Eternity and Eternal Life: Speculative Theology and Science in Discourse

Les Harding is author of The Voyages of Lesser Men: Thumbnail Sketches
in Canadian Exploration.

This is a fascinating and thought-provoking scholarly work on the
concepts of time and eternity. Though the presentation is in a Christian
(specifically, Catholic) context, other traditions are discussed as
well. The author, a Jesuit scholar who has taught systematic theology at
the University of Toronto since 1962, draws not only from theology but
also from geology, philosophy, biology, physics, and other disciplines.
In addition to standard Christian theology texts, the bibliography lists
the Upanisads, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Stephen Hawking’s A
Brief History of Time.

Horvath provides interesting and meaty discussions on the meaning of
death, after-life experiences, eternal life, heaven, purgatory, hell,
redemption, and Jesus Christ as the eschatological union of time and
eternity. In his own words, this book is a communal search for an
understanding of life, death, and eternal life, not only in the light of
abstract ideas and cultural/linguistic doctrines in the world of
religions but also in the light of science and especially of a person as
the horizon of understanding for both time and eternity.