Jürgen
Moltmann's contributions to contemporary theology are extensive.
Known as the theologian of hope, his early 'trilogy' moved theology
beyond the existential trend, reinvigorated pneumatology and
presented a theology of a dynamic trinitarian God. These achievements
aside, his implicit influences on 20th
and 21st
Century theology are incalculable.
This
paper will argue that Moltmann's single most significant contribution
to contemporary theology is in his strident rejection of the God of
metaphysical theism. His
post-metaphysical theology has set academics and believers free from
the speculative theology of Greek inheritance and placed Christ and
biblical revelation at the centre of Christian theology.
Theology
of Hope
Moltmann's
first major work Theologie
der Hoffnung
appeared in 1965, conceived as a theological parallel to Ernst
Bloch's 1954-1959 work Das
Prinzip Hoffnung.1
Moltmann saw in Bloch's work a potential antidote to stagnation in
theology and the church.
A
Church that feared change clung to the God who is unchanging and
arrived at a state of inertia. Moltmann saw that Christian theology
did not need to reject the confident progressionism that the Marxists
and the Capitalists had in common. In fact, to say that 'the greatest
reality lies in the future', is to make profoundly Christian
statement.2
Richard Bauckham states that Theology
of Hope “Rehabilitate[d]
future eschatology”3,
as Moltmann reimagined the Church as the most radical agent of social
change, not crippled by a “reactionary traditionalism”4.
It is an unchristian perspective that seeks to turn the status-quo of
human society (with all its goods and evils) into a 'continuing
city'5.
Christian eschatology is the hope that the world will be different.
Moltmann writes: “From first to last, and not merely in the
epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and
forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming
the present”6
It
is in this future eschatology that Moltmann finds his social ethic.
An ethic not based on merit or on pity , but on hope, on the
continued realisation of the coming Kingdom of God, on the
transformation of the world. He
writes: “This
hope makes... the Church the source of continual new impulses towards
the realization of righteousness, freedom and humanity here in the
light of the promised future that is to come.”7
The
received perspective of metaphysical theism presented a God that was
immutable, infinite and transcendent. While not denying these
classical attributes of God, Moltmann challenged the secure
immobility that it led to. He restored a theological momentum,
presenting a 'futurist' God, actively involved in history, apparently
changing along with the creation, pressing his people towards change.
In the final chapter of Theology
of Hope,
Moltmann concludes:“The
gods of metaphysics are dead”8
The
Death of Metaphysics
With
Der
gekreuzigte Gott,
Moltmann levels a more direct assault at “this concept of God from
philosophical theology”9,
specifically the doctrine of divine impassibility. Post-holocaust
theodicy necessitated a fundamental shift in Christian thinking about
God. Like
Bonhoeffer, following imprisonment, and in the aftermath of
Auschwitz, Moltmann too was of a mind that “only
the suffering God can help.” 10
Yet there
is no place in metaphysical theism for a God who suffers. “By
definition God cannot suffer and die,”11
Moltmann
writes. “God cannot suffer, God cannot die, says theism... God
suffered... God died... says the Christian faith.”12
Moltmann
appealed for a deliberate move away from the Greek philosophical
criteria from which the divine attributes had come and the
reinstitution of a theology derived from the study of scripture and
the contemplation of Christ. He writes: “It is considered
old-fashioned to put him [Christ] in the centre of Christian faith
and of theology.”13
Interestingly, Moltmann noted that it was the decline of
institutional religion in the west, and the Nietzschean 'death of
God' that would allow this radical shift to occur.14
In
The
Crucified God
Moltmann takes time to deconstruct the philosophical approach to
knowledge of God, levelling a Hegelian critique at Aquinas' classical
'proofs'. Such logical inferences are dependant on the reality of
experience and perception, and on that reality having some
correspondence to God. Moltmann tacitly supports Luther's
interpretation of 1 Corinthians 1:21, not that one cannot
know
God through the natural world, but at least that God is not best
known through the natural world.15
Abraham
Heschel's theology of the divine pathos
was a significant influence.16
He too highlighted the discontinuity between a biblical conception of
God and the apathetic God of philosophy that had been adopted by
Maimonides, Spinoza and others.17
The God of the Hebrew scriptures is as alien to the God of theism as
the Christian God. “If one starts from the pathos
of God,” Moltmann writes, “one does not think of God in his
absoluteness and freedom, but understands his passion and his
interest”18.
