This article attempts to reconstruct the dispute that took place in the second half of the twentieth century in the womb of Catholic eschatology. This controversy was evoked by the professor of dogmatic theology in Tbilisi, and then from Vienna, Gisbert Greshake, claiming that the resurrection of a man takes place during his death, not at the end of time, during the second coming of Christ. Reinterpretation of the concepts of matter, materiality, body and carnality was the starting point for this theory. Joseph Ratzinger, later pope Benedict XVI, who was defending the position of traditional eschatology in this regard, was against this theory. The article is finished by the reflection on the place and importance of this controversy in the
context of the renewal of Catholic eschatology in the twentieth century and in contemporary theology.