Two Theologies of Death: Anthropological Gleanings
David Kelsey1997, Modern Theology
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Abstract
Hardly any other moment in life besides death provides a subject for theological reflection that brings to such clear focus the precise force of a theologian's anthropological proposals. This essay addresses certain issues in theological anthropology, both material and formal issues. It focuses the issues by seeing what can be gleaned from comparing two mid-20th century theologies of death: Why select death as the lens through which the issues are brought to focus? It is because death focuses attention on the interconnections among three major ways in which Christianity has traditionally said human persons are related to God: the relation of creature to creator, the relation of redeemed to redeemer, and the relation of glorified to consummator. Each relation is constituted by God actively relating to us on God's own initiative. The dynamic character of these "relations", God's active relating, is crucial in Christian belief. For that reason, I shall generally write of "God creating", "redeeming" and "consummating" us rather than write more abstractly of God's "creation-relation" or "redemption-relation" or "consummationrelation" to us.
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