Second Coming Save page

The Christian doctrine that Christ will return. More properly, it is called the Parousia or "appearing", "unveiling", "revelation". That is, the doctrine speaks of the ultimate unveiling of Christ, revealing him in his full glory.

This revelation is said to transform us into the likeness of Christ:

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

Which merely completes the process that is already underway:

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

There are various interpretations, guesses, or models of the Parousia, and the events surrounding the Parousia.

Millennialist camps

These camps have been important historically:

• Preterism holds that some or all of the anticipated aspects of the Parousia have already occurred.
• Postmillennialism holds that a thousand years of wonder will occur before the Parousia completes the process. This tends towards optimistic views of the future leading forward from now.
• Premillennialism holds that a thousand years of wonder will occur after the Parousia launches the process. This tends towards pessimistic views of the future, prior to Christ's direct intervention.
• Amillennialism understands the "thousand years" to be a symbolic period of time, referring to our current era, prior to Christ's return. Technically, this is a form of Postmillennialism, though it tends to reflect a more measured position than the sometimes-triumphant optimism of postmillennialism.

Influences on Christian Transhumanism:

• NT Wright is often identified as holding to Amillennialism and partial Preterism
• Francis Bacon is often identified as holding to Postmillennialism, though this is an oversimplification. He believed that he lived at the beginning of an era dominated by the growth of knowledge, prior to Christ's return (a belief which would seem to have been accurate). He did not identify this with the biblical millennium.

Millennialist visions

The visions of life in the millennium are often identifiable as a form of techno-futurism, even when articulated in prior eras. Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis is often taken as a kind of template for these visions, and it includes gene editing, flight, virtual reality holograms, radical longevity, etc.

This trend continues into contemporary depictions of life in the millennium.

Isaiah 65.20 with its description of Radical Longevity is often said to take place in the millennium.

The timing of the second coming

Both optimistic and pessimistic groups of Christians sometimes associate Christ's coming with the Singularity.

Pessimists may hold, for example, that the technological singularity marks the destruction of the world, which will then be followed by the advent of Christ.

Optimists may hold that the technological singularity is part of the means by which Christ will reveal himself.

Others, like Teilhard de Chardin, may paint pictures of world history in which Christ's work in the world naturally leads to an Omega Point, which may be identified by some with the Singularity.

In The Physics of Christianity, Frank Tipler predicted that the Singularity would coincide with the return of Christ, because the Singularity would represent a kind of bottleneck that Christ must get us through in order for life to survive.

See Great Filter for related ideas.