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Thomas Torrance (1913–2007) had a long and illustriouscareer, spanning six decades. He penned over 600 works and covered a wide range of subjects in Christian theology, often making original contributions to them. Eschatology was one of these subjects, although it is not one we associate with Torrance. He is famous for his contributions to trinitarian thought and theological method, and especially for his penetrating investigation of the relationship between science and theology.

To date, there are around fifty studies on Torrance. So far, none has focussed on his eschatology. Many, understandably, deal with his theological method or his scientific theology. A number of these have been published: Wolfang Achtner, Physik, Mystik and Christentum: Eine Darstellung und Diskussion der naturlichen Theologie bei T. F. Torrance (Frankfurt, 1991); John Douglas Morrison, Knowledge of the Self-Revealing God in the Thought of Thomas Forsyth Torrance (New York, 1997); Colin Weightman, Theology in a Polanyian Universe: The Theology of T.F. Torrance; Elmer Colyer, The Nature of Doctrine in T. F. Torrance’s Theology (Eugene, OR, 2001); and Tapio Luomo’s Incarnation and Physics: Natural Science in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance (Oxford, 2002).1

A number of studies focus on theological loci. The earliest of this type is Johannes Guthridge’s The Christology of T. F. Torrance: Revelation and Reconciliation in Christ (Melbourne, 1967). Perhaps the most comprehensive is Won Kye Lee’s Living in Union with Christ: The Practical Theology of Thomas F. Torrance (New York, 2003). Lee’s study builds upon a slightly earlier study with a similar title: William Rankin’s “Carnal Union with Christ in the Theology of T. F. Torrance” (University of Edinburgh, 1997). One of the most specialized is Robert Stamps’ “‘The Sacrament of the Word Made Flesh’: The Eucharistic Theology of Thomas F. Torrance” (University of Nottingham, 1986). There has been a good deal of scholarly interest as well in Torrance’s theological anthropology. This has been epitomized in Phee Seng Kang’s “The Concept of the Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Theology of Thomas Forsyth Torrance” (University of Aberdeen, 1983) and in the recent publication of Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (Farmhan, UK, 2009).

Won Kye Lee’s study is one that at least underlines the significance of Torrance’s eschatology. Eschatology, we learn, has an important role in our union with Christ. This union, he concludes, “is quasi-hypostatic and eschatological.”2 Yet even in Lee’s broad systematic study, eschatology occupies only a few pages.

This book deals with a neglected subject in Torrance’s theology. I have chosen eschatology, though, not just because it has been neglected but because it is a prominent subject both in Torrance’s theology and in modern theology in general. In 1901 James Orr rightly predicted that the twentieth century would be the age of eschatology.3 Unlike preceding centuries, this century is one where eschatology is a central theme for theologians. Near the end of it, the Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten spoke about the “eschatological renaissance in Christian theology.”4 Jürgen Moltmann (1926– ) surely represents the high point of this renaissance. He has insisted that eschatology is not “one element of Christianity” but “the medium of Christian faith.”5 It is, he adds, “characteristic of all Christian proclamation, of every Christian existence and of the whole church.”

It is recognized that the renaissance began with Karl Barth, Moltmann’s teacher at one time. In his Epistle to the Romans (1922) Barth asserted that “Christianity that is not entirely and altogether eschatology has entirely nothing to do with Christ.” Torrance was not only a student of Karl Barth but a close disciple. Eschatology, then, should have been important to him as well.

Why did eschatology suddenly come to the forefront of theology in the twentieth century? There are theological and historical reasons, which we can only sketch out here.6 Theologically, the change begins with the German scholars Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. Their biblical research showed that an apocalyptic eschatology was at the core of Jesus’ preaching.7 Jesus expected God’s kingdom to break dramatically into history in his lifetime.

The conclusions of Weiss and Schweitzer turned on its head the liberal theological establishment, which had dismissed biblical eschatology as part of an outmoded Hebraic world-view. Albert Ritschl was one of the first to identify the kingdom of God as the central idea in Jesus’ teaching, but he construed this as “moral society of nations” that can be realized on the basis of the Christian motive of love.8 For Troeltsch, in the same vein, the kingdom of God is an “ethical ideal” within us; and while this ideal can never be realized absolutely in this world, it “drives man onward” and has a transforming effect on society at large.9 In general, Christian eschatology in nineteenth-century Western Europe had become confused with the idea of worldly “evolutionary progress” that was characteristic of that time period.10 It had nothing to do with God’s intervention in history or the return of Christ.

While it became clear, after Schweitzer and Weiss, that Jesus could no longer be understood apart from his apocalyptic eschatology, the modern view of the world made this eschatology look untenable. Schweitzer himself became a mystic, for Jesus was deluded: the kingdom did not break in as he had expected; nor could it. Jesus was just another tragic hero, crushed by the “wheel of the world” which continued to run its course as it always has.

