How to Be a Christian Ultimist? On Three Lessons J. L. Schellenberg and the Christian Theist Can Learn from Each Other

Jacek Wojtysiak

doi:10.18290/rf21693-11

Jacek Wojtysiak John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4276-8483

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rf21693-11

Keywords: ultimism, theism, Christianity, Ultimate Reality, hiddenness argument, deep time, J. L. Schellenberg

Abstract

In this text, in discussion with J. L. Schellenberg, I develop a position that I call Christian ultimism. This position lies between Schellenberg’s simple ultimism and traditional Christian theism. Christian ultimism is more apophatic than personalistic, though it more clearly emphasizes the presence of a supra-personal and communicative element in the Ultimate Reality. The proposed position is resistant to a philosophical version of the hiddenness argument, but it must answer to the challenge of the theological problem of the lack of universal access to Christian revelation. Schellenberg’s idea of deep time both magnifies this problem and provides the tools for solving it: the awareness of deep time does not allow us to judge the future, but it does allow us to hope for a revelation accessible to all at the eschatological end of time.

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