May 22-27, 2016

Maryknoll Mission Institute, Maryknoll, New York 10545-0311

This program deals with what was once called the “Last Things” (in Latin: De Novissimis), that is, the realities occurring at the end of life, namely, death and dying, and those occurring in the afterlife, namely, judgment, purgatory, hell, heaven, the resurrection, and the consummation of the world. In theology, the treatment of these Last Things is called “eschatology”—a term derived from  the  Greek:  eschata  and  logos,  meaning  discourse  on  the  last  things.  There  is  a  basic methodological question about whether and how we know these last realities, and how to talk about them. Obviously, we do know something about dying as a physical act, thanks to modern medicine. Of this we can therefore speak with empirical certainty. But of the meaning of death and above all, of what occurs after death, we do not have factual information. As a consequence, our language about them cannot be that of a scientific report but borders on poetry, and what we say about them is liable to the charge of projection and mythmaking.
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