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 The use of Moltmann's Theology of hope in parish preaching Walz, Erwin G. e ienis s | ¥ (NSRRI g e s Fad ! ' - 1 o t'g & THE USE OF MOLTMANN'S THEOLOGY OF HOPE IN PARISH PREACHING by ERWIN G. WALZ — A D THE USE OF MOLTMANN'S THEOLOGY OF HOPE IN PARISH PREACHING BY ERWIN G. WALZ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF MINISTRY CALIFORNIA GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY 1976 Approved by a 1.#‘ (4 Date ) Approved by £ = Date @ PREFACE My work as parish pastor brings me into a day-to-day concern with preaching. In the seminary the "sermon" was defined for me as ''the exposition and applica?ion of a porfion of God's Word." After fourteen years in one congregation I am constantiy challgnged Qith fhe fask of Having something fresh and‘helbful to say that will "expose'" the message " of Fhe Gospel énd ap?ly" it to the needs of the hearers. kPreéching has not become easier over the years, but my acquaintancé with déd's Word and the needs of people has increased. In our day a sense‘of hopelessness has enve}oped the m}nds and hearts of people in our chu;ches and society in'general. A theology of hope, based solidly on Scripture and aware of the hurts and burdens of people, could conceivaply bé of immense help to those-chayged yith leading worship and preaching. It has been my strong desife in preparing th%s dissertation to'acquaint myself with a Sqripture—based theology of hope thgt I can share with ogp pgéple week—tofweek. It is my fond hope that the results of this study will also providg some practical help for other pastors who share with me the high privilege of being present-day "se;vants of Christ and stewards @f the fiys;eries of God!" (I' Corinthians 4:1): My gratitude is here warmly expressed to the California Graduate School of Theology for stimulating me to undertake this task; Fo Dean Barrvaeitzel for his initial encouragement to develop this.topic; to Dr. Butrus Abd-al-Malik for his patience and help as my advisor; to my 11 dadi dear friend and former! pastor, .Lt. Col. Ji Karl Jung, for his enthusiastic support throughout the whole project; to Julie Earick for the use of her books on contemporary poetry and songéi;to thé{Church Council of Redeemer Lutheran Church for its gracious provisiofi of a study leave to pursue this work; and--last but not least--to my dear wife Viyian for her faith in my ability to complete suc§ a task and for her meticulous effort in typing the final copy of the‘disséftatiqni Above all, I want to acknowledge the steady influence of the Holy Spirit who moved mé to begin this project andrenabled me to bring it to completion! TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ii PREFACE e ° Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION . ° ° . ° ° ° . ° THE PROBLEM ° LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY REViEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ° 2. ° ° THE CONTEMPORARY SEARCH FOR HOPE ° 'REFLECTIONS.OFlSOME MODERN WRITERS THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN AN AGE OF ° 13 TECHNOLOGY ° ° ° - ° ° ° ° ° ° e 17 S A STUDY OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO HOPE HOPE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT L, 22 HOPE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT . ° . ° 26 THE.EMERGENCE OF "THE SCHOOL OF HOPE" ° ° ° ° 28 THE INFLUENCE OF ERNST BLOCH c METZ 29 A SUMMARY OF THE WRITINGS OF JOHANNES B. JURGEN MOLTMANN'S PLACE AMONG THE HOPE ° ° ° ° 32 THEOLOGIANS ° ° ° ° . ° IDEAS FROM CALVIN AND LUTHER THAT ARE REFLECTED 35 IN MOLTMANN'S EMPHASIS . ° ° 39 5 JGRGEN MOLTMANN AND HIS THEOLOGY . ° ° . ° ° ° ° e ° 39 HIS BACKGROUND 43 TEACHERS WHO INFLUE&CED HITME e iv Chapter Page r . (1] (1] S UMMARY OF HIS MAJOR WORK, THEOLOGY OF HOPE 4/ ° 50 Eschatology and Revelation Promise and History ° . o ° 59 The Resurrection and the Future of Jesus Christ ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° 68 Eschatology and History ° o 89 Exodus Church . ° ° 3 ° ° ° ° ° ° e e 101 6 DEVELOPMENTS IN MOLTMANN'S THEOLOGY ACCORDING TO . ° 108 LATER BOOKS, ESSAYS, AND LECTURES "THE CRUCIFIED GOD" ° ° ° ° 108 The Identity and Relevance of Faith ° ° 109 The Resistance of the Cross against its Interpretations ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° 109 Questions about Jesus ° ° ° ° ° ° 1.1 111 The Historical Trial of‘Jesus g4 114 The Eschatological Trial of Jesus The Crucified God ° ° ° ° ° ° ° . . . ° 1145 Wéys towards the Psychological Liberation of Man 118 Ways towards the Political Liberation eof Mankind 119 HMANII ° ° ° ° . 120 ESSAYS AND LECTURES . . ° ° ° ° 123 "Religion, Revolution and the Future" 123 "The Experiment Hope'" ° ° ° ° . . ° ° . ° ° 124 7 A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MOLTMANN'S THEOLOGY OF HOPE 126 126 HIS EMPHASIS ON THE HORIZONTAL F ot e S SR s e ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° 128 THEYUSEs QF BHE fUTURE TENSE THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH ° ° 1529 v1i Page Chapter NEED FOR 130 wFVELOPMENT OF TRINITARIAN EMPHASIS . . . 131 LACK OF THE NOTE OF CELEBRATION ° ° ° ° ° o ° ° ° OF HOPE 8. HOW A PARISH PASTOR CAN USE MOLTMANN'S THEME IN HIS PREACHING o ° ° ° ° ° ° ° . ° ° ° 134 BY THIS HOMILETICAL POSSIBILITIES PROVIDED THEOLOGY ° ° . ° ° ° ° . ° ° ® ° 134 134 The God of Hope ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° 135 The Person of Christ . . 136 Tbe Work of the Holy Spirit The Second Coming of Christ o 1537 138 Christian Faith ° ° ° ° ° ° ° . ° ° ° 1.39 Christian Joy 139 What It Means ;o be Human 140 Law and Promise ° ° ° ° ° ° 142 Following Jesus ° 142 Bearing One's Cross 143 Christian Discipleship 144 Christian Atheism ° ® e ° ° . e . 