Love at the End of the World: The Book of Revelation, Eschatology, and the Question of Hell

Have you ever wondered whether love truly can conquer all? Does thinking about the end of the world, or the end of your life, trigger anxiety? Have you ever wondered whether hell makes sense in the light of divine mercy? Are you intrigued by the Book of Revelation, but unsure how to find your way through such a bizarre text? If so, this course is for you.

Christian theism begins with two claims: that God is the fullness of Being and that God is Love. The mystery of reality is the mystery of love.

Suppose this to be so: then the question of a flourishing human existence cannot be extricated from the question of how to love well. History and nature (as well as each thing’s nature) would proceed within a coordinate system plotted by a transcendent goodness. How you and I move within the world, our every action, would be according to an end (a telos), a that-for-the-sake-of-which, whose measure must be a love beyond all calculation. Christian dogmatics studies this ultimate teleology under the term “eschatology,” which has traditionally been figured as the study of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

During the course of this summer seminar, we will explore together the fundamental biblical text concerning the “last things,” the book that closes the canon of Christian Scripture: the Apocalypse of Saint John, also called the Book of Revelation. As the consummation of Christian revelation, this book, replete with images of supreme beauty and terror, ought to be a focal point of Christian consciousness. It reveals the dimensions of the Kingdom of God—and how the divine politics judges secular power and history. It does so by revealing the Trinitarian heart of reality.

Nevertheless, this masterpiece of Scripture is usually ignored. Or, if taken seriously, it is coopted to serve ideologies of fear and partisan self-righteousness, a reading hard to square with the fundamental claim of Christian theism—that God is love.

That misreading bears on the marginalization of Revelation, so full of the judgment of God. If judgment means the future is pregnant with torture for most people, if the God unveiled by the book has a sadistic streak, then why would a person in earnest about divine love want to take it seriously? The reception of Revelation has everything to do with how much Christianity is preached as a matter of fire-and-brimstone. A dominant strain, particularly in Western Christianity, has put the fear of hell at the center of Christian preaching and teaching, perversely turning the Gospel into bad news for most people. This parody has rendered the Christian proposition ridiculous, indeed obscene, to the modern mind—as well as to people from traditional cultures committed to loving the dead ancestors who have made their very existence possible.

The question of hell is an urgent philosophical question insofar as theism is a philosophical matter and teleology governs the action of every human being. If Christians present a hellfire eschatology, confident in their own “salvation” and in the eternal torture of many or most other people, is not the capacity of theism to illuminate the question, “How should we live?”, not destroyed? If love is the alpha and omega, the burning secret of all things, then should not divine fire be an object of hope rather than of fear? Why is judgment necessary for loving and acting well? Will love conquer all? Let us meditate on the ultimate mysteries of love together.

There is a $95 seminar fee to attend, although scholarships will be considered upon request. certificates of completion will be distributed at the end of the seminar.

Seminar Syllabus

All sessions meet from 8:00 - 9:30 PM EST online through Zoom

the following Wednesday evenings:

Session 1 (June 12th): Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History”; Johann Baptist Metz, “Hope as Imminent Expectation—or, The Struggle for Lost Time: Untimely Theses on Apocalyptic”; Daniel 7; Isaiah 66; Matthew 25; I Thessalonians; I John

Session 2 (June 19th): Rev. 1; N. T. Wright, “The End of the World?”; Jürgen Moltmann, Introduction to The Theology of Hope

Session 3 (June 26th): Rev. 2-3; Balthasar, “Descent into Hell” and “On Vicarious Representation”

Session 4 (July 3rd): Rev. 4-5; Balthasar, “Eschatology in Outline”

Session 5 (July 10th): Rev. 6-7; Ratzinger, Eschatology, pp. xvii-66; Kant, “The End of All Things”

Session 6 (July 17th): Rev. 8-10; Ratzinger, Eschatology, pp. 69-161

Session 7 (July 24th): Rev. 11-12; Ratzinger, Eschatology, pp. 165-238

Session 8 (July 31st): Rev. 13-14; Balthasar, Dare We Hope?

Session 9 (Aug. 7th): Rev. 15-17; Balthasar, A Short Discourse on Hell; Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev, “The Theological Significance of Christ’s Descent into Hades”; Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, “The Meanings of Aiōnios”

Session 10 (Aug. 14th): Rev. 18-19; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Task of Christian Eschatology”; Carl E. Braaten, “The Recovery of Apocalyptic Imagination”; Robert W. Jenson, “The Great Transformation”; Paul D. Hanson, “Prophetic and Apocalyptic Politics”

Session 11 (Aug. 21st): Rev. 20; Lewis, The Great Divorce, preface, chs. 1-8; Timothy P. Weber, “Millennialism”

Session 12 (August 28th): Rev. 21-22; Lewis, The Great Divorce, chs. 9-14; Richard Bauckham, “Revelation for Today”