<i>Memoria‐</i> time and the Rescue of Time in the “After Time”: Ratzinger and Rahner on the Intermediate State and the Nature of Eternity

Abstract The logical outcome of holding a resurrection‐in‐death theory, the claim that the resurrection happens immediately at death, as does Karl Rahner, is the rejection of the doctrine of the intermediate state and of the separated soul, and the definition of eternity as “timelessness” and the state beyond death as “after time.” Against this view, this article argues in favor of Ratzinger's defense of the intermediate state and resurrection at the end of history through a retrieval of the Augustinian trope of memoria‐ time. Memoria‐ time is the truly anthropological understanding of time which integrates all other dimensions of earthly time and transcends them, even beyond death, thereby “saving” time in the “after time.” Ratzinger's position redefines eternity as not the negation of time but power over time, and offers new justifications for the doctrine of the separated soul, the four last things, and a communal eschatological hope over individualistic considerations.