144 The Church . The Mission of the Church 145 146 Baptism ° . ° . ° 147 The Lord's Supper Death ° ° ° ° e ° ° ° ° ° ° 147 148 The Resurrection from the Dead ° ° ° . ° ° 149 STUDY OF SEVERAL SERMONS BY MOLTMANN 149 "God Is Different," based on Isaiah 55:6-11 "The God of Hope," based on Romans 15:4-13 . ] 57 vii Chapter Page "Look, Everything Has Become New,' based on IT Corinthians 5:17-21 ° ° ° . o ° ° ° ° 155 "The Return of Christ," based on Matthew 24:1-14 ° . ° . ° ° . e ° ° 157 SUGGESTED.SERMON OUTLINES EMPHASIZING OUR CHRISTIAN HORER 0 #orvi s . . ° ° . ° . 159 k- CONCLUSION . ° ° 165 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 167 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION THE PROBLEM This dissertation wrestles with a very real problem. O ur society, with all its material s educational, and technical advantages over previous sqcieties, is in the grip of a feeling‘of despair regarding the future. The popplation explosion and a dwindling supply of resources are causing an increasing number of pedple to lead a démeaning and deprived existence. Thousands of peoplé are in the grip of hunger and starvation. ‘Ciyilization has not been ahle to solve the threat and onslaught of war. Industry has benefited humanity but increasing demands for production have caused pollution of natural resources and environment, as well as impersonalness in human relations. Human greed anq misfise of power have eroded the people's confidence in business and governmental leaders. The church, with its vast spiritual and human resources, has not proved itself very effective in the face of society's needs. In fact, generally speaking, the church still seems more interested in saving itself than in redeeming society. In light of these circumstances we are raising the questiofis, "Is there hope for the future? If so, what is its basis and how can a message of hope be formulated and communicated to modefn‘society?" In approaching this second phase of the problem we turn in our study to a modern "scho?l of hope" with partiéular emphasis upon the writings of it Jurgen Moltmann. We will examine his major works available in the English language, includiné an articulation of his thgology and several sermons in which he communipgteg his'theology to worshipping commu- nities. In keeping with the ultimate purpose of this dissertation, we go on to call attention to homiletical éossibilities in tbe theology of hope and provide suggested sermon outlines for consideration by the modern parish pastor. LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY The material available in the field of hope theology is indeed great. Although we have given consideration to other proponents of "the school of hope," it has been necessary to limit ourselves primarily to the chief Protestant proponent of hope theology. Even here I was limited to Moltmann's works that have been translated into English. Throughout the course of the study the focus has been on material that Fan be used by the parish pastor in his work of preparing sermons. Although we have attempted to provide as varied and extensive a treatment of the theology of hope as possible, we have consistently tried to work within the scope of the topic under discussjonr Even though it would have been possible to provide entire sermons incorporating the principles of hope theology, we are limiting ourselves to what will be seminal suggestions for the task of the modern preacher. Each pastor can then adapt his message to the type of audience he must envision as he prepares to preach. We have provided outlines that incorporate the main thoughts in the biblical text together with suggestions for a devglopment of each main point. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE After the plan for the study was developed, it became clear that there was a vast amount of literature related to this field of study. é great number of modern songs, plays, essays, and poetry deal with feelings of despair, death, meaninglessness, and hopelessness. We have been able to include only a few samples of this kind of literature ;hat fit the purpose of the dissertation. In the area of hope theology there are many sources that influenced members of the school of hope, there are numerous writings by proponents of hofie theology, and there are many books and essays that analyze, evaluate, and build upon this modern theological movement. We have ipcluded only those works that met the purpose and remained within the scope of this project. The bibliography, hogever, provides many sources that can be investigated by Fhe reader who is interested in a wider acquaintance with literature in this general field. - The personal involvement in this research and writing has been both a strenubus and a stimulating task. New vistas of helpful knowlédge have been discovered and a whole new excitement to keep well informed regarding modern developggnts in theology has begun to grip me It is my sincere hope that the availability of the results of this study, as contained in this dissertation, will help stir up new interest in Christian theology and provide some fruitful suggestions for further study and research on the part of the reader. Chapter 2 THE CONTEMPORARY SEARCH FOR HOPE The word "hope" is defined in Webster's dictionaryl as "trust, reliance; desire accompapied by expecfation of or belief in fulfillment; someone or something on which hopes are ce#tered ; something hoped for." By that definition, hope is a quality which many people have lost and for which they are eagerly searching at the present time. Social scientists characterize our age as one of anxiety and despair rather than hope. This kind of mobd islfallow ground for a theology of hope. It is our purpose here to offer some sample reflections of contemporary thought and feeling as expresséd by modern writers and to sketch briefly the search for identity which describes our modern dilemma. We do this to provide a background for a serious consideration of a theology of hope! REFLECTIONS OF SOME MODERN WRITERS Walter Lowenfels, editor of The Writing on the Wall, introdfices 108 poems of protest with these comments in the preface which‘heb entitles "What Time Is It?" Poetry (or any other art) relates to the question: What time is 3t2 There's no mystery about the answer today. We are all hung up on the hot line between atomic catastrophe and h uman triumph. ""Oh 1Webster's Seventh New Colle Mass. G. & C. Merriam Co., giate Dictionary (Springfield, 1965), p. 400. 