The Final Reconciliation: Reflections on a Social Dimension of the Eschatological Transition

The basic thesis of the essay is this: If the world to come is to be a world of love, then the eschatological transition from the present world to that world, which God will accomplish, must have an inter-human side. The work of the Spirit in the consummation should be understood to include not only the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment but also the final social reconciliation. The final social reconciliation is the eschatological side of the vision of social transformation contained in the movement of the Triune God toward sinful humanity to take them up into the circle of divine communal love.