“Time Enough at Last”: On the Possibility of Universal Friendship in the Eschaton

Toner and Chartier: Defining the Nature of Friendship

Before considering whether it is reasonable to hope for the realization of universal eschatological friendship (that is, to desire it as a preferred option among several), we must first consider whether or not this scenario is even possible. This consideration requires an assessment of both friendship and eschatological life. More specifically, we will address the question of whether the practice of friendship is naturally preferential or only apparently so. If friendship is inherently preferential (i.e., an innate feature present in all instances and circumstances), then universal friendship would be a contradiction in terms because it would violate the necessary condition of preference. Something applied universally, by definition, cannot discriminate. The second area of consideration concerns the nature of eschatological life. Is eschatological life conducive to the formation and sustaining of new friendships and, if it is, can it do so on a universal scale? How one responds to these questions informs the eschatological imaginary that one embraces. This section will consider the positions of Jules Toner and Gary Chartier as representative of a hopeful and skeptical position, respectively.

On one side of this question, we find Jules Toner, who maintains that friendship is not inherently preferential but only manifests as such on account of the human condition upon Earth. Toner’s position results from his account of love as the defining feature of a friendship. Rather than a feeling or a tendency, love may be most properly understood as a definitive act, specifically an “affective affirmation” of the existence of the beloved. ¹⁷ The beloved may be affirmed “implementally” (for the sake of something else), radically/personally (as herself and for her own sake), or “implementally” and radically/personally at the same time (for the sake of something else and for her own sake). ¹⁸ Toner maintains that the kind of love at the core of a friendship will determines its character; the most intimate of these being personal friendship as informed by personal love (radical love toward a personal object). Friendship, then, is not simply an association or relational dynamic but rather a union mutually sustained in action and informed by the specific affective affirmation of one for the other.

The distinction that Toner makes between love as an act and love as a feeling helps to explain why friendship is not inherently preferential. He writes, “Love in friendship becomes preferential when, by reason of limited time and power of attention, we have to choose one or a few friendships and let go of others; but that fact in no way justifies thinking that the love between friends is by its very nature preferential.” ¹⁹ Finitude, as we experience it on Earth, conveys our inability to actualize every desire or feeling that we might have. ²⁰ So too is this the case with friendship. We might have a general feeling of beneficence toward many persons, but we are also limited and must make choices regarding how we engage the particular time and space that we inhabit. Toner maintains that love, and by extension friendship, is not inherently preferential but only appears so as expressed within the parameters of our earthly finitude. What this means is that it is theoretically possible to act friendly toward all people but not actually to become friends with each of them. Whom we choose to befriend would be subject to a matter of preference, but the activity of friendship itself would not. The constraint, then, is upon the actor rather than upon the activity.

An objection may be raised, at this time, that we have never experienced a situation that was free from the above conditions. Experientially, we have always expressed preference in some way regarding friendships. To say yes to one good often entails saying no to another. While Toner would more than likely agree with this assessment, he contends that all human beings possess a “transcendent human dynamism” that seeks universalization in our relationships. Toner maintains that love, as a definitive act, manifests as a response to the dynamism at the heart of every human being. This dynamism constitutes a sort of longing toward fullness of union in whatever form that union might take. ²¹ What most interests Toner is a particular manifestation of this dynamism: a dynamism to personal love, communion, and friendship. The dynamism to personal love responds not to a deficiency but rather to “a certain fulness of life in one who is capable of personal love, a fulness pressing to diffuse itself, to bring about fuller life in others for their own sake.” ²² There is an effulgence to this dynamism that can only be actualized in union with another, not as a codependency but as a true self-gift. Every act of love concretely manifests this dynamism in common human experience—a finite manifestation of a transcendent longing.

When we shift our attention specifically to friendship, this dynamism manifests as a yearning toward universal personal friendship, which we have named as the most authentic and intimate kind of friendship. There is an inherent reasonableness to this proposition based upon the nature of friendship itself. No two friendships are exactly alike, meaning that a friendship with a certain person, Jeff, would generate something new that could not be found in friendship with another particular person, Andrea. ²³ This distinction should not be interpreted as a disparagement of Andrea and Andrea’s capacity for friendship but rather a reaffirmation of the un-substitutability of one’s friends. Therefore, if we fundamentally seek a fullness of union and love, this fullness will necessarily require that we seek a friendship with all people, each of whom provides his or her own unique contribution to this fullness.

In practice, however, the dynamism toward universal personal friendship “is doomed to tragic frustration” in our present reality. ²⁴ The limits of our finitude are such that we simply do not have the capability of enacting and maintaining the requisite number of friendships at any given time. ²⁵ Although frustrated now, this dynamism, Toner suggests, will not be frustrated forever. Christian faith gives one hope that such a tragedy might still be overcome; this “faith gives believers assurance that the goals of personal transcendent dynamism are not only intrinsically possible but that they are included in our God-given destiny, made concretely possible in Jesus Christ, a destiny to which we are all urgently called by God, even lovingly commanded to seek, but are free to reject and to take the horrifying consequences of doing so.” ²⁶ Toner does not elaborate as to what this universal personal friendship might look like in practice, nor what would be involved in some day overcoming our present frustration, but simply names its latent possibility in Christian hope. In sum: Toner’s account suggests that the conditions for universal eschatological friendship are not just possible but actually demanded by the commitments of Christian faith. What is left to us is to hope that this reality might someday be realized.