4 dear! Oh dear!" said the White Rabbit as he looked at his watch, "how late it's get book. ting." That's what our poets are saying in this Ours is a great time to be alive--n T ot becausev"happy days are here' or coming--but because we are the first generation absolutely certain that tomorrow will not be like today. If it is, our coun- try's tomorrow is heading toward a silent atomi c graveyard. For poets, of course, there will always be a red-hot inferno here and now because things are as they are--not as they should be. That's the theme of this anthology--resistance against the world the way it is. 0 ° ° Poems project the future, the y show how it feeis to beihuman in the ice age of an automated world ° One of the poems in the book is.by Bérbara Gibson entitled "Thinking About the Unthinkable." Her mind is filled with desfiair because she sees death all around her. She represegts the mood of many in our day. fhe killing is unthinkable. Thinking about killing is unbearable. Babies are born and are killed and we think about it. "About it" is not it, is not enough, is not unbearable enough, is still thinkable. Stillborn is enough, but being born and then killed is more than enough, is unthinkable. ? Enough is enough. We are thinking abéut the unthinkable, killing. It is unbearable. We bear babies and we kill them. The babies are thinking about us, somewhere where they are, killed, unborn. They are thinking that we are dead. Because we keep thinking and we keep bearing the unbearable. It is enough. It is too much to bear. It is unthinkable. But we kill and we become dead and we make dead and we are killed and we think and are thought of and it is unbearable. : We do not want to sink down into despair 2Walter Lowenfels, ed., The Writing on the Wall (Garde N Y, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1969), pp. xiii and xvi. n Cit?, but we are, We must not sink down there but we are there already, I think. That is why we keep thinking about the unbearable and bearing the unthinkable. That is because the unborn, stillborn, born but killed babies think ill of us. We cannot stand their 111 will. The force of their thinking about us is sinking us down into despair, is drowning us in our guilt. Tell me how to get out of this, someone. I need someone to help me get out of this poem, We need some baby somewhere perhaps. someone to help us get out of this despair we are sinking into and out of this thinking thing we've gotten into and all this unbearability and out of this poem. Help us get out of this killing, somebody. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has produced a book of'poetry which he entitled A Cdney Island of the Mind. Of the title he writes, "“The title of this book is taken from Henry Miller's Into the Night Life. It is used out of context but expresses the way I felt about these poems when I wrote them--as if they were, taken together, a kind of Coney Island‘of the mind, a kind of circus of the soul."4 1In one of Ferlinghetti's poems he graphically expresses the noncommunicative attitude that goes with depression: 3 In Golden Gate Park that day a man and his wife were coming along thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the w&rld He was wearing green suspenders and carrying an old beat-up flute in one hand while his wife had a bunch of grapes which she kept handing out individually 3Lowenfels, pp. 38-39. 4Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind (New York New Directions Publishing Corp., 1958), p. 8. to various squirrels as if each were a little joke And then the two of them came on thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world and then at a very still spot where the trees dreamed and geemed to have been waiting thru all time for them they sat down together on the grasé and ate orangés without looking aF each:ofiher without looking at each other .and put the peels in a basket whichvthey seemed to have without looking at each other btought foy that purpose And then he took his shift and undershirt off but kept his hat on sideways fell asleep under it and without saying anything And his wife just sat there looking at the birds which flew about calling to each other in the stilly air as if they were questioning existence . or trying ;o recall something forgotten But then finally she too lay down flat and just lay there looking up at nothing yet fingering the old flute which nobody played and finally looking over at him without any particular expression except a certain awful look of terrible depressiond Anne Sexton's book df poems entitled Live or Dievis introduced by her with the statement that " they read like a fever chart for a bad SFerlinghetti, pp. 20-21. 8 case of melancholy."® she quotes André Gide: '"Despite every resolution of optimism, melancholy occasionally wins out: man has decidedly botched up the planet.”"’ One of her poems, '"The Addict," tells of a daily dose of capsules to stay in shape for death. THE ADDICT Sleepmonger, deathmonger, with capsules in my palms each night, eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey. I'm the queen of this condition. I'm an expert on making the Erip and now they say I'm an addict. Now they ask why Why ! ‘- Dén't they know that I promised to die! I'm keeping in practice. I'm merely staying in shape. The pills are a mother, but better, every color and as good as sour balls. I'm on a diet from death. Yes, I admit' it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-- A, blows eight at a time, socked in the eye, hauled away by the pink, the orange, the green and the white goodnights. I'm becoming something of a chemical mixture. That's dt! My supply of tablets has got to last for years and years. I like them more than I like me. Stubborn as hell, they won't let go. It's a kind of marriage. It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside of myself. 6Anne Sexton, Live or Die (Eoston: Houghton Mifflin HL966)Y, ¥ ply it Company, 14 7Sexton, P et Yes Etry to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupation, Actually I'm hung up on it. But remember I don't make too much noise, And frankly no one has to lug me out and I don't stand there in my winding sheet. I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie eating my eight loaves in a row and in a certain order as in the laying on of hands or the black sacrament. It's a ceremony but like any other sport it's full of rules. It's like a musical tennis match where my mouth keeps catching the ball. Then I lie on my altar elevated by the eight chemical kisses. What a lay me down this is with two pink, two orange, two green, two white goodnights. Fee-fi-fo-fum—-- Now I'm borrowed. Now I'm numb.3 Adrienne Rich has written a book of poems published under the title Leaflets. In one of the poems, "The Key," she brings out the feeling of something missipg from life, being on a continuous search, and never quite reaching what is desired: THE KEY Through a drain grating, something glitters and falters, glitters again. A scrap of foil, a coin, a signal, a message from the indistinct piercing my indistinctness? 8Sexton, pp. 85-86. 10 How long I have gone round and round, spiritless with foreknown defeat, in search of that glitter? Hours, years maybe. .The cry of metal on asphalt, on iron, the sudden ching of a precious loss, the clear statement of something missing. Over and over it stops me in my tracks like a falling star, only this is not the universe's loss it is mine. If I were only colder, nearer death, nearer Eirth, I might let go whatever's so bent on staying lost. Why not leave the house locked, to collapse inward among its weeas, the letters to darken and flake in the drawer, the car to grow skeletal, aflame with rust in the moonlit lot, and walk ever after? 0 God I.am not spiritless, but a spirit can be stunned, a battery felt going dead before the light flickers, and I've covered this ground too often with this yellow disc within whose beam all's commonplace and whose limits are described by the whole night.9 Michael E. Eliot Hurst of Simon Fraser University has produced a volume on the modern city entitled I Came to the City. He wants his students to see the city as an entity, a social and cultural place, an economic place, a political place, a place with particfilaf networks of 9Adrienne Rich, Leaflets (Néw York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1969), pp. 34-35. 11 communication and movement. He explores the urban landscape through essays, photographs, and poetry. One of the poems, written by Roger McGough, brings out the impersonalness of urban life and serves as a propfiecy of what the future of the city could become. MOTHER, THE WARDROBE IS FULL OF INFANTRYMEF Mother, the wardrobe is full of infantrymen i did, i asked them but they snarled saying it was a man's life Mother, there is a centurion tank in the parlour i did, i asked the officer but he laughed saying queen's regulations, piano was out of tune anyway Mother, polish your identity bracelet there is a mushroom cloud in the back garden i did, i tried to bring in the cat but it simply came to pieces in my hand i did, i tried to whitewash the windows but there weren't any i did, i tried to hide under the stairs but i couldn't get in for civil defence leaders i did, i tried ringing Candid Camera but they crossed their hearts i went for a policeman but they were looting the town i went out for a fire engine but they were all upside down i went for a priest but they were all on their knees mother don't just lie there say something please mother don't just lie there say something please Many of the modern songs bring out the feeling of human lostness. Silence consists of poems and The book entitled Sounds qf songs about loneliness. Betsy Ryan is the editor. We want to quote two of the songs as modern expressions of loneliness. The first one is by two of the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney: lOMichael E. Eliot Hurst, I Came to the City (Bbston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975), p. 354. 12 NOWHERE MAN He's a real Nowhere Man, Sitting in his Nowhere Land, Making all his nowhere plans for nobody. Doesn't have a point of view; Knows not where he's going to. Isn't he a bit like ygu and me? Nowhere Man, please listen, You don't know what you're missing, Nowhere Man. The world is at your command, He's as blind as he can be; Just sees what he wants to see, Nowhere Man, can you see me at all? Doesn't have a point of view; Knows not where he's going to. Isn't he a bit like you and me? Nowhere Man, don't worry. Take your time; don't hurry. Leave it all ti a hand. ? 