Abstract

In RomanRomanCatholic theologyTheology, eschatologyEschatology has been traditionally understood as the study of “the last things.” This is specifically why no branch of theology confronts the soul’sSoulimmortalityImmortality as powerfully as eschatology. Thus, in rethinking traditional approaches and notions associated with eschatology, detailing Stein’sSteinphenomenologicalPhenomenologicalmysticismMysticism becomes indispensable. For Stein, the life of finite beings is framed not by deathDeath in its capacityCapacity as life’s inscrutable yet constitutive boundary-marker, but rather by its ontologicalOntological dependence on, and participation in, the infinite source of life itself. Stein’s analysis of death and dying draws attention to deep metaphysicalMetaphysical and phenomenological questions surrounding the nature of time and experience. For Stein, death opens up a new temporal dimension whereby our earthly finitude is transformed into a divinely-appropriated temporality that lacks any sort of finite limitations. As long as our souls lack any ‘dark night’—to borrow John of the Cross’ spiritualSpiritual term—and have been rendered clear and possible by divine light, then our deaths signify the possibility of dwelling in the divine. However, this does not mean that we share in the proper eternity of GodGod, but that we share in the divine quality of timelessnessTimelessness. This timelessness places the blessed and sanctified dead in eternity while preserving their finite pasts as constitutive moments in their eternal lives with the divine. Hence, they are not divinely transformed towards eternity in death but dwell in an improper eternity situated in-between the time of eternity and finite temporality, forever mystified in-between the eternity of God and the temporal experience of material beings.