Life after Death: A New Approach to the Last Things.
Rausch, Thomas P.
LIFE AFTER DEATH: A NEW APPROACH TO THE LAST THINGS. By Anthony C.
Thiselton. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. Pp. v + 251. $24.
Thiselton begins by noting that the New Testament is more concerned
with the last great acts of God--the return of Christ or the parousia,
the last judgment, and the resurrection of the dead--than with the death
of the individual and survival after death, much more popular concerns.
Nevertheless, the book addresses both. A specialist in the hermeneutics
of doctrine, T. develops his argument by drawing heavily on analytic and
language philosophers and biblical word studies. Thus his interlocutors
include thinkers such as Gilbert Ryle, Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L.
Austin, and G. E. M. Anscombe, the Reformers as well as contemporary
theologians and biblical scholars.
Aspects of the "last things" treated include death and
dying, God's promise, the intermediate state, millennialism, the
central NT theme of the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead,
the meaning of hell, the last judgment, and the beatific vision. T.
argues that the resurrection of the dead, like justification, is based
on the shear gift of God's sovereign grace and not on some capacity
of the human, and that "spiritual body" means a mode of
existence transformed by the Spirit (123). With strong emphasis on faith
as confidence in God's promise, based on the Word of God, T.
suggests that without belief in life after death, life itself becomes
meaningless. He is less clear about what happens to unbelievers.
T. is careful to avoid an overly individualistic interpretation of
the last things, stressing the return of Christ, raising the dead to
life, bringing God's vindication of the poor and the oppressed, and
the transformation, not annihilation, of creation (these last two themes
might have received greater emphasis). T. gives little attention to the
kingdom of God and its first fruits breaking into history, cautioning
that to expect God's eschatological salvation before the Last
Judgment is to mistake God's timing. While noting that the primary
function of Scripture is to be read publicly in the context of communal
worship, his focus is on Scripture itself; he rarely mentions the
eschatological dimension of the liturgy.
Seminarians and graduate students especially will find T.'s
examination of the last things helpful.
THOMAS P. RAUSCH, S.J.
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