11 somebody else lends you He's a real Nowhere Man, Sitting in his Nowhere Land, Making all his nowhere plans for nobody, Making all his nowhere plans for nobody, Making all his nowhere plans for nobody. The other modern song we offer here as a sample expression of the emptiness and meaninglessness many feel is by Will Holt: HOW I FEEL Hard to tell you how I feel Everything is so unreal Lord, but life is a hard thing to get to. Saw my shadow on the wall Saw my love nowhere at all Saw my life as a hard thing to get through; When you're born they carry you When you're gone they bury you 11Betsy Ryan » ed. Sounds of Silence (New York: Scholastic Book Services, ¥1972) ¢ iph 12 13 In between you're on your own Hard to stand there all alone. Someone's crying down the hall Dying cries they tell it all Lord, this life is a hard iging to live And harder still to leave. After this brief review of current poetry and songs we are left with the feeling that Jesus' words of long ago apply very forcibly to our times: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shépherd."13 THE éEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN AN AGE OF TECHNOLOGY Drama;ic strides have been made by modern man in the conquest of his envirénment. The words God addressed to man at cfeation have taken on fantastic‘reality in the twentieth century! "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have doyinion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. nlé Predictions of future technical mastery of the material world, the life processes, and space are mind-boggling. Keen observers of the human condition, however, find that we cannot say that man has mastered himself and the mystery of his own being. Walther Zimmerli rightly states, In the midst of all his technical prowess, he is more than ever engaged in the search for himself. In the last century he could rest secure in a world held together by the great designs of idealist philosophy, but in our day he has been frightened out of this refuge. The terrible awakening of the postwar years created a new hearing for the existentialist dnderstanding of man with its experience of anxiety and vulnerability. What is there about the 12Ryan, p. 45. 13Matthew 9:36; ldgenesis 1:28. 14 nature of man? death Is it not pecularly marked by an existence toward s 4 transiency in which man can only be said really to live in the decision of the moment? historical life beyond the mo Is there any real continuity to ment of decision?ld It is with this kind of background that the question of a future for mankind musF‘be asked anew. Is there a future and a hope for mankind? Science and technology present man not only with vast possi- bilities but also with threats to his existence. This mqod of modern man seems ready for a message of hope. ///A Frenchmap, Jacqpeerllul, in his book Hope in Time of Aban- donment, begins with a detailed analysis of the illnesses ofvmankind at this time in history. His diagnosis can be summarized-by saying that mankind is without hope today. Near the beginning of his book he says: We are living fihrough the experience of a closed world. Never have there been so many openings most stupefying, lightning- > sclentific breakthroughs by the like extensions of technology, the secularization of thou ght and of civilization, the opening of doors to "the cosmos"; yet n so impotent. ever has man felt so closed in, so confined, With the help of intermediar ies he participates in the great human adventure. He watches television. He sees the first steps of "man-in-himself" on the moon. But he is not man-in- himself, He is the white-collar unit » this man in a gray suit whose life mechanically unwinds like the pe rforated roll of an old player- piano. Each turn of the roll is a year and, when deposited every December 31 on the preceding year, obliterates it. The notes played on the piano are the sum of his programmed deeds.l6 Ellul says people have lost hope in the future so they try to concentrate on the present moment. The person of this age no longer has a fixed, sane » and reliable point of reference by which to direct his activities and his life,. He finds it difficult to arrive at some judgment of what he himself is doing and what is being dbne‘around him. lSWalther Zimmerli, Man and His Hope in the 0ld Testament (London: SCM Press, Ltd LT R T 16Jacques Ellul, Hope in Time of Abandonment, C. Edward Hopkin, trans. (New York: Seabury Press, 1973), p. 3. s 1s5 He no longer has a clear and certain criterion for distinguishing the good from the bad. What he is being offered is a compass gone berserk andllights misplaced in the fog. When values have been reversed the person can no longer put any credence in values, There is no fixed landmark for knowing where he is /}n a telling statement he and so he can no longer entertain a hop%,- 7 shows how the feeling Qf futility grips youth and adults: The only difference between the adults wi thout a future and the young people without a conceal from themselves project 1s that the former are at pains to what they are living, while the latter display it brazenly and make it a rule of life. When the young forcefully affirm the irrational » the more so when they live it and operate in the communal manner, when they reject morality as something without foundation and dead, a source of hypocrisy, when they reject reason as stiff, cold » inept, and in fact senseless, when they take the plunge into th e wellsprings of life and claim to open up the secrets of a marvelou s new world, then what they are really doing is unmasking the act ual situation of every person in this society. They: are revealing this irration al which I tried to emphasize above: the contradiction between that which exists objectively and th e way man live s it, experiences