Throughout Moltmann's 'trilogy' focus
is drawn repeatedly to the 'starting point' of theology. Any
understanding of God must begin, not with the philosophical process,
but with God's revelation of God's self.
Crucicentrism
For
Moltmann, it is essential to Christian theology, not only that the
figure of Jesus be central, but that Jesus' death on the cross be
central.19
Christian theology is, uniquely, the story of a
“love which suffers in solidarity with those who suffer.”20
Further
still, the crucifixion is not just the central event in the life of
the world, it is also the central event
in the life of the Trinity. Jesus, who suffers alongside humanity,
who dies and is resurrected, is not simply a comforting condolence
offered by an otherwise unaffected trinity. It is fundamentally who
God is. The death of Christ takes place within
God.
Moltmann,
following Rahner, rejects the division between
the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. As Bauckham puts it:
“There
is no immanent Trinity supra-temporally behind God's temporal,
worldly history.”21
Who
God is and what God does are effectively indivisible. For Moltmann,
the suffering of Jesus on the cross loses its significance if, to
satisfy some presupposition, the suffering is limited to Christ's
human nature. It is precisely because God need not suffer, that God's
suffering is significant. It is in God's choosing to suffer with
humanity and for humanity that God's love is best witnessed. In
Kirche
in der Kraft des Geistes
Moltmann summarises his manifesto:
We
must drop the philosophical axioms about the nature of God. God is
not
unchangeable, if to be unchangeable means that he could not in the
freedom of his love open himself to the changeable history of his
creation. God is not incapable of suffering if this means that in the
freedom of his love he would not be receptive to suffering over the
contradictions of man and the self-destruction of his creation. God
is not invulnerable if this means he could not open himself to the
pain of the cross. God is not perfect if this means that he did not
in the desire of his love want his creation to be necessary to his
perfection.22
Criticisms
The
final statement of this oft-quoted proposition, with its apparent
claim of interdependence between creator and creation goes further
against the widely accepted view of God than any other of Moltmann's
statements. It contravenes the doctrines of divine aseity,
immutability, infinity, transcendence, and the arguably more
biblically-founded doctrine of sovereignty, seeming to make God an
incomplete being. Moltmann addresses this criticism briefly, stating
“A God who is only omnipotent in in himself an incomplete being”23
Once again Moltmann shows that the classical 'attributes' fall down
on their own terms. The starting point of Christian theology must be
God's self-revelation, not metaphysical presuppositions. If
metaphysics is to be redeemed it would be as an after-the-facts task24
It
could be argued that Moltmann's critique of metaphysical theism
constitutes a straw-man argument relying, as it seems to, on a rather
overblown understanding of divine impassibility. Current-day critics
such as Daniel Castelo suggest that Moltmann's understanding of the
doctrine was based on 'rushed historical judgements'25,
and yet The
Crucified God
evidences a thorough and authentic engagement with both his
predecessors and his contemporaries. Moltmann is a contextual
theologian, and so if he does aim his critique at a misunderstanding
of divine impassibility, then it is a misunderstanding that his
contemporaries shared.
Continuing
Significance
“The
controversy between Christian theology and the philosophical concept
of God”26
is
by no means a historical debate. The attributes of God, and the
methodology of metaphysics inherited from Plato continue to permeate
Christian thinking in both academic circles and within faith
communities. There are many voices from within the growing
hyper-reformed and neo-Calvinist schools, and also some more centrist
perspectives, that are quick to cry heresy at theology which
challenges traditional presuppositions. This is reminiscent of the
environment into which Moltmann wrote Theology
of Hope: A
church fearing the changing worldview, clinging to a God that offers
the certainty and stability of tradition and narrow 'orthodoxy'.
