There is a tendency in modern times for life to be divided into strictly separated categories-our music is divided into bins at the record store according to sometimes arbitrary genre distinctions, courses offered by one university department often cannot be counted towards a degree in another department, and students from middle school through college are outraged when they learn that "spelling counts" in a history paper. These distinctions, which are second nature to us even in childhood, were not as numerous or as strict in the medieval European understanding of life. Even when there were systems of division, such as the classification of scholarly subjects according to the Trivium and Quadrivium, the classifications were seen as interconnected and were meant to be studied together. I don't believe we can hope to truly understand any aspect of medieval culture if we examine these aspects in isolation according to our own categories. My hope is to come to a greater understanding of some part of medieval culture by examining in combination two aspects of this culture that are not normally combined in modern study-sacred architecture and sacred literature. I will explore correlations in the use of sacred geometry, number symbolism, light metaphysics, and optics in Gothic cathedral architecture and sacred literature of the same period. I will also explore the evolution of cathedral architecture from the Romanesque model to the Gothic model in terms of correlations with an evolving approach to popular theology as reflected in the literature of the period. More specifically, I will look at the use of sacred geometry and number symbolism as a central element of sacred architecture regardless of style and period and the increasing importance of light metaphysics and optics in Gothic architecture as a reflection of a changing approach to popular theology culminating in such thirteenth and fourteenth century writings as those of Robert Grosseteste, Chaucer, and Dante, particularly his Divine Comedy, which present to a popular audience a complex theology which would previously have been reserved for a clerical audience.

My study offers a constructive exploration of divine judgment as salvific rather than destructive which I describe aphoristically as iudicandus est salvandus ('to be judged is to be saved'). My provocation to Christian eschatology is that human beings are not saved from judgment, but are saved within it. In chapter 1, I introduce the context of the study and propose the concept of salvific judgment. In chapter 2, I engage in an exploration of the symbols and problems of judgment through a reappraisal of De novissimis ('concerning the last things'), the last section found in traditional works of dogmatics. This is followed, in chapter 3, by a critical engagement with the soteriological optimism posited by four twentieth- and twenty-first century theologians: Sergei Bulgakov, Hans Urs von Balthasar, J.A.T. Robinson, and Marilyn McCord Adams. In chapter 4, I explore four versions of the purpose of judgment: (1) as retributive with a dual outcome, engaging the work of Paul O'Callaghan; (2) as retributive and universalist, in conversation with Sergei Bulgakov; (3) as non-retributive, rectifying, and universalist, exploring the oeuvre of Jürgen Moltmann; and (4) as non-retributive, constitutive of personhood, and quasi-universalist, investigating the eschatological thought of Markus Mühling. In chapter 5, I propose to approach divine judgment as the event of absolute recognition. I posit that it is within the eschatic recognition of God, the self, and the other that transformation and glorification occur in a way that avoids a dual outcome of salvation and damnation. I then explore the problems concerning eternal life ('heaven') in the received tradition and propose that life in the eschatic realm of God is not eternal stasis, but the semper novum. I also explore this understanding of eternal life as it relates to the communion of saints. I conclude by arguing that we may approach divine judgment with faith, hope, and love – not only for ourselves, but for the human race as a whole.

The doctrine of predestination in Western theology had for centuries been burdened by the dualistic conception of Saint Augustine. The bishop of Hippo held that it is God?s intention to reveal His mercy on a small number of those predestined to salvation and His justice on a far larger mass of rightly damned sinners. He came to be convinced that salvation is an utterly undeserved gift and consequently he negated the importance of human freedom. His interpretation would rather give rise to anxiety than the hope Scripture speaks about. Vladimír Boublík dared to oppose Augustine?s authority and presented an entirely different solution based on modern exegesis of the Pauline epistles. He defined predestination as an irreversible divine decision the content of which is the participation of all humanity on divine life in Christ. The present paper shows that Boublík?s theology stems from not just academic, but above all existential search for the answer to the question of human destiny marked with sin, suffering and death. It is already apparent on the pages of the spiritual diary the author kept during his studies. All his writing shows the intention to address his contemporaries and lead them to Christ who stands in the centre of the author?s thinking. This paper attempts to follow up on the work of the Czech exile theologian. It presents his conception of predestination and further develops it in some respects. Besides other things, it throws light on the previously unclarified problem of Christ?s primacy in predestination. Vladimír Boublík?s thesis is confronted with objections that have been raised against it and its content is compared with the content of today?s contribution to the topic.