Opposed to this position is that of Gary Chartier, who considers both the nature of friendship and the nature of eschatological life to run contrary to the possibility of universal eschatological friendship. Chartier begins by characterizing friendship as an inherently preferential relationship, stating that “friendship’s most fundamental characteristic is preferentiality.” He continues that friendship is a “chosen relationship” that resists being “linked automatically” with other, involuntary, relationships, like kinship. ²⁷ While this preferential character may, in some regards, make friendship more precarious than involuntary or vowed relationships, Chartier affirms a certain kind of security that friendship benefits from—the security of a shared world. “The security of their shared world enables [their friendship] to serve as a context for the stabilization and confirmation of the identities of the friends.” ²⁸ As socially constituted creatures, human beings need relationships in order to come into their own identities. ²⁹ The requisite vulnerability that this process demands can easily become a source of anxiety if one is uncertain about the trustworthiness of the other party. Friendship, therefore, functions as a site of a safe vulnerability from which one friend may reach out in loving attention to the other, not out of a sense of duty but rather a sense of freedom that allows one to give oneself to the other.

Chartier’s great respect for the phenomenon of friendship, specifically for its particular and preferential character, leads him to reject an identification of friendship with other kinds of relationships. This is especially the case regarding relationships among members of the same civic state or ecclesial body. Such an identification runs a dual risk of “encourag[ing] us to elide the differences between friendships and relationships of other kinds and thus to assign actual friends unduly low priority in our decision-making.” ³⁰ Not every relationship can be a friendship, even if many relationships can be considered friendly. ³¹ This consideration, in large part, is due to the constitution of the human person and most especially our finitude. Friendship makes certain demands upon our time, attention, and investment. We cannot give of ourselves equally to all persons, even if we may want to. ³² This is not to say that some people are undeserving of our attention (as though friendship were a reward for good behavior) but simply that to offer it equally to all would be a material impossibility. ³³

Chartier’s concerns for the limits of friendship intensify when he turns his attention postmortem universal friendship:

Even with endless time at her disposal, a person enjoying life beyond death could maintain friendships with all other created persons only if her cognitive resources permitted her to remember and respond to each of them on an individual basis. But we cannot suppose that the limitations of finite creatureliness will somehow vanish after death; and it would require something closer to the infinite divine mind than to any creaturely mind we know or could imagine to perform the requisite task. ³⁴

Chartier’s opposition to postmortem universal friendship should be understood as a facet of his deference to finitude: The capacity of the finite human mind as we presently experience it is unable to retain a sufficient memory of and attention toward every person’s unique identity. What is not possible here will not be possible there, so to speak. The issue Chartier identifies remains even if these postmortem friendships were not all that intimate; for to universalize friendship in a way that the finite human mind could comprehend would require that it become a shallow, superficial connection devoid of the particular significance we presently ascribe to friendship. But this scenario would be inherently problematic. Whatever postmortem universal friendship would entail, it must remain identifiable as a kind of friendship, which this shallow connection is most certainly not. Mere connection to another person—even if a positive one—is insufficient. Furthermore, to maintain literally billions of genuine friendships simultaneously would require “radical changes” in the very constitution of the human person. ³⁵ According to this account, it is doubtful that one could even maintain an awareness of the postmortem existence of all other human creatures, much less a friendship with them.

Chartier’s concern for finitude extends beyond the human person and into the nature of the friendship relationship itself, specifically regarding the conditions of its formation. What is entailed by forming and sharing a friendship together? In addition to preference, Chartier locates a shared history as an essential component of this relationship. All friendships may be said to have a definitive historical starting point and a historical continuation. This shared history, in turn, works to shape the identity of the friends who participate in the relationship. Catholic ethicist Edward Collins Vacek captures this basic insight when he argues that “friends ask that who they are make a difference to who we are.” ³⁶ This “difference” manifests within the context of that shared history as each friend is invited to live differently in light of having known the other. However, as it has been traditionally understood, with the end of time in the eschaton comes the end of history. Catholic theologian Romano Guardini names this ending quite definitively: “With death the time for willing and acting is over. The life that has been lived now contains the final decision, and the action and accomplishment that issued from it. Man steps out of the enclosure of earthly life into the presence of God and undergoes His judgment.” ³⁷ This articulation echoes that of Aquinas, who posits that the blessed dead cannot even pity the damned, because true pity requires the possibility of a change in the other’s circumstances. ³⁸ One may say, then, that there is a permanence to our final state that seems to reject the possibility of any further activity. As such, there would no longer be the opportunity to develop a shared history with another person if that history did not, at least in part, already exist in earthly life. Chartier continues:

