Saturday, August 4, 2007

Shults and Zizoulas on the future

"The truth of history lies in the future, and this is to be understood in an ontological sense: history is true, despite change and decay, not just because it is a movement towards and end, but mainly because it is a movement from the end, since it is the end that gives it meaning." This is revealed not through analysis of cause and effect, but through the manifestation of the openness of the Father to the Son in the Spirit, which is the basis of the Christian claim that ontology must be understood in terms of communion. For human creatures, this means that being is oriented toward a future in which they share in this communion. This shapes Zizioulas's anthropology and ecclesiology. "The truth and the ontology of the person belong to the future, are images of the future." The church "has it's roots in the future and it's branches in the present."
John Zizioulas in LeRon Shults- Reforming the Doctrine of God (194)

What does this mean for the personhood of people outside the church?