Grace and Glory

In Grace and Glory, Eric Mascall insists that "if we are living in the grace of God, heaven is the destination to which our journey is leading us. It is therefore the merest folly for us to behave as if our whole destiny was contained within the limits of this present life." Secularists, whether committed to individualism or collectivism, err in thinking that this worldly happiness, prosperity, and welfare constitute the final end of man. Mascall offers a sobering rejoinder to this immanent framework-"[the final end of persons] is either heaven or hell-either the glad acceptance or the sullen refusal of the beatific vision of the Holy Trinity." This "two-ways" eschatology insists that each person walk the way of life or the way of death, each keeping their gaze directed to God or turning their eyes away from him to fix them instead on lesser goods...

Secular persons, therefore, need a reorientation to reality that reveals the narrow way of Christ leading to perfect rest in the new heavens and new earth. This narrow way is incorporation into Christ and union with the triune God that allows persons to participate in this eternal rest: "God is changeless, not because He is lifeless but because He is fully active and actual, infinite fullness to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be lost." And this eternal action of the unchanging God who creates and sustains all things occurs in the personal "Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, united in one perfect circulation and interchange of Love. Our full possession of this rest awaits us in heaven, but its foretaste is given to us here: 'Grace is a beginning of glory in us.'" The grace of God, given by God in the sacraments, redeems the faithful and prepares citizens of heaven for their eternal rest in the New Jerusalem. (From the Foreword)