Friendship is a historical phenomenon. The self of my friend is a self that has been shaped through, among other things, a series of interactions with me. Our relationship has developed over time. But a series of historical interactions cannot simply be created. To be authentic, such interactions must actually occur in time, as free persons engage with each other. It is hard to see how the conditions of life beyond death could lead to a change in this feature of friendship. Thus, postmortem persons could at most be situated in circumstances in which the development of such histories of interaction was particularly facilitated. At that point, however, friendship formation would have to proceed in essentially the way it does in this life. And this means, in turn, that there would be no guarantee that friendship would occur in any particular instance. ³⁹

Here, Chartier’s argument concerns the very nature of friendship as a free and organically formed relationship. Even if the conditions were such that a shared history could occur, these conditions would not guarantee that a friendship would necessarily result. Of course, one might wish to say that virtuous persons living in eternal harmony together might inevitably fall into some kind of friendship if the requisite conditions were in place, but Chartier gives such priority to the quality of preference that this scenario could never be demanded. Nor does he believe that a friendship could be divinely mandated, as “no authentic friendship could be brought about by miracle . . . a history of interactions and desires and choices is crucial to the integrity of a friendship, and a friendship could not be brought into being by divine fiat, minus this history, without falsifying it irreparably.” ⁴⁰ If postmortem friendship is to remain recognizable as friendship, then it must retain the requisite conditions of history and preference.

Whereas others may be more readily speculative concerning the eschaton, Chartier’s eschatological imagination is one of respectful caution. ⁴¹ His cautions merit our attention here. The above quotation refers to a necessary caveat regarding divine activity: Human and divine activity are inherently noncompetitive with one another. Therefore, the possibility of a divinely initiated friendship that comes as anything other than an invitation—an invitation that can be rejected—runs contrary to the dynamics revealed in salvation history. God does not compel but attracts. One may agree with Chartier, then, that an eschatological friendship that does not respect human freedom would, indeed, fail to be a friendship at all. As feminist theologian Sallie McFague reminds us, friendship is “of all human loves . . . the most free, the most reciprocal, the most adult, the most joyful, [and] the most inclusive.” ⁴² An element of freedom is not optional.

With this in mind, it seems as though a version of Toner’s account of the transcendent human dynamism toward universal personal friendship could find a home in Chartier’s account, provided that one is content to have this dynamism eternally frustrated. In other words: Humans possess a drive to universalize the practice of friendship that will never be fully actualized. Given Toner’s optimism vis-à-vis Christian faith, this conclusion seems unlikely. If the possibility of universal eschatological friendship is to be redeemed, then it requires a reconsideration of how finitude might be transfigured in the eschaton in a way that keeps this category intelligible or recognizable. But this is not all. In addition to the metaphysical obstacles to universal friendship, there are also what we may call experiential obstacles to the formation of universal friendship. In quite weighty matters, what are we to make of the victims of history, who would be asked to befriend their oppressors? In very trivial matters, what about the people whom one finds incredibly annoying, whom one would never befriend in earthly life if given the choice? Chartier’s account demonstrates great respect for the human situation, but it does not necessarily take into consideration the purgative work that may belong to the life to come. Can a universal, eschatological friendship be the site of healing for relationships that, on account of sin, failed to live up to the loving potential that God had envisioned for them? In short: Can there be new beginnings in the life to come? The answer to this question has consequences that reach far beyond a concern for universal friendship but, rather, touch upon the nature of eschatological life itself. We turn, now, to John Thiel’s account of time and activity in the eschaton, which I suggest offers a helpful alternative to Chartier’s account of finitude so as to find a path toward the possibility of universal eschatological friendship.

John Thiel: Time and Forgiveness in the Eschaton

Chartier’s account displays a clear respect for both the limits of friendship and the nature of finitude that makes us the human creatures that we are. If we are to hold Chartier’s position as authoritative, then it would seem as though postmortem universal friendship, as he describes it, would indeed be impossible. It is my suggestion, however, that the limits of Christian speech concerning matters reserved to revelation, such as eschatological life, are such that we might offer a more creative response to this issue than what Chartier has in mind. What I mean by this is that, without leaving the Christian symbolic universe as some post-Christian theologians have done, I suggest that it is possible to locate a hope for postmortem universal friendship. ⁴³ This work begins with a renewed consideration of time in the eschaton, one that can deal creatively with the transfiguration of finitude by way of its participation in divine life. John Thiel’s account of time in the life-to-come offers such a creative response. This section examines Thiel’s account of time in relation to the eventfulness of eschatological life. I suggest that, if we are to agree with Thiel that the arguably more difficult activity of forgiveness may continue from this life and into the life-to-come, then so too might the activity of forming new friendships.