it, and feels 1t this man who, the more he is sat lack, iated the more he complains of a the more he is reassured the more he is afraid, etc. These are basically irrational be havior patterns. In ordef to ward off his insecurity, this man dives with his. head down into every religion and belief ® He accepts every myth. But he doesn't want it said openly. He wants to maintain his dignity as a fully evolved man of the twentieth centu ry. If he goes to a fortune- teller and anxiously studies a horoscop This irrational has not been laid b e, he will do it in secret. are by youth intentionally, but their own irrational attitude is itself a laying bare of the inner conflict. They are adults which we are. > in point of fact, the children of the They have revealed to us the cause of our inmost condition. they announce that Bearers of the future because they are young, they are without a future because their fathers have lived without a future, The young, for their part, glory in et They cancel continuity and immerse t hemselves in the present. 7 Our brief look at man in search for identity does not make pleasant reading. Nevertheless, we need a picture of the emptiness of 17E11u1, pp. 14-15. 16 human hearts before we sense‘the desperate need that exiéts for hope. It is at such a time as this that a "school of hépe" has come into being. These theologians are being given an eager hearing by many who want to perceive and share.a message of livipg hope in Qur day. Chapter 3 A STUDY OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO HOPE Hope is a dominant theme of thé Bible. Both the.01d Testgment and the New Testament make many references to it. The Bible can rightfully be called "the book of hope." When St. Paul, addressing the Gentiles, describes their former condition, he uses fhe phrase "fiaving no hope and withofit God in the world. b § "l The same apostle, in another letter, names hope as one of‘the purposes for which the 0ld Testament was written: "For whateyer was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfgstness and by the encou?agement of the scriptures we might have hope."2 Dr. Robert L. Ottley, in a discussion of hope,3 .refers to it as a Scriptural virtue, like faith and love. He feels that in both Teéta; ments hope is based on the revealed character of God; 0 (a) as omnipotent and able to fulfill his promises; (b) as specially pledged to be Savior and Sanctifier of his elect people; and (c) as the righteous moral Governor and Judge of mankind whose ways are destined to be finglly vindicated. The Bible uses the idea of hope as a desire closely related to . faith. Hope is a desire for some future good s accompanied by faith in 1Ephesians 251 2: 2Romans 154445 3Robert Laurence Ottley, DD, "The Christian Hope," Encyclo- pedia of Religion and Ethics (1913), Vol. VI, pp. 779-780. 157/ 18 its eventual realization. The object of both faith and hope is some- thing fihat is not seen. However, whereas faith can be dirécted toward an object in the past, present, or future, hope is directed only to the future, The faith of the 0ld Testament was that God would glorify Israel, and the Gentiles through Israel. The hope of the New Testament is summed up in the faithful expectation Qf the second coming of the glorified Chriét. Christianity was summed up by the Apostle Peter as "the hope that is in you."4 In his article on hope, DF. Robert L. Ottley5 has some important comments based on the Bible's treatment of this subjegt. We fiere briefly summarize what he has to say. The objects of hope differ somewhat in the two Testaments. The hopes of primitive men for mérely temporal gooé were doubtless chastened and purified by the discipline of calamity so that hope became spiritualized. The gospel is the religion of a "better hope" because through it men for the first time enter into intimate fellowship with God. Hope is an expectation of spiritual blessings already realized and potentially conveyed to men in Christ. The object of hope is the highest good. In the Synoptic Goépels, the summum bonum is the Kingdom of God; in the Fourth Gospel, eternal life; in St. Paul's epistles, the righteousness of God; in Hebrews, access to God and unrestricted feliowship with him. All these are different descriptions of one supreme blessing, namely, that spiritual state which results from the very presence of God in the human spir;t. So, in a reél sense, God himself is the supreme object of human hopé. It is of interest and of see?ing pertinence to our treatment of 41 Peter 3:15, S0ttley, pp. 779-780. 19 the subject of hope as emplqyed in the Bible to mention that Dr. Ottley mentions two chief vices opposed to hope: (a) presumptiofi, which‘is an excess of hope and forgets that the promises of.God are not uncondi- tional, and (b) despair, which springs from lack of confidence in God and servile fear. He points out that ;he Hebrew word for despair is an uncommon one (for instance, Ecclesiastes 2:20 and Job 6:26). The Greek word for despair occurs in the New Testament only to be dismissed as not in keeping with the Christian faitfi (II Corinthians 4:8). HOPE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT The idea of hope in the 0ld Testament is conQeyed by several Hebrew words &ith related meanings, rather than words clearly meaning "hope." Inxfact, Walther Zimmer1i® points out that two: lexicons’ conclude that for the verb '"to hope" only a single Hebrew equivalent is identified, namely sbr in the intensive stem. This verb is twice verified as having the meaning "to inspect, examine" in the basic stem form. In the intensive stem the verb has the accent of "waiting, hopeful watching." There are six examples of this usage. In Ruth 1:13 it should be translated "waiting." In the other five instances the emphasis is on "hopeful watching," as in Psalm 145:15.8j Hebrew nouns meaning 'hope" are somewhat more numerous. 