact on our understanding of God\u2019s creation and the continuing and coming presence of Jesus within creation. Many aspects of causality remain intact \u2013 but time, for example, is relative to the observer. Matter and energy are interchangeable. The universe is both infinite and expanding \u2013 there is no center. The exploitation of quantum interference effects to manipulate matter and process is an active field of research (in my lab for example). As Shults reports, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle \u201cis not simply an epistemological or methodological limit; the nature of sub-atomic reality is not susceptible to deterministic prediction.\u201d (p. 123) This has profound consequences in many ways \u2014 the stability of both atoms and molecules are prime examples.
\nWell\u2026<\/strong> as I said at the outset, this chapter gets a bit deep, in physics, philosophy, and theology. But Shults\u2019s wrap-up makes several excellent points \u2014<\/p>\n
How then can we articulate belief in the resurrection, ascension and coming of Jesus Christ in dialogue with contemporary physical cosmology? Christians believe that Jesus has been raised up \u201cbodily\u201d into a redeemed relation to God through the Spirit. However, the way in which we articulate this belief will be shaped by what it means for a (material) body to be energized in space-time. (p. 147-148)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Watch out this gets a bit deep\u2026<\/p>\n
We are no longer required to imagine heaven as a place (near or far), where Jesus is watching and waiting for the right time to return. In light of contemporary cosmological categories, we can move beyond thinking of the \u201cascension\u201d as a movement through space, away from a fixed inertial point, or the \u201ccoming\u201d of Christ as a return from a particular space at a fixed time. Instead we may think of the whole parousia as the manifestation of God\u2019s incursive and evocative redemption of space-time-matter-energy, as the arriving consummation of creaturely desire to belong to and be longed for within an infinitely redemptive field of hopeful communion.(p. 148)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(I warned you\u2026)
\nOk \u2013 here it gets a bit better:<\/p>\nHere we also have an opportunity to articulate a reforming<\/em> Christology that makes clear why the arriving presence of God in, to and for the world is good news. Depicting the parousia as a future point on a timeline at which some of us will escape the destruction of planet earth is not only problematic for all of the biblical and scientific reasons outlined above; it also obscures our responsibility to face our neighbors in practical interdisciplinary and inter-religious dialogue about our shared longing for peaceful presence in communion.(p. 149)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well the last quote still leaves one with a feeling of peering through a glass darkly \u2013 but the point is that the good news is not that some of us escape destruction, but that the kingdom of God, God\u2019s new creation, is at hand \u2013 both present and coming.
\nThis does lead to a key question\u2026<\/strong>
\nWhat do we mean by the parousia \u2013 the present and coming reality of the reign of God through the Son and Spirit? What is the present and future Christian hope \u2014 the Gospel \u2014 and how can we describe the good news for our generation?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last case study in LeRon Shults\u2019s book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was interesting \u2013 but somewhat abstract. The second case study on atonement was fascinating and insightful. But \u2026 Shults out does himself in this third case study \u2014 and no, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[337],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\n
Christology and Science 3 (RJS)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The last case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christology and Science 3 (RJS)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The last case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-16T06:20:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2010-11-28T01:23:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&l=ur2&o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"RJS\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"RJS\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/\",\"name\":\"Christology and Science 3 (RJS)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-09-16T06:20:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-11-28T01:23:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/716551d3a3f8c156aabfd47c0bce89a0\"},\"description\":\"The last case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Christology and Science 3 (RJS)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/716551d3a3f8c156aabfd47c0bce89a0\",\"name\":\"RJS\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/rjs1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Christology and Science 3 (RJS)","description":"The last case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Christology and Science 3 (RJS)","og_description":"The last case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2008-09-16T06:20:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2010-11-28T01:23:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&l=ur2&o=1"}],"author":"RJS","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"RJS","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/","name":"Christology and Science 3 (RJS)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-09-16T06:20:37+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-28T01:23:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/716551d3a3f8c156aabfd47c0bce89a0"},"description":"The last case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/16\/christology-and-science-3-rjs\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Christology and Science 3 (RJS)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/716551d3a3f8c156aabfd47c0bce89a0","name":"RJS","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/rjs1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}