Thiel’s account of time and the eschaton might be best understood as a navigation of the dialectic of continuity and creativity. In a mode parallel to Chartier, Thiel, too, affirms a continuity between earthly life and the life-to-come. However, this continuity manifests quite differently than Chartier imagines it because it is the continuation of time as the medium of God’s grace. ⁴⁴ Experientially, we may differentiate between what Thiel terms “time now” (time lived on earth) and “time forever” (time after death in life with God). ⁴⁵ However, all time is properly eschatological time because, as Thiel argues, “all time bears within itself the sense of an ending. Time is creaturely. Like all of creation, time is brought into being by God’s creative will out of nothing, a nothingness that enshrouds time, setting the limits of its eventfulness.” ⁴⁶ In other words, there is no single and decisive moment that is held in eternal suspension; each moment always passes just as quickly as it came. Time is ever moving toward its end. Thiel, then, betrays a dissatisfaction with the Catholic tendency to equate God’s eternity with heavenly time, for such an equating would entail the sacrifice of time’s creatureliness. Although time forever is without end, albeit possessing an inherent sense of ending, this does not mean that it is thereby eternal. God alone is eternal. ⁴⁷ Rather, it is the case that time forever is without end precisely because God deems it fitting that time should continue as a creaturely condition of our finitude. By protecting the creatureliness of time, Thiel opens the logical (rather than ontological) necessity of its continuation as a facet of our eschatological existence. ⁴⁸

In contrast to Chartier and on account of time’s continuation, Thiel’s eschatological imaginary does not entail an absolute end of history. Rather, there is a past, present, and future to heavenly time that marks the passing of each fleeting moment. ⁴⁹ In other words: It is inaccurate to think of heavenly life as a kind of stasis; instead, it benefits from a sense of dynamism. It is here that one might locate Thiel’s appeal to creativity. The sense of finality or permanence often associated with heavenly life Thiel ascribes to the steadfast moral resolve of those who now live in God. “The Christian imaginary,” Thiel writes, “would be truer to its classical roots were it to understand the unchangeable volition of the blessed dead in heaven as a kind of finite unchangeableness rather than as the unchanging timelessness that is properly ascribed to God.” ⁵⁰ As such, there is a strict demarcation, even in the eschatological realm, between what belongs to the divine in a proper sense and what belongs to the creature by way of its participation in the divine life. Furthermore, the resolve of the blessed should not be interpreted as a coercion on the part of God upon the soul but rather the fully free decision of those who now participate to assume this stance. No one would choose to act otherwise even if the option presented itself. But the significance of this alternative proposal, which Thiel names as his “unorthodox proposition” because it seems to run contrary to the more traditional proposition referenced above, is that one can locate a sort of history within heavenly life. ⁵¹ Those persons in heavenly communion continue to act virtuously and, by reason of this, live ever more into their own identities—a work that Chartier associates with friendship. ⁵² As such, there is a hope unique to the eschaton, wherein one longs to become worthy of an ever greater participation in the heavenly communion. ⁵³

Thiel’s account necessitates an important caveat. Although one may posit that time continues in some way, the human being’s relationship to time is not necessarily the same in eschatological life as it is in earthly life. Toward this end, Thiel makes a distinction between time understood as the medium of God’s grace (which is true of all time) and what he specifically names as “tragic” time. Tragic time is a distortion of time constituted by the narrative of humanity’s fallenness, its coming face-to-face with evil, death, and inexplicable suffering. ⁵⁴ Such time will not endure in the life-to-come as we now experience it but instead will be resurrected and thereby transfigured in glory. “Heavenly time would be this tragic time with which we are so familiar, now resurrected—time brought by grace into a state of participation in Christ’s resurrected life and so miraculously transformed into a creaturely state of heavenly glory.” ⁵⁵ The resurrection of tragic time should not be understood as a total reversal of tragic time. For instance, it would not entail the destruction of the effects of sin, as Thiel considers these effects to be deeply impactful upon the formation of our identities. ⁵⁶ Just as the exchanging of love shapes our identity, so too do the effects of sin. Christian faith affirms that the wounds of crucifixion remain ever in the body of the resurrected Jesus. Rather, the resurrection of tragic time would entail the healing of these effects so that they no longer entail the suffering that, until this point, has been concomitant with them. The resurrection of tragic time would entail a new beginning, a transfiguration of earthly life as we know it.

This assertion builds upon Thiel’s earlier work in Icons of Hope, wherein he rejects what we might call a more classical vision of the afterlife, one that exemplifies a competitive spirit, in favor of a noncompetitive model centered upon forgiveness. This notion of competition gains popularity in the aftermath of the Edict of Milan. With the legalization of Christianity came an influx of converts with varying degrees of commitment to the faith. As a consequence, one’s sanctity was no longer easily discernable by way of martyrdom. Instead, new spiritual practices developed, most especially desert monasticism, which raised the standard of conduct for all Christians by comparison. Martyrs assumed the highest dignity, followed by ascetics, and finally the laity brought up the rear. ⁵⁷ Here Thiel cites Elizabeth Johnson, who traces how the milieu of late antiquity and early medieval feudalism led to the adoption of a new model of sanctity, which she refers to as the “patronage” model. ⁵⁸ This model exalts examples of heroic sanctity while downplaying ordinary, everyday expressions of sanctity. Heroic figures, possessing a supernatural otherworldliness about them, shift from being average human beings to mediators between the earthly church and God. The average Christian, meanwhile, developed a subsequent anxiety toward salvation as a result. The standard of holiness now seemed impossible to meet, but the consequences of failing to reach it were of too great an importance to ignore. ⁵⁹

Yet the influx of converts is not the only reason Thiel offers as to why this eschatological imaginary becomes so impactful for the subsequent tradition, and this second reason bears direct importance to our considerations of postmortem universal friendship. Thiel maintains that the appeal of the patronage model lies primarily in its ability to make earthly life salvifically meaningful. ⁶⁰ Competitive spirituality gave a real “drama” to salvation to the extent that it was informed by the character of one’s life here on Earth. Eliminate this competitive spirit—that is, envision an eschatological life of communion with God that was available to all equally, even non-Christians or “inadequate” Christians—and the necessity to act well in this life becomes that much more unclear. ⁶¹ In other words: The patronage model ascribes a clear significance to life today precisely because it has implications for the life-to-come.

