- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: William B Eerdmans Publishing Co (27 Jun 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0802863159
- ISBN-13: 978-0802863157
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,155,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Book Description
The Eschatological Economy presents a dynamic understanding of the transformation that occurs as man is brought into relationship with God. It links the central Christian truth that we are changed by the action of God to inform our understanding of time and history. Christian doctrine uses the terms ’sanctification’, and ’sacrifice’ to name the process in which God redeems his people and transforms all creation. This very old doctrine, associated with Saint Irenaeus, teaches that God always intended come to man and stay with him. In the course of this coming, man would grow up, a process delayed, but not ultimately halted, by our rebellion. This book uses the idea of development, or paideia, to talk about this dynamic process. It presents a theological discussion of the work of God and the people of God, and looks at the ways in which biblical studies tackle this issue of the education or formation of humanity, in particular by asking about the role of the people of Israel.
The Eschatological Economy offers a new account of human relations which shows that we owe one another all the life we have, and that God supplies to us the life that we are to supply to one another. Our failure to provide the life and recognition that is due to them, means that they suffer a deficiency, for which the theological term is ‘sin’. This ontological treatment of the doctrine of sin puts the fall into a properly Christian framework, which determines that the human condition is seen in the context of God’s ambitions for us. It examines sacrifice and other models of the work of Christ, and sets out a new understanding of the work, and the death, of Christ, showing that the cross and atonement are neither kind of mechanism or a metaphorical description of the human predicament, but simply God’s patience and power at work on our behalf.
The Eschatological Economy demonstrates that Christian theology is not just about ideas, but about life, practice and action, and about the plurality represented by the Christian community, created for us by God. It shows that the Christian gospel contradicts other systems of ideas and creates a real encounter and contest of world-views. When the doctrine of the Trinity determines the questions we ask about secularization, enlightenment and the idea of progress, it provides a way to avoid the divisions and tunnel vision that determines modern existence. Modernity is itself a religion, deeply conservative, and one which is contested by Christianity. Only Christianity can consistently point to a future. Modernity and Christianity are both forms of enlightenment, but modernity is the counterfeit version, Christianity the real one.
The Eschatological Economy offers a new account of human relations which shows that we owe one another all the life we have, and that God supplies to us the life that we are to supply to one another. Our failure to provide the life and recognition that is due to them, means that they suffer a deficiency, for which the theological term is ‘sin’. This ontological treatment of the doctrine of sin puts the fall into a properly Christian framework, which determines that the human condition is seen in the context of God’s ambitions for us. It examines sacrifice and other models of the work of Christ, and sets out a new understanding of the work, and the death, of Christ, showing that the cross and atonement are neither kind of mechanism or a metaphorical description of the human predicament, but simply God’s patience and power at work on our behalf.
The Eschatological Economy demonstrates that Christian theology is not just about ideas, but about life, practice and action, and about the plurality represented by the Christian community, created for us by God. It shows that the Christian gospel contradicts other systems of ideas and creates a real encounter and contest of world-views. When the doctrine of the Trinity determines the questions we ask about secularization, enlightenment and the idea of progress, it provides a way to avoid the divisions and tunnel vision that determines modern existence. Modernity is itself a religion, deeply conservative, and one which is contested by Christianity. Only Christianity can consistently point to a future. Modernity and Christianity are both forms of enlightenment, but modernity is the counterfeit version, Christianity the real one.
From the Author
The Eschatological Economy is a new constructive systematic theology that explores the world-changing philosophical implications of Christian hope, and shows that secularism is just a kind of hopelessness. The Eschatological Economy has extensive discussions of christology and the atonement, the temple and sacrifice in the Old Testament and a radically theological account of the cross, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. It is God’s own labour that makes his people distinct: this labour meets resistance, but God overcomes this resistance and through slow and painful transformation makes his people holy. The book suggests how we should link the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to the people of Israel, to show that the New Testament is the fulfilment of the Old Testament, and that modernity is just a refusal to hear the promises of God, a refusal overcome by God’s own faithfulness.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Theology is a junior partner in a conversation brought into being by God. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Theology is a junior partner in a conversation brought into being by God. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
LEARNING TO LIVE WITH THE TIME TO END ALL TIMES,
By
This review is from: The Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God (Paperback)
A friend of mine once claimed, with a straight enough face, not to know the difference between eschatology (the logic of ultimate matters) and scatology (chatter of dirty matters). What, then, might be the significant difference (and the hidden similarity)? At least two more immediate answers suggest themselves. Eschatology anticipates the end of shame in the last times; scatology anticipates the end of shame in our pastimes. Alternatively: if we cannot tell the difference, then we seem well fitted for carrying on as professional god-squad insiders - or outsiders.