World War I brought an end (in Europe at least) to the “age of optimism.” Not only was the “consistent eschatology” of Jesus untenable now, so was faith in the natural upward ascent of humankind. Under the leadership of Karl Barth, the “theology of crisis” promised a solution to the crisis in eschatology. Eschatology is central here. However, it is an eschatology shorn of temporality. It does not have much to do with apocalyptic, with history or the future. It is about “Eternity,” as the judgment of God, breaking into time. Contrary to Schweitzer, there is no problem of the delay of the parousia. That is because the kingdom of God presses down from above onto every moment of our existence. After all, Eternity surrounds time.

Rudolph Bultmann had his own ingenious solution to the eschatological problem. One could partake of the eschatology of the New Testament without partaking of its primitive cosmology. The key was to “demythologize” the message of the gospel (the kerygma).11 What is really important in eschatology, the reasoning goes, is the “existential moment,” an encounter with God through faith alone. Yet Bultmann drives a wedge between eschatology and history.12 Eschatology has to do with Christ coming to us through faith, not with the coming of Christ on the clouds of heaven. Therefore, “every instant has the possibility of being an eschatological instant.”13

From Torrance’s own soil came an alternative to Schweitzer’s “consistent” or “futurist” eschatology. This was C. H. Dodd’s “realized eschatology,” which, like Bultmann’s eschatology, seeks to emancipate eschatology from future historical events. In The Parables of the Kingdom (1936) Dodd contends that the kingdom of God, the Day of the Lord, arrived fully in the person and ministry of Jesus. Jesus’ miracle-working power, his judgment and overthrow of evil forces, and finally his resurrection all attest to the presence of this kingdom. There is no need to look for a second coming of Christ on horizontal plane of history. This is not to say there is no eschatological reserve, but what remains will be realized in the “world beyond” this one.

Oscar Cullmann tries to do justice to both the realized and futurist elements that clearly seem to constitute New Testament eschatology.14 For him the solution is in the recovery of the biblical concept of time. This is a linear conception (chronos). The Christ-event is the mid-point in salvation history (Heilsgeschichte). This point is in the past. The kingdom of God, then, has “already” come with the advent of Jesus Christ. He is Lord. But this kingdom has “not yet” fully arrived. We must look forward to the “last things,” which include the second advent of Christ and the general resurrection of the dead. The church, therefore, has real grounds for hope.

The course of history in the twentieth century kept eschatology at the forefront. The spread of Communism in mid-century represented a complete secularization of Christ’s notion of the coming of the kingdom of God. Communism, World War II, and the general crisis of civilization forced churches in the 1940s and 50s to ponder together the meaning of hope for both the church and the world. If the bureau of eschatology was closed in the nineteenth century, then by the middle of the twentieth century it was, in von Balthasar’s words, “working overtime.”15

This is, in a nutshell, the historical and eschatological background of Torrance’s early career. This book uncovers Torrance’s eschatology and examines its origin and development against this background. It begins (chapter 1) with Torrance’s lectures at Auburn Seminary in 1938/39, for this is where his eschatology begins to take shape. Owing to the strong influence of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, these lectures leave us with a strong sense that the kingdom has come in the “Person” and “Work” of Christ. Eschatology is determined by the incarnation, the cross, and resurrection. Yet on the basis of Christ’s ascension and second advent we are given an equally strong sense that the kingdom is still to be consummated and that Christ is still carrying on his redeeming work.

We then (chapters 2 and 3) trace the development of his eschatology through his sermons at Alyth and Beechgrove. Grounded on the resurrection and ascension of Christ, this eschatology is practical and apocalyptic as well as personal and historical. Yet we find that same tension between the present realization of the kingdom and its future consummation, between the revelation of the new creation and the hiddeness of it. This tension is established by the actualization of the kingdom through the cross of Christ, which, in Torrance’s words, is “still in the field.”

Next, we examine Torrance’s eschatology in the context of the ecumenical movement (chapters 4 and 5), as it takes shape through his work (1948–63) for the Commission of Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches. Here eschatology is vital to the nature of the church as the Body of Christ in time and space. Once again, we find a tension between the present, hidden realization of the kingdom and its future, full manifestation. The church is caught in the middle of this tension, for it represents the new creation and the new humanity. Its true nature (holiness and unity), however, is hidden in Christ, waiting to be revealed with his final parousia. There is an eschatological fulfillment of the Body through the resurrection of Christ and, correlative to the ascension, a teleological growth of the Body towards fullness (pleroma) in Christ. The church’s eschatological reality is manifested in her sacraments, her ministry, and mission.

The book concludes with an overview of the results of this study, a look at the lasting significance of Torrance’s eschatology, as well as some critical observations of it.

This book will show that Torrance’s early theology is an imaginative attempt at recapturing the eschatological orientation of the early church. This means eschatology is not viewed as an appendix to the Christian faith. Instead every element of this faith is given an eschatological cast. The key is Torrance’s Christology. Eschatology is a component of this Christology. Eschatology, he can say, is about the parousia (coming-

presence) of Jesus Christ. For Torrance, there is no “delay of the parousia,” since the parousia includes Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and second advent as “one extended event.” Eschatology is central to the church because, as the Body of Christ, it participates in Christ’s death, resurrection, and movement toward fulfillment. The church is really the new humanity in concentrated form.

