1. The question is: Can there be legitimate prophecy about history? Christianity answers this with a clear yes. For example, among its sacred texts is the prophetic book of Revelation (the Apocalypse), and in it (although not in it alone, there are assertions about the ultimate future of historical man—not so much, then, about how history will continue but rather about how it will end.
In this acceptance of a revealed prophecy about history, certain fundamental presuppositions are also taken for granted, the most important of which must be expressly stated if discussion of the topic “hope and history” is not to be an unpromising business from the very start. Above all, it is presupposed that human existence takes place wholly and utterly within the force field of an infinite, trans-historical, and “creative” reality; that what can be experienced of the here-and-now could never be identical with the totality of existence; and that rather (quite expectably and for that reason) the end, and also even the beginning, of human history as a whole and of individual biography, must necessarily remain beyond our empirical grasp.
2. The impatience of wanting to know leads to that familiar kind of spurious apocalyptics in which there is, above all, an attempt to establish, or even a claim to know, the concrete “omens” and the precise where and when—in the process of which, however, the very thing that the prophecy was truly meant to teach us gets overlooked. The non-datability of the events is, in the view of the great theological tradition, itself a part of the prophetic message of the Apocalypse. When we hear talk today of the “approaching end of history,” or when an otherwise quite cautious analyst like Alexander Rüstow describes the present-day situation as “eschatological” “in the full apocalyptic sense of the word,” then we can only repeat the dictum that Thomas Aquinas used against the apocalyptists of the thirteenth century; it runs as follows: “No period of time can be specified at all, neither a short one nor a long one, after which the end of the world could be expected” (Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem, 3, 2, 5, no. 531).
3. For anyone who reflects on this, a further, more important piece of information that apocalyptic prophecy has in store for us will perhaps lose a little, if not of its frightfulness, then at least of its seeming absurdity—the claim, namely, that, as seen from within time (this qualification is naturally decisive), human history will come to an end not simply with the triumph of the true and good, not with the “victory” of reason and justice, but with something that, once again, may be hardly distinguishable from catastrophe. And what is obviously being referred to here is not primarily a cosmic catastrophe or, as it were, a physical exhaustion of the forces of historical order but rather, on the contrary, a monstrous intensification of power—a pseudo-order to be sure—a universal tyranny of evil.
Strangely enough, this kind of gloomy expectation, which inclines one at first to rebellion, is by no means unfamiliar to modern historical consciousness. Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, who throughout his life was passionately interested in the subject of “the future” (his unfinished major work was originally to be titled
Das was kommt [What is to come])—Nietzsche had noted, under the heading “Further Development of Man,” a passage from Baudelaire that is found in the unpublished papers and refers to a menacing “phantom of order,” supported by political power with the help of violent coercion, that “would make our contemporary humanity, insensitive though it has become, shudder.” It is as in Franz Kafka’s
Prozeß (The Trial): “The lie is made into the world order.” A modern politician, Hermann Rauschning (relevantly qualified through particularly intimate experience with the totalitarian regime), regards it thoroughly possible that there could be a “world civilization of material pleasure” “based on progressive dehumanization and under a monopoly, preserved by a Universal Grand Inquisitor, of … absolute power.” The reference to a Grand Inquisitor recalls the name of another European who similarly presaged, with seismographic sensitivity, what was obscurely announcing itself: Dostoyevsky. In his tale of the Grand Inquisitor, in face, the following unsettling sentence can be found: “In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, ‘Make us your slaves, but feed us.’”
But it is not modern visions of the future that should be discussed here now. Rather, the question still requiring discussion is what prophetic information might possibly be attainable about the end of history. Naturally, there would be little point in making inevitably dilettantish suggestions of one’s own about how to interpret the Apocalypse. If, however, one questions modern scientific theology about, say, the topic of the “reign of the Antichrist,” what one initially receives are quite sparsely worded answers. Not much evidence is available on that subject, says Karl Rahner. Nonetheless, the little that is then said is clear enough. One speaks, for instance, of an antagonistic character of historical events that increasingly sharpens as the end approaches; one expects that the final period will be marked by an extreme concentration of the energy of evil and a previously unknown vehemence of the struggle against Christ and Christianity (and “against everything good,” as Thomas Aquinas had said [Commentary on Second Letter to the Thessalonians 2, 2]); or one calls the
potentia saecularis
[worldly power] of the Antichrist “the strongest world power in history.” All these formulations are almost literal quotations from present-day theology, both Protestant and Catholic. Their disturbing message is not easily ignored. It presents us, to be sure, with many other kinds of thing to consider; above all, however, it makes it impossible for us to conceive the end of earthly human history in such a way as to entail that a perhaps difficult and struggle-filled, but still constantly advancing, process of ascent will come to a harmonious and triumphant conclusion in it—even though this, according to the earlier-noted words of Teilhard de Chardin, would undoubtedly accord much better with “theory” and indeed equally well with idealist, Marxist, and evolutionist “theory.”
In any case, the image of history conveyed by the Apocalypse—insofar as such can be spoken of at all—looks quite different, in every respect, from that. Since this conception takes account of human freedom to choose evil and also of “the”evil as a dark and demonic historical force—for that reason alone, dissension, breakdown, irreconcilable conflict, and even catastrophe cannot, in principle, be alien to the nature of human history, including its everyday course of events.