6Walther Zimmerli, Man and his Hope in the 0ld Testament (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1971), pp. 4-5. L. Koehler-W. Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Teétamenti libros (Leiden, Germany, 1953), and F. Brown, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the .Old Testament (Oxford, England, 1907, reprinted 1953 and 1957). 8Cf. also Psalm 104:27; Psalm 119:166; Isaiah 38:18; and Esther 9:1. 20 Zimmerli's research'has made clear that we need to be aware of the double usage of the word "hope"': It will be well if first we briefly consider and make clear the double usage of the word "hope" as this is apparent even in any brief introductory explanations of the word. The verb "to hope" and the noun "hope" derived from it point first of all to a human act similar to love and faith. It is an attitude of expectancy which, as the extra-biblical understanding of elpizein demonstrates, can be dealt with in a purely formal manner quite apart from its object, receiving in many cases further content for good or i1l by the object toward which it is directed. On the other hand the noun hope can take on such strong content from the direction in which a man hopes, that his attitude passes over into that which is the object of hope. For example, when a shipwrecked sailor, driven by the sea, catches sight of a life-boat and knows that "this boat is my hope," then all reference to the subjective state of mind of the sailor struggling in the sea is lost. The hope of the man in the water is here so fixed on the approaching instrument of salvation that every- thing else retreats and he identifies that which exists outside himself as his hope, that is, as the peculiar object and content of his hope. Thus statements about hope move linguistically back and forth between these two possible understandings and can in individual cases be confined to one or the other: hope as an attitude within man and hope as something which approaches man, which is projected toward this attitude in man to the point that all thought of his own mental processes is forgotten. From his excellent lexicographic study, Zimmer1ilO draws somé important conclusions which we would like to summarize in this para- graph. The 01d Testament beyond doubt knows something about hépe and speaks of it in various places. However, the 0ld Testament does not have the clearly fixed terminology for "hope" and "to hope" as in the New Téstament words elpis and elpizein. The nearest thing to é fixed concept for "hope" in the 0ld Testament would be the two substantives tiquah and tohelet. Various aspects of the meaning of "hope" exist side by side. 1In the foreground is the aspect of waiting and ta?rying (derivations of the roots quh, y@l, ébr). Viewed as a/human attitude, hope is a waiting, an existence toward that which is to come. The word 9Zimmerli, Dot 4% 10Zimmerli, pp. 7-8. 24 qwh includes the note of eternal strain. The word yhl, "to wait," does not project this kind of tension. It rather presupposes the condition of "not yet" in which a man waits for what is coming and is oriented toward the event of its coming. The word @kh also appears to have this emphasis. The word 'aharzt, "the end," by way of contrast, brings to full expfession the note of the "future moment." The object toward which hope reaches lies at the end of a time.span characterized by the tension of waiting and involves something of result and goal. Another kind of étress is-brought ofit by the words bittahon, "trust," and kiglah, "conf?dence." Here there is the suggestion thatbman, when he hopes, gives himself over to what is coming,.places his trust in it and holds out foF it, wins for himself certitude and even certainty. Zimmerli closes his fine vocabulary study of the 0ld Testament with this statement: - 0ld Testament faith reckons with the future. It is more than just a coincidence that it is precisely the people of the 01d Testament, who far more than any other experienced death and the threat of death again and again, who never gave up hope in the future. The' country which has arisen in our time under the name "Israel", labels its national anthem with the word tiqwah, "hope".ll Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Rengstorfl? provide comments of perti- nence to our study of 0ld Testament references. They point ouF that hope in the 0ld Testament is always looking for something good. As long as man lives he hopes.l3 To have hope and to have a future are an indication that a man is in the state of well-being. This Hope is fixed llZimmerli, Pl 0 12Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Heinrich Rengsforf, "The Concept of Hope in the 0ld Testament," Bible Key Words (1971), Vel..V, pp. 8-13. 