Clark H. Pinnock's book Most
Moved Mover27
seeks to make a thoughtful and biblically-based case for open-theism
to an American evangelical audience made hostile by the apparent
virtue of unerring loyalty to the classical attributes of God. One
critic of an earlier work charges the open theists with denying the
infinity of God, calling it “one
of the saddest intellectual and spiritual retrogressions I have ever
seen outside openly heterodox thinking”.28
A
hostile reaction also met Rob Bell's Love
Wins
which sought to explore the doctrine of hell and make a case for a
broad orthodoxy. Like Moltmann, Bell was questioning the starting
point of traditional theology, suggesting that we come to certain
biblical texts with presuppositions about 'hell' informed by cultural
elements apart from scripture. It is perhaps telling that the
detractors use of scripture is as proof-texting for established
dogma. Even those who begin with the intention to “leave what is
familiar for what is true”29
move from scripture into the logical inference of theism.
Contemporary theology needs the resources of Moltmann's work to ask
questions of its epistemology and its treatment of scripture.
The
concept of adopting a 'hebraic' mode of thinking and overcoming our
“pagan
inheritance”30
in
order to better understand scripture is widespread in popular
theology31.
This is likely a direct result of Moltmann's use of Heschel and his
openness to Jewish scholarship.
Peter
Rollins follows Moltmann in challenging the comfortable inertia of
the metaphysical God. Beginning, interestingly, from a philosophical
starting point, Rollins argues that authentic Christianity must
abandon the certainty of theism to partake in the kenosis
of Christ. 'Belief in God' in the sense of religion which seeks an
existential sense well-being is “idolatry”32
Note the distinct similarities between Moltmann's theology of the
crucified God, and Rollins' deconstructionism. Moltman writes:
To
know God in the cross of Christ is a crucifying form of knowledge,
because it shatters everything to which a man can hold and on which
he can build, both his works and his knowledge of reality, and
precisely in so doing sets him free.33
Rollins
states:
The
crucifixion signals an experience in which all that grounds us and
gives us meaning collapses... To participate in the Crucifixion is to
experience the breaking apart of the various mythologies we use to
construct and make sense of our world. The Crucifixion experience is
nothing less than the taking place of the Real.34
It
is significant that, Rollins very rarely quotes Moltmann directly,
yet seems to have imbibed his ideas through Moltmann's influence on
other works.
Moltmann's
influence is also visible in Rollins' challenge to the New Atheism,
and it is likely that Moltmann's chapter on 'The Death of God as the
origin of Christian Theology'35
will become increasingly important as the debate continues.36
Conclusion
Moltmann
drew together theology and philosophy and showed the desperate need
to abandon philosophical prepositions about the divine nature if
scripture is to be read properly, and a truly Christian theology
developed. The theological inertia he wrote into is repeated, or
perhaps remains, today and the careful systematic approach of his
trilogy continues to provide a helpful spur. His
deconstruction of the philosophical axioms set theology free to talk
about a God that suffers. A
theology of the cross demands “A
revolution in the concept of God”37
and that has been Moltmann's greatest legacy.
Bibliography
Primary:
Moltmann,
Jürgen.
Theology
of Hope.
James W. Leitch (translator). London, SCM Press, 1967.
Moltmann,
Jürgen.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Moltmann,
Jürgen.
The
Trinity and the Kingdom of God. Margaret
Kohl (translator). London, SCM Press, 1981.
Moltmann,
Jürgen.
The
Way of Jesus Christ. Margaret
Kohl (translator). London, SCM Press, 1990.
Moltmann,
Jürgen.
'The Cross as Military Symbol for Sacrifice' in Trelstad, Mari (ed.)
