Resurrection, Apocalypse, and the Kingdom of Christ
The Eschatology of Thomas F. Torrance
Stanley Stephen MacLean
Resurrection, Apocalypse, and the Kingdom of Christ
The Eschatology of Thomas F. Torrance
Princeton Theological Monograph Series 181
Copyright © 2012 Stanley Stephen MacLean. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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isbn 13: 978-1-61097-394-6
eisbn 13: 978-1-62189-001-0
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
MacLean, Stanley Stephen.
Resurrection, Apocalypse, and the Kingdom of Christ : The Eschatology of Thomas F. Torrance / Stanley Stephen MacLean.
xviii + 216 pp. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references.
Princeton Theological Monograph Series 181
isbn 13: 978-1-61097-394-6
1. Torrance, Thomas F. (Thomas Forsyth), 1913–2007. 2. Eschatology.
3. Church. I. Series. II. Title.
bt220 m165 2012
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Princeton Theological Monograph Series
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Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to those who helped me to complete this dissertation. In particular, I want to thank a number of people at Princeton Theological Seminary, where I spent six weeks doing research on the topic. Special thanks go out to Dr. Iain Torrance for his guidance, encouragement, and for kindly granting me permission to use his father’s unpublished writings. Thanks also to the staff in the archival section of the Princeton Seminary Library, especially to Dr. Clifford Anderson and Kenneth Henke for all their assistance. All the staff there helped to make my visits to Princeton both productive and pleasant.
I also profited from the assistance of two archivists overseas. Thanks to Sarah Duffield at the Church of England Record Centre and to Hans-Anton Drewes at the Karl Barth Archiv for kindly responding to my requests.
There are a number of people in Canada I must mention. I am especially grateful to my former pastor, Dr. Richard Topping, for taking the time out of his summer vacation to proofread carefully the entire manuscript. His support and friendship over the years have also meant a lot to me. A word of appreciation also goes out to Dr. Joseph McLelland for sharing his first hand knowledge of Torrance’s lectures on eschatology in 1952. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Douglas Farrow, my supervisor at McGill University, for introducing me to Torrance’s eschatology many years ago and for helping me to complete a dissertation on this topic.
Introduction
Thomas Torrance (1913–2007) had a long and illustriouscareer, spanning six decades. He penned over 600 works and covered a wide range of subjects in Christian theology, often making original contributions to them. Eschatology was one of these subjects, although it is not one we associate with Torrance. He is famous for his contributions to trinitarian thought and theological method, and especially for his penetrating investigation of the relationship between science and theology.
To date, there are around fifty studies on Torrance. So far, none has focussed on his eschatology. Many, understandably, deal with his theological method or his scientific theology. A number of these have been published: Wolfang Achtner, Physik, Mystik and Christentum: Eine Darstellung und Diskussion der naturlichen Theologie bei T. F. Torrance (Frankfurt, 1991); John Douglas Morrison, Knowledge of the Self-Revealing God in the Thought of Thomas Forsyth Torrance (New York, 1997); Colin Weightman, Theology in a Polanyian Universe: The Theology of T.F. Torrance; Elmer Colyer, The Nature of Doctrine in T. F. Torrance’s Theology (Eugene, OR, 2001); and Tapio Luomo’s Incarnation and Physics: Natural Science in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance (Oxford, 2002).1
A number of studies focus on theological loci. The earliest of this type is Johannes Guthridge’s The Christology of T. F. Torrance: Revelation and Reconciliation in Christ (Melbourne, 1967). Perhaps the most comprehensive is Won Kye Lee’s Living in Union with Christ: The Practical Theology of Thomas F. Torrance (New York, 2003). Lee’s study builds upon a slightly earlier study with a similar title: William Rankin’s “Carnal Union with Christ in the Theology of T. F. Torrance” (University of Edinburgh, 1997). One of the most specialized is Robert Stamps’ “‘The Sacrament of the Word Made Flesh’: The Eucharistic Theology of Thomas F. Torrance” (University of Nottingham, 1986). There has been a good deal of scholarly interest as well in Torrance’s theological anthropology. This has been epitomized in Phee Seng Kang’s “The Concept of the Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Theology of Thomas Forsyth Torrance” (University of Aberdeen, 1983) and in the recent publication of Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (Farmhan, UK, 2009).
Won Kye Lee’s study is one that at least underlines the significance of Torrance’s eschatology. Eschatology, we learn, has an important role in our union with Christ. This union, he concludes, “is quasi-hypostatic and eschatological.”2