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CHICAGO STUDIES
love of God burst forth these modes of being are swept away wherever they impede our movement toward God. In a sense our whole existence is broken up, a truly painful experience that could be a means of satisfaction. Seen in this way purga路 tory would be an instantaneous thing, the very passage which we effect in our final decision. CHRIST'S REDEMPTIVE DEATH
We were justified by Christ's obedience "unto death." But why is there this insistence on the importance of Christ's death? Why could not any moral act have been the adequate expression of Christ's redeeming obedience? In the hypothesis of death as a fulfillment, a possible answer emerges. The developing human reality of Christ reaches its perfection in death; it was only at this moment that he was able to give the fullest human expression to his redemptive obedience. The new view of death also offers an explanation for the long-recognized instrumentality of Christ's body in the work of our redemption. For by death man enters into a real ontological relation with the universe; he does not simply withdraw from matter but rather enters into a closer proximity with matter, into a relation with the world extended to cos路 mic dimensions. The metaphysical place where total presence to the world occurs may be described imaginatively as the "heart of the universe, the root of the world." In the hypothesis of a final decision death is seen as a descent into the unity at the root of the world. Thus Christ's soul in death "descended into hell," to the heart of the cosmos where it entered into an open ontological relationship with the universe. The cosmos in its totality became the instrument of Christ's humanity, the instrumental cause of grace for every man. When Christ's human reality was planted in death at the root of the world, it grounded a scheme of salvation which embraced the entire human race. At the moment when Christ descended into hell the world was transfigured and became a vehicle for man's sanctifica路 tion. This transformation is a present reality, awaiting only the parousia for the final revelation of what has already hap路