In many ways, we might share a similar concern regarding the eschatological fate of friendship. The importance—or even the necessity—of this relationship in earthly life serves as our primary justification for locating its eschatological future. In other words, something precious would be lost if the experience of friendship does not follow us into the life-to-come. My friends have become an inseparable part of who I am. ⁶² But if earthly life does not seem to make a difference for the life-to-come, if Karl Rahner is mistaken when he writes that “eschatological statements are basically statements about man existing now,” then it would be a fruitless activity to search for an eschatological future for this relationship. ⁶³ Eschatological life would be a complete unknown, and the relationship of this life to the next would become obscured.

Yet this very shift from a competitive to an inclusive spirituality became a reality when the Second Vatican Council encouraged a greater appreciation for the anonymous ways in which God works in the world. ⁶⁴ Thiel praises this shift, naming this development of doctrine as an overall more theologically honest account of God’s activity in the world. However, this development also reintroduces the question of earthly life’s salvific meaning. What happens to the drama?

Thiel’s eschatological imaginary addresses this concern through its simultaneous rejection of competition and retention of drama, a drama now located in the activity of forgiveness. Again, Thiel rejects a vision of the eschaton as an eternal passivity, preferring to understand eschatological life as a participation in the very “eventfulness” of God’s own divine life. ⁶⁵ Thiel names forgiveness as this primary activity and thereby the “ongoing activity of the communion of the saints” in the eschaton. ⁶⁶ Thiel’s choice of forgiveness is not random. Instead, it should be understood as the imitation of the divine act, an interpersonal offering of what God offers to all people. ⁶⁷ This configuration results from Thiel’s appeal to a Pauline sensibility vis-à-vis personal judgment in the eschaton. Personal judgment, in this vein, entails not an eternal sentencing but instead a revelation of the personal history of one’s own sinfulness and refusal of redemption, which God meets with an eternal offering of forgiveness. ⁶⁸ Rather than a final condemnation, personal judgment opens a vista of new beginnings.

The rationale for characterizing this activity as one of forgiveness is as experiential as it is biblical, for it resembles how humans experience grace. While Thiel maintains that grace is always a free gift that respects the freedom of the individual creature (for a self-chosen Hell remains ever a live possibility), he offers a possible vision in which God’s “infinite love is irresistible.” ⁶⁹ This is to say that when brought face-to-face to one’s own participation in a lifetime of sin—and to be brought in such a way that the very revelation of one’s sinfulness is always and immediately colored with an offer of forgiveness—the human person finally becomes totally free to say “yes” to this offer for what is functionally the very first time. In the words of James Allison, one discovers the “joy of being wrong” and the opportunity to embrace the new existence that results from it. ⁷⁰ Eschatological forgiveness, then, entails a ready cooperation of the human person with God made possible through an empowering by grace.

To understand eschatological life by way of the activity of forgiveness, as Thiel has done, enables earthly life to retain its salvific meaningfulness even in the absence of a competitive spirituality. When we forgive one another today, this forgiveness constitutes an anticipation of our redemption enacted here and now. ⁷¹ At the same time, however, one’s acceptance of this gift also entails the acceptance of certain responsibilities. Thiel writes that “the acceptance of grace is itself a commitment to the eschatological project of offering and accepting forgiveness, and thus the task of healing the rifts that linger in the communion of the saints even in its heavenly dimensions.” ⁷² What this means is that God’s forgiveness is at the same time a gift, an invitation, and an injunction upon the one who experiences it. Go and do likewise.

The directness of Thiel’s language should not give one the impression that this “eschatological project” is either easy or automatic. The drama of eschatological forgiveness is a real drama, as the effects of sin that come with us into the life-to-come are extensive and not easily remedied. These effects also generate a power imbalance between the victim and victimizer, a reversal of the balance experienced in earthly life. Here, forgiveness occurs only when it is freely offered by the victim to the victimizer according to the victim’s own agency. Neither may be coerced, only invited. Pope Francis reflects this very sentiment in Fratelli Tutti when he writes that “reconciliation is a personal act, and no one can impose it upon an entire society [or particular individual], however great the need to foster it.” ⁷³ As such, there is ever an element of suspense that such forgiveness will, indeed, be offered. Nevertheless, Thiel finds great reason to hope that this possibility might become a reality. The saints, by Thiel’s definition, demonstrate an openness to such work because they have been willingly conformed to God’s invitation of love. By suggesting that forgiveness is a communal activity that forms the very bond of the communion of saints, Thiel invites his reader to a much bolder imaginative vision, a vision in which the saints are willing to commit themselves to “this most challenging and frustrating task” and in which even the most monstrous of individuals becomes capable of eschatological conversion. ⁷⁴ The gravity of this activity is, in part, what requires that it be an ongoing activity. Forgiveness as the formation of a personal relationship between the forgiver and the forgiven means that there is ever a greater depth—a greater mystery—for this reconciliation to encounter. Each person comes to know the other in a way unlike he or she ever had before and forever heal the damage that has been caused.

