George Eldon Ladd (July 31, 1911 – October 5, 1982) was a Baptist minister and professor of New Testament theology and exegesis at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, known in Christian eschatology for his promotion of inaugurated eschatology and "futuristic post-tribulationism."
Consistent eschatology (thorough-going eschatology) is a theory in theological and biblical studies that interprets Jesus "in exclusively eschatological terms". The view was initiated by Johannes Weiss, and "picked up, developed, and popularized" by Albert Schweitzer.It is an exclusive futuristic eschatology, the consistent interpretation of Jesus' eschatology as an expectation of an imminent end, and the thorough-going eschatology, the first position by Schweitzer. He used a thorough eschatology to provide a solution to the historical problems associated with Jesus' life. According to this view, asserted by Johannes Weiss (J. Weiß), the proclamation of Jesus, his actions and ministry are dominated by the eschatological expectation of the impending return. (For example, "the kingdom of God is at hand”. Mk. 1:15)
It has been described by one critic (George Eldon Ladd) as picturing:
Inaugurated eschatology is the belief in Christian theology that the end times were inaugurated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and thus there are both "already" and "not yet" aspects to the Kingdom of God. George Eldon Ladd suggests that the Kingdom of God is "not only an eschatological gift belonging to the Age to Come; it is also a gift to be received in the old aeon."
This approach was first developed by Geerhardus Vos, especially in his 1930 work, The Pauline Eschatology. Later, Oscar Cullmann sought to combine the "thorough-going eschatology" of Albert Schweitzer with the "realized eschatology" of C. H. Dodd. Cullmann suggested the analogy of D Day and V Day to illustrate the relationship between Jesus's death and resurrection on the one hand, and his Second Coming on the other.