Eschatology

Eschatology (Gr. eschatos, 'last,' and logos, 'a discourse'), the doctrine of the last things, a theological term for what Scripture reveals and Christian speculation has concluded about a future state. But although the term is thus limited, an eschatology existed among all the great nations of antiquity, dark and ill defined as in the Greek, or elaborate as in the Egyptian religion. Together with it grows up more or less definitely the idea of retribution. For an account of the more elementary forms of this conception, see TRANSMIGRATION. Protestant eschatology is generally confined in practical discourses to a consideration of these four last things—Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell (see IMMORTALITY, RESURRECTION, DEVIL, and HELL). The principal religious parties which do not recognise eternal punishment as a Scriptural doctrine are treated at UNIVERSALISM and CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY; the question of an intermediate state, at PURGATORY. See also MILLENNIUM.