Douglas Knight does not fool around with such low riddles and puns, so far as I can see. I start this way, I hope, to show that I have not been utterly swept off my feet by Knight's torrents of perceptive narrative, scholarship, argument and contemplation. The seven academic reviewers quoted on the back cover are, I can believe, not swept away in their eloquent and fully-justified praise, at least to the extent of losing their critical distance. My less academic note of critical distance is a vote of confidence in Knight's work and vision. He is far from needing, or leaving us needing, the all-too-familiar would-be ingratiating grin, chuckle and shuffle with which some of us perform a pre-emptive apology for shared embarrassment. Right from the days of Jesus' mission between the Jordan, Galilee and Jerusalem, some have been embarrassed by the eschatology articulated in his message of the approach of God's final reign. Some have not been able to avoid asking whether there is something shamefully mistaken or wrong hereabouts. Such embarrassment has persisted to this day. For about the last 100 years such concerns have become especially strong amongst some academic circles including theologians, historians, anthropologists and others. Complementing this, we are familiar with a recurrent cluster of embarrassments in encountering death or the dying, and the topics of guilt, sin, judgement, the worth and meaning of human life, authority, tradition, and related matters, in a wide range of contexts. The anthropologist Mary Douglas, most famously in her book Purity and Danger, explored insights concerning how we (as human beings) tend to find dangerous or dirty (impure) matters which we do not know how to make sense of, in terms of our conventional and established ways of trying to sort out our experience into various kinds and schemas. For example, is blood more to do with life or death, and how can we, how should we, keep these apart, or connect them, or both? If Knight is right, then he offers us a powerful paradigm, new yet with ancient roots, for living and working face-to-face with such matters, so as to make better sense of them and of our shared, shareable humanity, in the company of Israel, Jesus Christ and the Christian community. His account of the triune God articulates the grammar which guides this approach. Knight helps us, here and now, towards appreciating better the riches of the vision of Irenaeus of Lyons: the glory of God is a living human being: human life is the vision of the glory of God. This is a book to buy and re-read, to argue and struggle and live with. (And, if you have not yet done so, do look at the extracts provided by Amazon's "Search Inside" facility).
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hope for humanity,
By
This review is from: The Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God (Paperback)
Douglas Knight must have read much and thought hard to come up with such an energetic and bold account of Christian faith and hope. It contains a real feast of ideas. Following the constructive and philosophically informed approach of great contemporary theologians like Colin Gunton, Robert Jenson and N.T. Wright, Knight develops a remarkably fresh and exciting account of who we are and why we are here.
Anyone interested in thinking about the purpose of human existence and how the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is good news for our modern world would do well to read this book. I recommend it unreservedly.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The eschatological economy vs. the economy of modernity,
By George Ille - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God (Paperback)
The Eschatological economy makes daring and provocative claims:
`Christian thought is political. It contradicts other systems of ideas and creates a real encounter and contest of world-views...' `Modernity is a religion... Modernity and Christianity are both forms of enlightenment, but modernity is the counterfeit version, Christianity the real one...' `The Word of God identifies Western being as a failure of action and of relatedness, and thus as a failure of being... ` Such bold claims require a radical approach and in an important sense Douglas Knight's book is about the totality of the real: about God and God's action and about time and history. `Modern thought [was] ever ready to take things apart but [was] unable to put them together again'. Yet, while making bold claims about things theo-logical, the book is also about humanity, perhaps profoundly about humanity. After all, God's action and being are deeply bound to humanity and there is no knowledge of the Creator God without knowledge of his creature. From this perspective the book is about personhood, about sanctification and transformation, that is, about paideia, which becomes, in Knight's use, a key theological term. Special attention is accorded to the `stage' of this transformation and especially to the role of Israel in this process. `A Trinitarian and Irenaean view of Israel's anthropology puts human beings in touch with the creation of which they are members. Humankind is hosted by God and brought up by him into the practice of God's hospitality.' The sacrifice of the Son, the event of the cross is shown to be the apex of God's labour for and with the world, through which we are integrated into the person of the Son through the Holy Spirit, becoming thus members of his body, the Church. All these things are spelled out in conversation with the contemporary (post)modern world, its claims and proposals, systems of ideas, dichotomies, utopias and above all, its idols. It is a conversation to be sure, but it is also a contest and a battle against falsehood and pretense, an affirmation of what really `is' and what `is to come', against a rhetoric of `being' and self-made existence. In this sense, the book is also about method and sources, as it advocates reflection that listens to the Scriptures and acknowledges the richness of church doctrine and tradition. Indeed, Christianity can and must tell the difference between constructive change and mere decay since `one way of being human is very considerably better than other ways'... Knight modestly claims that there's nothing really new in his book (This reminds some of us of Zizioulas' modest stance!)... Yet, the book offers a genuine experience of the `new', just confirming, perhaps, an underlying theme in Knight's book: It is only as we respond to God in obedience and praise that we allow him to do new things; we allow Him to labor `changes' that have a future, changes that conform us to the image of His Son. After all, the Gospel, as Knight reminds us, `is the most exhilarating thing in the marketplace'... Getting a taste of this pathos alone makes the book worth studying. A must read for all Theology students and preachers but also for philosophers, sociologists and political theorists who engage themselves in `descriptions' or `prescriptions' of the contemporary world. 5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
don't miss it,
By A Friend - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God (Paperback)
This book is a pure gift - and therefore very difficult to be summarised. It is both personal and ecclesial - apophatic and cataphatic. Douglas Knight is one of the most persuasive and radical theologians in the British Isles, a voice to wrestle with, and an excellent communicator.
ESCHATOLOGICAL ECONOMY is theology written within the conceptual framework and under the narrative umbrella of Classical Christian tradition. Both the author and the publishers should be congratulated for this achievement! 1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An important book,
By Benjamin J. Hansen - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God (Paperback)
Douglas H Knight has written a very good book. He does not seek to reinvent the theological wheel; rather calls us back to it, and illumines its usefulness, especially in light of challenges modernity and post-modernity. His thoughts on Israel and God's relation and purpose for his chosen people are wonderful and challenging. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a solid synthesis of both ancient and modern Christian thought.
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