Time&Eternity

Aspects of a Theology of Time 215
Everything old has passed away 162 —On the Understanding
of Annihilation and Transformation
The relationship between the old creation and the new heaven and new
earth is traditionally described in two conceptual models. The differences
between these models are expressed most clearly with the terms annihilation
[annihilatio] and transformation [transformatio]. 163 The annihilation tradition
was expressed most succinctly in Lutheran orthodoxy, while the transformation
tradition is part of the Catholic, the Reformed, and—as the doctrine
of the deification of the world—the Eastern Orthodox traditions. The
idea of annihilation stresses that everything is dependent upon God’s action.
It accentuates the difference between creation and Creator, and thus
also the discontinuity between the old and the new creation. The conception
of transformation, on the other hand, emphasizes precisely the continuity
between old and new creation and the nearness or indwelling of God
in creation. The first conceptual model elucidates the radicality of the
“new.” In it, the new creation is advent and only advent. The second model
accentuates the link between old and new. It somehow tries to bring future
and advent together. In the first case, both the form and matter of the old
creation is destroyed; in the second case, by means of a change in form,
matter instead appears to be consummated and glorified, which could make
it easier to avoid a worldless and bodiless anthropocentrism. 164
Until now, continuity and discontinuity appear to be irreconcilable opposites.
However, the application of the three differentiating models developed
in chapter 2 leads us further in this case as well. An ontological distinction
between continuity and discontinuity results in the following: In
light of the human horizon, human beings are dependent upon the thought
of continuity. Because, for human beings, identity is tied to continuity, people
seek continuity even into the eschaton. This leads, on the one hand, to
an eschatology that is basically oriented toward the individual; and, on the
other hand, it restricts the sovereignty of God, because continuity on the
human side “forces” God, so to speak, to orient divine judgment exclusively
toward human behavior. In the ontological model of differentiation, this
continuity on the human side then stands in contrast to the discontinuity
on the side of God. This, in turn, guarantees God complete freedom. God
is the wholly Other; but, for human beings, God risks becoming the absolute
Other to whom no relation is possible. The quantitative model of
differentiation, on the contrary, largely ignores discontinuity. It builds instead
upon continuity. By means of extrapolation, time is lengthened into
infinite future. The reign of God grows out of history. Finally, the eschatological
model of differentiation concentrates on the dynamic relation of