Cross
Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today,
Fortress Press, 2006.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=OAdnhiX2jK0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
(accessed 1/1/14)
Secondary
Bell,
Rob. Love
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Ever Lived. Hammersmith,
HarperCollins,
2011.
Chan,
Francis and Sprinkle, Preston. Erasing
Hell: What God said about eternity and the things we've made up.
Colorado, David C Cook, 2011.
Bauckham,
Richard. 'The Trinitarian History of God in Moltmann' in Moltmann:
Messianic Theology in the Making.
Basingstoke, Marshall Pickering, 1987.
Bauckham,
Richard. The
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Daniel (2008).' Moltmann's dismissal of divine impassibility:
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Chesterton,
Gilbert K. Heretics.
Pennsylvania State University, 2005.
Chesterton,
Gilbert K. Orthodoxy.
Pennsylvania State University, 2005.
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Pinnock,
Clark H. Most
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Cumbria, Paternoster Press, 2001.
Rollins,
Peter. Insurrection:To
believe is human; to doubt divine. London,
Hodder & Stoughton, 2011.
Rollins,
Peter. The
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London, Hodder & Stoughton, 2012.
Rossi-Keen,
Daniel E. 'Jurgen
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2
Blochs' 'Not-yet-conscious' is reminiscent of the 'Now and Not Yet'
tension in Pauline writings.
5
Hebrews 13:14 cited in Jürgen
Moltmann. Theology
of Hope.
James W. Leitch (translator). London, SCM Press, 1967. Pg. 22.
8
Jürgen
Moltmann. Theology
of Hope.
James W. Leitch (translator). London, SCM Press, 1967. Pg. 312.
9
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 214
10Cited
in Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 47
11
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 214.
12
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 216.
13
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 1.
14
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 35, 215.
15
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 212.
16
Another significant contribution to contemporary theology was
Moltmann's openness to ideas from outside the Christian tradition,
just as he had assimilated Bloch. He insisted that Christian
theology be formed in the context of inter-ecumenical conversation.
17
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 270.
18
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 271.
19
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 204.
21
Richard Bauckham. 'The Trinitarian History of God in Moltmann' in
Moltmann:
Messianic Theology in the Making.
Basingstoke, Marshall Pickering, 1987.
22
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
cited in Richard Bauckham. 'The Trinitarian History of God in
Moltmann' in Moltmann:
Messianic Theology in the Making.
Basingstoke, Marshall Pickering, 1987.
23
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 223.
24Somewhat
contradicting his dictum, Moltmann states “Christian theology is
not the 'end of metaphysics'. Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 218.
25
Castello, Daniel (2008).' Moltmann's dismissal of divine
impassibility: Warranted?.' Scottish
Journal of Theology,
61, November 2008. Pg 397.
26
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 215.
27
Cumbria, Paternoster Press, 2001.
28
Clark H. Pinnock Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness.
Cumbria, Paternoster Press, 2001. Pg. 10.
29Chan,
Francis and Sprinkle, Preston. Erasing
Hell: What God said about eternity and the things we've made up.
Colorado, David C Cook, 2011.Pg. 16.
30
Pinnock, Clark H. Most
Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness.
Cumbria, Paternoster Press, 2001. Pg 65.
31See
Rob Bell, Ray Vander Laan et al.
33
Jürgen
Moltmann.
The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg. 212
34
Peter Rollins. Insurrection:To
believe is human; to doubt divine. London,
Hodder & Stoughton, 2011.
35
Jürgen
Moltmann. The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg 200-207
36
Rollins follows Chesterton and draws the same conclusions as
Moltmann, that the cry of abandonment on the cross expresses a deep
existential atheism which takes place within the heart of God and
overcomes both theism and atheism.
Peter
Rollins. Insurrection:To
believe is human; to doubt divine. London,
Hodder & Stoughton, 2011.
37
Jürgen
Moltmann. The
Crucified God.
R.A. Wilson and John Bowden (translators). London, SCM Press, 1973.
Pg 152.
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