An example from the literary world can prove helpful in illustrating how this interaction might take place. In Mitch Albom’s 2003 novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, a man named Eddie suffers an accidental death through the malfunction of a rollercoaster. Immediately following this event, Eddie encounters five people who have significantly impacted his life. He meets a man who died in a car accident when Eddie was a child, his old Vietnam war army captain, his father, his wife, and finally a small child along a riverbed named Tala. Initially, Eddie does not recognize this child but soon discovers that he had killed her when he set her hut on fire as a soldier in Vietnam. Eddie is immediately overcome with anguish:

The darkness that had shadowed him all those years was revealing itself at last, it was real, flesh and blood, this child, this lovely child, he had killed her, burned her to death, the bad dreams he’d suffered, he’d deserved every one. He had seen something! That shadow in the flame! Death by his hand! By his own fiery hand! A flood of tears soaked through his fingers and his soul seemed to plummet. . . . His body convulsed, and his head jerked wildly, until the howling gave way to prayerlike utterances, every word expelled in the breathless surge of confession: “I killed you, I KILLED YOU,” then a whispered, “forgive me,” then, “FORGIVE ME, OH, GOD . . .” and finally, “What have I done . . . WHAT HAVE I DONE?. . . ” He wept and he wept, until the weeping drained him to a shiver. ⁷⁵

One finds immediate resonances here with Thiel’s configuration of personal judgment in the eschaton. Eddie is not sentenced to a place of eternal damnation but instead is brought face-to-face with the immediate history of his own sinfulness. As such, the effect is overwhelming upon Eddie, who cannot help but beg for forgiveness for a choice he understands is irreversible. Yet the scene does not end here. The reader is presented with the remarkable decision of Tala in the face of Eddie’s lamentation. She appears before him bearing the wounds of his sin: her skin charred, one eye gone, everywhere covered in scabs. But at this moment, Tala invites Eddie to wash her, as the other children in the river are doing for one another. Hesitantly and reverently, Eddie abides:

She raises her charred hand and Eddie gripped it gently and slowly rubbed the stone along her forearm, until the scars began to loosen. He rubbed harder; they peeled away. He quickened his efforts until the singed flesh fell and the healthy flesh was visible. Then he turned the stone over and rubbed her bony back and tiny shoulders and the nape of her neck and finally her checks and her forehead and the skin behind her ears. She leaned backward into him, resting her head on his collarbone, shutting her eyes as if falling into a nap. He traced gently around the lids. He did the same with her drooped lips, and the scabbed patches on her head, until the plum-colored hair emerges from the roots and the face that he had seen at first was before him again. ⁷⁶

This most intimate and tender scene reveals a vision of eschatological forgiveness. Tala allows Eddie not only to approach her but to heal the effects of his sin upon her. Both become washed in the water of heavenly forgiveness and the newness of life that was otherwise impossible for them during Eddie’s time on Earth. What they are left with is the possibility of a personal relationship where there otherwise never could have been one. Tala’s invitation of reconciliation ultimately heals both of them, for forgiveness is always the restoration of communion, and resurrection is a social reality. ⁷⁷

But this is not all, as Tala’s death does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, Tala is murdered as a consequence of the Vietnam War. In the absence of this conflict, Eddie would likely have never traveled to the continent of Asia, much less have caused Tala’s death. Eddie’s postmortem exchange with Tala, then, does more than simply heal the effects of personal sin; it heals the effects of Eddie’s complicity in the sinful social structures that damage communities and individuals alike. ⁷⁸ While his broader moral agency might have been curtailed on account of being drafted, nevertheless, Eddie remains responsible for his choice to burn down Tala’s village, especially to the extent that this choice reflects a particular cruelty or indiscriminateness. ⁷⁹ We might interpret their reconciliation, and the friendship that could someday result from it, as a political choice that resists structures of domination. ⁸⁰ Returning to Thiel’s broader theological project, I suggest that the eschatological forgiveness that he has in mind entails the forgiveness of all effects of sin, in all their interconnectedness and messiness, so that all “crucified peoples” might be taken down from their crosses and welcomed as full members of the Kingdom of God. ⁸¹ It is only with the full restoration of the victims’ dignity that true reconciliation between victim and victimizer can occur. Only then will the heavenly community be whole, death and sin be conquered, and God be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

The importance of Thiel’s work to our considerations of postmortem universal friendship lies in its ability to articulate how creative and generative activity might continue in the life-to-come. Rather than a kind of stasis, the life of the saints participates in the dynamism of God’s own existence, which is mediated to them through the continued-yet-transfigured flowing of time. Most fundamentally, the activity of forgiveness entails the overcoming of a barrier to relationship, both personally and communally/systemically. The activity of friendship and specifically the activity of universal friendship, meanwhile, would go but a step further with the formation of new relationships, including with those whom we have not met during our earthly lives. The final section of this essay puts Chartier and Thiel’s work in conversation in order to discern what this activity, if possible, might look like.

