Early Christian and Modern Perspectives on the Resurrection

Early Christian writers preferred to speak of the coming resurrection in the most bodily way possible: the resurrection of the flesh. Twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth took the same avenue, daring to speak of humans' eternal life in rather striking corporeal terms.

About the Study

In this study, Nathan Hitchcock pulls together Barth's doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh, anticipating what the great thinker might have said more systematically in volume V of his Church Dogmatics. Provocatively, Hitchcock goes on to argue that Barth's description of the resurrection—as eternalization, as manifestation, as incorporation—bears much in common with some unlikely programs and, contrary to its intention, jeopardizes the very contours of human life it hopes to preserve.

Significance and Warnings

In addition to contributing to Barth studies, this book offers a sober warning to theologians pursuing eschatology through notions of participation.