And yet this is not the last word of apocalyptic prophecy. Its last word, and its decisive report, all else notwithstanding, is the following: a blessed end, infinitely surpassing all expectations; triumph over evil; the conquest of death; drinking from the fountain of life; resurrection; drying of all tears; the dwelling of God among men; a New Heaven and a New Earth. What all this would appear to imply about hope, however, is that it has an invulnerability sufficient to place it beyond any possibility of being affected, or even crippled, by preparedness for an intra-historically catastrophic end—whether that end be called dying, defeat of the good, martyrdom, or world domination by evil.
With that, all of our opening questions come thronging back; only now, in fact, do they present themselves in their full acuteness. Is human history, then, a “cause for despair” after all? Or what justification, and what sustenance, might it be able to provide for hope? Is it really part of the nature of human hope that it can never find satisfaction and fulfillment in the realm of history?
Basically, this last question has already been answered. If earthly existence itself is pervasively structured toward what is “not yet in being,” and if a man, as a
viator, is truly “on the way to” something right up to the moment of death, then this hope, which is identical with our very being itself, either is plainly absurd or finds its ultimate fulfillment on the other side of death, “after” the here-and-now. In a word, the object of existential hope bursts the bounds of “this” world.
Nevertheless, accusations of detached “other-worldliness” would miss the mark here, and for many reasons. The persuasiveness of those, however, is immediately evident only to someone who accepts Christian religious truth. This is not to imply that even Christians might not have false notions about hope and precisely about its other-worldliness; but then they would be misunderstanding themselves. Perhaps, however, even non-Christians can be reasonably asked, in this connection, to listen to, and reflect upon, arguments based on Christian self-understanding.
Hence: it is—point number one—precisely not, as Ernst Bloch says with Friedrich Engels, a “distinctive ‘history of the kingdom of God’” whose fulfillment Christians expect, i.e., one bypassing an “actual” history that has supposedly been declared inessential. Rather, vice versa, it is exactly this identical, created reality, here and now present before our eyes, whose fulfillment, in direct overcoming of death and catastrophe, we hope for as “salvation.” The “kingdom of God” realizes itself nowhere other than in the very midst of this historical world. It is true, of course, that nobody can have an idea of what is concretely meant by “resurrection” and “a New Earth” as images of hope; but what else could those possibly imply if not this: that not one iota will ever be futile, or lost, of whatever is good in earthly history—good, just, true, beautiful, fine, and sound.
Above all, however—point number two—Christians are convinced that the boundary of death separating this world and the next has, in a certain sense, already been crossed from the farther side, namely, through the event that is covered by the technical theological term “Incarnation.” One of the recurrent symbols through which men have, from time immemorial, attempted to make comprehensible the essential nature of what they hope for is the Great Banquet. Plato also refers to this, and that aspect of his thought should not, I believe, be forgotten. He speaks not only of a dwelling together, of a
synousia (Phaedo, III b 7), of gods and men, but also expressly of a banquet in which the soul, outside of time and in a place beyond the heavens, takes part, as a tablemate of the gods, in satiating itself with contemplation of true being (Phaedrus, 247 a-e). This could not be expressed much better even by Christians, and their expression of it is, after all, not essentially different. But Plato would never have been able to dream of
the communal banquet in which Christianity recognizes and celebrates the real beginning and pledge of that blessed life at God’s table. Since earliest times, it has been called
synaxis, or
communio. This implies, however, that one fundamentally misunderstands and degrades this table community if it is not conceived and enacted as a community of persons with one another, and indeed, a community from which nobody can be excluded through arbitrarily drawn restrictions.
A more profound sort of grounding for human solidarity cannot, it seems to me, be conceived. But the reverse also holds true: wherever true human communion is realized, or even just longed for, this universal table community is, whether one knows and likes it or not, quietly being prepared—regardless of what, in any concrete case, the catchword might be: democracy, kingdom of freedom, classless society (with the sole proviso that dictatorship by oneself and discrimination against others is not also on the program, whereby everything would be spoiled from the start). The relationship to the topic of “hope” here is more direct than one might suppose. No matter where and by whom the realization of fraternity among men is understood and pursued as the thing that is truly to be hoped for, there exists,
eo ipso, a subterranean link to the elementary hope of Christianity.
Christianity’s major theological tradition has always maintained that any non-Christian who is filled with conviction that God—in some way deemed suitable by Him—will set men free therefore also believes implicitly,
fide implicita (implicit faith), in Christ; such a person, even if without knowing it, is of the same mind as Christianity and belongs to its community. In precise correspondence to this, one should also, it seems to me, speak of a
spes implicita (implicit hope). Whoever, for instance, invests the power of his hope in the image of a perfect future human society, in which men are no longer wolves to each other and the good things of life are justly distributed—such a one participates, precisely thereby, in the hope of Christianity.
And just as
implicite “believing” non-Christians often enough put professed Christians to shame bythe vitality and seriousness of their faith, so they might possibly also surpass them in the passion of their hope, whose “religious” absoluteness ultimately just proves how much their expectations—perhaps contrary to their own proclaimed life agenda—are nevertheless basically directed toward something that cannot be brought about by any action “to change the world.”
It is inherent in the nature of this situation itself that such common concerns are perceivable as such only from the standpoint of “explicit” hope. In other words, if Christianity does not see those common concerns and identify them by name, then no one will see them; above all, however, they will then remain mute and without historical force. How much there is to be done in this area hardly needs to be stated.
*Excerpted from
Hope and History, translated by David Kipp (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1994), pp. 95, 98, 103-111. The Cluny Media reprinted edition is available for purchase at
Eighth Day Books.