A Transfiguration of Finitude: A Response to Gary Chartier

As we return our attention to Chartier’s position, we would do well to remember what his position does and does not maintain. It is not the case that he thinks postmortem universal friendship is undesirable. Rather, he maintains that the requisite conditions for this phenomenon could not occur if we are to retain a Christian imaginary. What this means is that, should there be a reality wherein in the conditions were different, perhaps this phenomenon could become a meaningful possibility. Let us reiterate the conditions that Chartier cites as prohibitive to the formation of postmortem universal friendship. First, time ends in the eschaton, meaning that humanity would have no opportunity to form new friendships. Since we are not currently in a state of universal friendship, such a state would not be possible in the life-to-come either. Second, universalizing friendship would violate the conditions of finitude as they pertain to both the phenomenon of friendship and the human being. If we will still be finite in the life-to-come as we presently understand it, then we would not be able to participate in a universal friendship. The requisite change to our constitution for such a universality would be too drastic. Third and finally, friendship, according to Chartier, is not accidently but essentially preferential. One’s ability to be discerning and express partiality is part of what makes the gratuitous character of friendship, that sense of being chosen, that much clearer. To universalize this relationship would violate this basic feature of friendship. We will respond to these concerns in order.

Regarding time, our appeal to John Thiel’s eschatology offers a vision of the afterlife that enjoys a different relationship to time than what is experienced on Earth. Time, by definition, is a hallmark of our finitude, which journeys with us by God’s free decision to sustain it. From this, we may locate a past, present, and future even in “time forever.” This sequence grants an opportunity to form relationships and even friendships with those whom we did not know on Earth. It is reasonable to assume that some friendships, such as those with persons from very different times or cultures from our own, might take longer to form than friendships with persons more similar to us. Nevertheless, as a participation in the eternal life of God, there would be no rush concerning the “slow and gradual cultivation of friendships.” ⁸² If we concede that time continues, albeit in a different fashion than is experienced on Earth, God would not need to divinely populate a shared history, as is Chartier’s concern. Rather, this history could arise organically.

If we continue with our focus on finitude, we should acknowledge that Chartier’s interest in protecting this basic aspect of our constitution is well placed. As already mentioned, an eschatological life that is so disjunctive with earthly life that it becomes unrecognizable fails to be an authentic Christian eschatology. David Clough, in his consideration of wild animals in the eschaton, makes this very point: Whatever the mystery of redemption looks like, it must allow each creature to retain its own particular creatureliness. ⁸³ If I must become other than who I am, then it is not “I” who will be saved but a different creature. With this in mind, I suggest that Chartier has not yet fully considered just how different eschatological life might be before it reaches this limit. Cyril O’Regan refers to this negotiation as the “rules of iconic extension,” which demand that Christian eschatologies “pay heed simultaneously to both continuity and discontinuity between the eschatological and pre-eschatological state.” ⁸⁴ As such, we may posit that Christian tradition invites a boldness of language and imagination in the midst of this negotiation: surely a “new heaven and a new earth” in which God “will wipe every tear from their eyes [and] death will be no more” will be quite different from our experience today (Rv 21:1,4 NRSVUE). At the very least, we may affirm that this mystery preserves our basic integrity as creatures, whatever that may entail.

The account of eternal life by the late Catholic theologian Michael Himes proves helpful for this consideration. “Yes, indeed we are held in being; we don’t die [in a final way]. But the reason we don’t die is not because there’s something in me that can’t die that we call the soul. It’s because God is so wildly in love with Michael Himes that God won’t face eternity without me.” ⁸⁵ Himes’s position, albeit somewhat philosophically imprecise, offers an important contribution to this conversation: Eternal life belongs properly to God and only accidentally to the creature as a pure, unmerited gift. ⁸⁶ It is a reality in which we are invited to participate. Deification ⁸⁷ and the beatific vision have long been images used to convey what this intimacy might look like and in such a way that would allow the finite creature to participate without ceasing to be itself. In other words: The finite receives a new relationship to its own limits. ⁸⁸ Furthermore, if the much greater “distance” between Creator and creature might be transcended for the sake of friendship, as is the suggestion of Thomas Aquinas, Bernard Lonergan, and others, then it seems as though interpersonal finite boundaries might, too, be transcended for this purpose, as Paul Wadell suggests.

