Theology as Hope

On the Ground and Implications of Jürgen Moltmann's Doctrine of Hope

Neal

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781630878221
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Hope is the leitmotiv of Jurgen Moltmann's theology. Not merely one aspect of his project, hope is the whole of it, the supreme doctrine interpenetrating all others. Indeed, hope is his method. The present study is both historical and developmental while also being analytical and interrogative. This chronological exploration seeks to show the nature, composition, and development of Moltmann's doctrine of hope, as the distinctive doctrine of his theology, implicating all others. Part I establishes Moltmann's doctrine of hope as grounded in God's faithfulness in the cross and resurrection. Part II investigates major doctrines in his project in light of this ground. This design seeks to take advantage of the chronological approach while also integrating the best elements of a topical approach.

part one

The Ground of Hope

The ground1 of Moltmann’s hope is the dialectic of the cross and resurrection.2 God’s promise and subsequent fulfillment in the event3 of Jesus’ death and resurrection show not that God is immutable and impassible, but that he is faithful4 in keeping his promises (by raising the dead) and participating in suffering.5 Part I investigates Moltmann’s doctrine of hope as he develops it in TH and CG.

1. Ground (instead of basis) is employed throughout to convey the double meaning of der Grund as both (1) “foundation” or “basis” and (2) “reason for” or “cause”; many thanks to Dr. Nicholas Adams for delineating this word’s dual-role. See Nicholas Adams, “Hope,” 309–11.

2. See TH; CG; ET 52. Perhaps one could assert that God is the ground of hope, but this is too broad and though true for Moltmann, the specificity of naming the cross and resurrection is appreciably clearer.

3. While there is some equivocation based on context, from CG onward Moltmann typically refers to the dialectical unity of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ as one event (see CG 204; WJC 214; SpL 65; SoL 15). Earlier, he cited the resurrection alone as an event (TH 194, 198).

4. His view on God’s essential nature shifts: in 1964 it is future (TH 16, 141); in 1995 it is love (CoG 329; see also “Liberating and Anticipating the Future,” 189–208); in 2000 it is faithfulness (ET 36ff., 97; EB 163).

5. For explicit comments, see SW 58, 198 n. 4. For his most explicit discussion of faithfulness and hope, see ET 54–55.

1

Resurrection as Hope

Introduction

“The Christian hope for the future,” Moltmann writes, “comes of observing a specific, unique event—that of the resurrection, and appearing of Jesus Christ.”1 For Moltmann, the resurrection is “the ground, power and goal of hope.”2 In the late 1950s3 he determined that theology should begin with eschatology, convinced that although Karl Barth had said quite a lot he had nevertheless “neglected” eschatology.4 This decision was given further clarity when he encountered the first two volumes of Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope,5 which he read in 1960 (merely two years before he began writing TH).6 Recalling his initial reaction to the volumes that he read while on vacation, he writes:

I . . . was so fascinated that I did not even notice the beauty of the Swiss mountains. My immediate reaction was, “Why has Christian theology neglected this theme of hope, which is so distinctively its own?” “What is left of the earliest Christian spirit of hope in present-day Christianity?”7

While it is perhaps true that without Bloch the school of hope would not exist,8 it should not be forgotten that Moltmann’s decision to begin theology with eschatology was made prior to reading Bloch’s magnum opus. Only a few years later he began writing his first programmatic book, TH (1964; Eng. tr. 1967) which centers on eschatology and hope.9 The setting for the publication of TH was the mood of the 1960s, which Moltmann describes as an era “brimming over with movements of hope and experiences of rebirth and renewal”10 when “a new utopian rejoicing undoubtedly prevailed among us.”11 Hope was “in the air” and TH is marked by its time: the cultural context seemed to summon it.12 In 1967, Moltmann asserts that “the unique characteristic of modern times consists in the fact that we are everywhere asking for something that is ‘new.’ . . . [People] are fascinated by a future which so far nowhere has taken place and hence will be new.”13 It is this type of expectant mentality that accordingly gave rise to a time of hope. Even the title expresses “confidence in the future at a time when there had been a danger of too great a concentration on the past.”14 Indeed, the relatively immediate context was the end of two world wars. Coupled with the fact that two of the central figures in the generation preceding, Barth and Bultmann, had essentially “transposed eschatology into eternity” by insisting on redemption in the category of future beyond history and outwith [AQ: without?] time,15 Moltmann’s view was distinct from the beginning.16 As the author of a book so aptly titled, pe...