Eschatological personalism: a theological response

Abstract

cendence, which is found in all the personalists, is not distinctly eschatological. It is also true that M addresses various eschatological issues, as when he discusses the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (89-91), but such an excursion into explicit eschatology does not seem to have the effect of imparting an eschatological character to M’s personalism as a whole. He says that “an eschatological personalism asserts that the essence of the self can only be grasped as a person’s whole history and ultimate end and purpose” (177). But this thought is already found among the Greeks: “count noman happy as long as he is alive.”Would any of the key concepts of M’s personalism—autarchy, agent intellect, subjectivity, temporality, group bias—be obscured if he did not call his personalism eschatological?