At the same time, one should not expect to find a comprehensive, systematic treatment of Torrance’s eschatology in the following pages. We must bear in mind that Torrance did not leave us with a full-fledged eschatology. Much of his thinking on the subject was occasional; much of it was inchoate.

This study is more historical-descriptive than analytical-descriptive. Its primary aim is to demonstrate that Torrance was a first-rate eschatologist, a point that has scarcely been recognized.16 A secondary aim is to show that Torrance’s eschatology has been shaped—though not determined—by Torrance’s historical context.

It is time to say a word about my method. I heeded Bruce McCormack’s advice at the end of his intellectual biography on Barth. There he states that, “the most pressing need in contemporary theology is a historical one.”17 This is certainly true in regard to Torrance’s eschatology, since it is occasioned by some of the greatest events of the century.

Rankin’s study, “Carnal Union in Christ,” is the first attempt to understand Torrance’s theology in terms of its historical background. The great benefit of this work is that it helps us to see the role that Barth, Calvin, and Athanasius played in the genetic development of Torrance’s concept of “carnal union.” However, Rankin’s thesis falls short in giving us a clear picture of the historical context of Torrance’s theology. It gives too much attention to the theologian’s unpublished papers (many of which have been published), while giving too little to his historical context. Lastly—and sadly—“Carnal Union in Christ” completely ignores Torrance’s eschatology.

Alister McGrath’s book T. F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography (Edinburgh, 1999) represents the second attempt to understand Torrance’s theology in its historical context. McGrath’s book shed much needed light on Torrance’s early career. However, his research in this area is far more biographical than theological, and far from complete. He fails even to mention Torrance’s wartime sermons, which constitute The Apocalypse Today (1960). His treatment of Torrance’s ecumenical work in the 1950s is spotty; though to his credit he does explain that a major part of this work involved the recovery of the eschatological element in the church.

Historical research on Torrance involves a broad range of sources, including unpublished articles, lectures, sermons, correspondence, and memoirs. The complete works of T. F. Torrance, along with his personal library, are now part of Special Collections (archives) at Princeton Theological Seminary. This collection includes all of Torrance’s sermons from his years as a Church of Scotland minister at the Barony Parish Church in Alyth and at the Beechgrove Parish Church, Aberdeen. These sermons are the bases for chapter 2 and parts of chapter 3.

1. To this class we can add the unpublished dissertations of Bryan Gray, “Theology as Science: An Examination of the Theological Methodology of Thomas F. Torrance”; Dennis Sansom, “Scientific Theology: An Examination of the Methodology of Thomas Forsyth Torrance”; Douglas Trook, “The Unified Christocentric Field: Toward a Time-Eternity Relativity Model for Theological Hermeneutics in the Onto-Relational Theology of Thomas F. Torrance”; F. Leron Shults, “An Open Systems Model for Adult Learning in Theological Inquiry”; Jason Hing-Kau Yeung, “Being and Knowing: An Examination of T. F. Torrance’s Christological Science”; Kurt Richardson, “Trinitarian Reality: The Interrelation of Uncreated and Created Being in the Thought of Thomas F. Torrance.”

2. Lee, Living in Union with Christ, 308.

3. Orr, The Progress of Doctrine, 345.

4. Hodgson and King, Christian Theology, 275.

5. Moltmann, The Theology Hope, 16.

6. For a broad survey of Christian eschatology, see Hebblethwaite’s The Christian Hope. A helpful guide to modern eschatology, including Roman Catholic forms, is La Due’s The Trinity Guide to Eschatology. Moltmann’s The Coming of God contains a trenchant, though tendentious, survey of German eschatology in the first half of the twentieth century, 3–22. For the latter half of the century, and for a sample of Dutch eschatology, see Runia, “Eschatology in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century,” 105–35. The only author from this group, however, that even mentions Torrance is Brian Hebblethwaite.

7. Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God; Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus.

8. Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine, 10, 290.

9. See Troeltsch, The Social Teaching, 1013.

10. See John Baillie, The Idea of Progress; also H. E. Fosdick, Christianity and Progress (1922). Fosdick reports that in his day the Church is viewed as “primarily an instrument in God’s hands to bring personal and social righteousness on earth,” 114.

11. Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” 1–44.

12. See Bultmann, History and Eschatology.

13. Ibid., 154.

14. See Cullmann, Christ and Time.

15. Sauter, What Dare We Hope? 27. The original source is von Balthasar, “Escha-tologie,” 403.

16. Yet, just recently, in his lengthy synopsis of Torrance’s doctrine of atonement, Robert T. Walker wisely identifies “the eschatological perspective” as one of the four leading themes in Torrance doctrine: Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, edited by Robert T. Walker. To support his claim, Walker includes a nearly fifty-page addendum on the subject.

17. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic, 466.