G. C. Berkouwer. The Return of Christ
Even before Brunner, Karl Barth, in his Epistle to the romans, had pointed to the eschaton and called attention to the transcendent sovereignty of God over all that is temporal and human in morality, culture, and religion, stressing particularly that eschatology is not mainly concerned with futuristic conditions, but with complete actuality of the eschatological proclamation in the present. Barth reacted sharply against the old eschatology as a "short and perfectly harmless chapter" at the end of dogmatics. Instead he saw the eschaton - God as the Last in the existential crisis of man living constantly at the brink of God's eternity. This eternity was not temporally remote but was intimately connected with and relevant for everyday life. Barth's thought in this period is sometimes characterized as "timeless" eschatology, which sees the parousia as nothing but a timeless symbol of the endless seriousness of eternity in every existential situation. There was no end of history in terms of time on a horizontal place, but only a vertical eschaton marked by the permanent crisis in life and the actual gravity of the nearness of God. (page 27)