We see this shift occur in the person of the risen Jesus. The Jesus who enters locked rooms (Jn 20:19-23) and appears immediately in faraway places (Lk 24:13-35) is the very same Jesus who remains recognizable as himself (albeit with a bit of prodding) (Jn 20:11-18), eats broiled fish (Lk 24:42), and invites his disciples to touch his hands and side (Jn 20:24-29). ⁸⁹ He is finite and yet also beyond the finite. Resurrection, therefore, entails a new or renewed relationship to the boundaries that have come to define us. With this in mind, if tragic time can be resurrected, as Thiel suggests, perhaps so too can friendship be resurrected in a way that conforms it to the conditions of this new reality while remaining intelligible as friendship. If we apply the same considerations of the resurrected Jesus to friendship, then a concept of “resurrection friendship” emerges that can retain respect for our finitude while simultaneously expanding our imaginations as to what may be eschatologically possible.

The last concern represented by Chartier’s position, that friendship be preferential and organic, is also assuaged by Thiel’s position. Although he posits that forgiveness is indeed the ongoing activity of the saints, Thiel does not require that the formation of a friendship automatically result from this forgiveness. He writes that “the graced reciprocity of reconciliation may very well lead to friendship” but not necessarily so. ⁹⁰ For this relationship to take on the character of a friendship would be a second step beyond the initial and ongoing act of reconciliation. Thiel’s language suggests that he remains open to the possibility of universal eschatological friendship but simply does not require it for the sake of his argument. ⁹¹ But if forgiveness, indeed, entails the formation of a personal relationship between the forgiver and the forgiven, it seems like a reasonable possibility to hope that such a relationship could indeed become one of friendship. If the much direr obstacle of enmity may be overcome, why not a matter of preference? It seems possible that there may still be some who are closer in the eschaton than they might be to others—as our particular preferences and quirks would resurrect with us—but a friendship could be had nevertheless. In the meantime, such a vision is left to the realm of hope.

Conclusion

This essay suggests that we should view friendship as more than an analogy for describing eschatological life. Instead, there is good reason to hope that genuine friendship with others, even those whom we have not yet met, might, indeed, become a reality in the life-to-come. Such a relationship would necessarily take on a new form—a resurrected character—because all of creation would take on this new character. This character would allow the practice of friendship to play creatively with the boundaries of space and time, now transfigured by their participation in divine life.

This position bears immediate implications for the practice of friendship today. I am inclined to agree with Toner that the dynamism toward universal friendship is doomed to tragic frustration in this life. At the same time, I do not consider this frustration to be absolute. Rather, I suggest that it is possible to act upon this dynamism in a way that is appropriate for our earthly finitude. Acting upon this dynamism begins with resisting the tendency to reduce heavenly life to a far-off world that has little relevance for life today—a platitude about better days that demands little from us. Already, the kingdom is inbreaking here and now, experienced as “already” but not “yet” fully in our midst. As biblical scholar Gerhard Lohfink suggests, “From God’s point of view, everything is present, everything is offered. We would only have to take it.” ⁹² An authentic hope for universal friendship, then, inscribes a moral obligation to live this promised world evermore into reality in cooperation with God’s transformative, befriending grace.

If it is the case, as Thiel suggests, that every act of earthly forgiveness is an anticipation of and participation in eschatological forgiveness, why would this not also be true for friendship? Every friendship has the potential to become a foretaste of that which is to come, and every friendly act, although it may not reach the height of friendship, can become a glimmer of an eschatological reality upon which we may place our hope. Given the limits of earthly finitude, we will necessarily have to demonstrate preference regarding the order of our loves and make choices in light of this. ⁹³ We cannot be every person’s best friend. At the same time, I propose this inbreaking bears consequences for those whom we do not today name as our friends—both the stranger and enemy alike. As Gilbert Meilaender has suggested about civic friendship, living this inbreaking mystery entails the promotion of justice so that no one is unjustly barred from the opportunity for friendship. ⁹⁴ “No one” in this context must serve as an absolute category; we cannot allow ourselves to care only for those whom we consider to be similar to us, polite, legally irreproachable, or culturally tasteful in their manners of living (Lk 6:32-36). As such, our orientation toward others can be neither a shallow benevolence nor a “middle-class liberality that understands nothing and excuses everything in order to have peace,” as Jürgen Moltmann writes. ⁹⁵ Instead, it must be able to withstand the difficulty of this challenge and serve as a true “affective affirmation” of the other in all of his or her messiness. In short: It must be a witness of true love inspired by divine invitation. This eschatologically inflected concern for the other should be “morally weighty, politically significant, and spiritually central” if it is, indeed, to be transformative of all involved. ⁹⁶ The world’s conversion continues through our participation in the eschatological reality inaugurated by God’s invitation to friendship in the Incarnation, which God offers to all regardless of prior merit. As Mary Hunt writes, “Friendship is an underlying stance that one takes toward the world, beginning at home and those closest to home. Loving one’s neighbor is the most logical extension of loving oneself and one’s family. Friendship is political in its breadth, but personal in its depth.” ⁹⁷ Friendship may be understood, then, as both gratuitous and demanding, free and obligated, mundane and sacred, and earthly and eschatological. Friendship is not one among many activities that human beings happen to do but instead an activity of central importance for understanding who the human being is and for what he or she has been created—a participation in divine life that spans this world and the next.