13They cite Ecclesiastes 9:4 which reads, "But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a 1i ldon ! i ving dog is better than a deadA 22 on God. It can be said that God is the hope and the confidence of the godly.14 while at first Goq' s help is expected to relieve actual trouble, it is considered more and more to be the eschatological help which brings all troubles to an end.l5 . We conclude this study of the idea of hope in the 01d Testament by listing references which the Revised Standard Versidp of the Bible translates "hope," "hoped," "hopeless," or '"hopes" according td Nelson's 2 Concordance:16 "Hope " 8:13 "Ruth 1:12; Ezra 10:2 ; Job 3:9, 4:6, 5:16, 6:19, 7:6, JLILBILE 11:20 135S 14:7 14:19 17:15,/19:10 27:8 Psalms 9:18 8317 i85 22 39:7 42:5 62:5 s 41:9; 78:7, 116+1T, 119:43 49 655 89:655 75 14 146:5 81 114 116 147 166 130:5 s 313 147! b Proverbs 10:28 11" 13:12 19:18 b 23:18 26:12, 29:20; E s 24548 Jeremiah 14:8, cclesiastes 9:4; Isaiah 8317552025 +p38:18, 5115 14:22, 17413, 29410, %81%17 507 Lamentations 3:21, 24, 29; Ezekial 19:5, 37:11; Hosea 2:15; Zecharia hi9:172. "Hoped": Esther 9:1 "Hopeless"': ; Psalm 119:74; Isaiah 20:6. Isaiah 57:10; Jeremiah 2:25. "Hopes'': Psalm 62:10; Jeremiah 23:16; Zechariah 9:5. HOPE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT The Greek words for fiope iq the New Testament are elpizoo and elpts. The verb elpizoo means "hope, hope for; hope in, expect." The noun elpis means "hope > ground or basis of hope; what is hoped for."17 14Two good examples of this are Jer emiah 17:7 ("Blessed is the man who trusts in the I ord, whose trust is in the Lord.") and Psalm 71 ("For thou, O Lord » art my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.") In substantiation of t his point Bultmann and Rengstorf cite the following passages: Isaiah 25:9, 26:8 31:16f.; Micah 7:7 ;5 and Psalm 46:2. s 30:15, 51:5; Jeremiah 29501805 16Nelson's Com (New York: Thomas Nels plete Concordance of the Revised Standard Version on & Sons, 1957), pp. 844-885. l7Barclay J. Newman, Jr., A Concise Greek- English Dictionary.of the New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1971), p. 58} 23 There is a fine word study in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament18 on which the following remarks are largely based, although adapted»fOr our particular purpose. The New Testament concept of hope is essentially determined by the 01d Testament. Only where it is a matter of secular hope do we see the element of expectation charac— teristic of the Greek world s and always in such a way ;hat ifi is expec- tation of something welcome. The Gree% word elpizein means expectation with the nuance of counting upon. An example of this is Luke 6:34, "And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much‘again."19 There is a stronger accent on hoping in Luke'23:8; Acts 24:26, 27:20; and even more clearly in Romans 1524 1 Cor?nthians 16:7; Philippians-2:19, 23; Philemon 22; II John 12; and III John 14. I n I Corinthians 13:7 hope, like love, is obviously directed to men, although for Paul this attitude rests on the corresponding.relationship to God > as shown by the natural transition from the one to the other in verse 13. Hope fixed on God embraces at once the three elements of gxpec— tation of the future, trust, and the patience of waiting. According to Romans 4:18, when we can no longer count on controllable factors we have to trust in the divine futufe. The term elpizein has the element of sure confidence in such passages as I Corinthians 15:19; II Corin- thians 1:10; Philippians 1:20; and I Peter I The main stress is on 18 Gerhard Kittel, ed Lot) Geoffrey W. Bromile&, trans. Dictionary of the New Testament Theological (1971), Vol. II, pp. 517-535 ° l9See also I Corinthians 3:14; and Acts 16:19. 9:10; II Corinthians 8:5; I Timothy 24 patient endurance in Romans 5:4-5; I Thessalonians 5:8; and Hebrews bl Christian hope rests on the divine act of salvation accomplished in Christ. Since this is an eschatological hope, hope itself is an eschatological blessing. The waiting which is part of elpis is effected by the Holy Spirit as the gift of the last'time. It rests on the pistis (faith) in the act of salvation (Galatians 5:5). Being in elpis in Romans 8:24 is immediafely afterward described as being borne along by the prnewna (Spirit), verse 26. It is interesting to note that the word eZpis is almost completely lgcking in John. As hope dirécted to the future consummation it occurs only in I John 3:3. What is denoted by elpis can be included in pistis, "faith, trust, belief"20 and this is characteristic of John. The fact that elpis is not found in Revelation can cause astonishment only if we fail to realize that the idea of hope is included in the concept hupomonee, "patient endurance, steadfastness, perseverance.'2l Where the Jewish emphasis is strong the element of waiting for the eschatolbgical future is prominent. This is somewhat paradoxical since the Christian elpis is itself an eschatological blessing because it sees the 0ld Testament,hope fulfilled in the mission of Jesus. This appears most clearly in Matthew 12:2122 and I Peter 1:3. This is also seen in passages like Colossians 1:27 and I Timothy 1:1 where Christ is described as our elpis. Dr. Robert L. Ottley includes some helpfgl and sfimmary remarks 21 20Newman, Pias L4BE Newman, p. 189. 22Here Isaiah 42:4 is referred to Jesus. 25 about references to hope in the New Testament when he writes: The hope of the Christian is a "good hope" (II Thessalonians 2:16), a "blessed hope" (Titus 2:13 )s a "hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27), a "hope of righteousness " (Galatians 5:5), of "salvation" (I Thessalonians 5:8)of eternal life" (Titus 3:7). It is an expectation of spiritual blessin conveyed to man in Christ. gs already realized and potentially Nay, Christ Himself is "our hope" (I Timothy 1:1), the living pledge that the divine promises of life, immortality, and glory will find their fulfillment for all who are lovingly united to Him. because it is an earnest His resurrection is the ground of hope of the fulfillment of man's destiny (T peter 1:3, 21).23 We conclude this stfidy of references to hope in the New Testament with a listing of words translated "hope,” "hoped," and "hopes" in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible‘as given in Nelson's Concqrdance:24 "Hope'': Matthew 12:21; Luke 6:34 ; John 5:45; Acts 2:26, 16:19, 17:27, 23:6, 24:15, 26:6, T 2732005 2 8:20; Romans 4:18, 5:2, Siehs, 5, 81220, 24, .25 § 1 2N Lo5chg 12, 136 24 ;3 I Corinthians 910, 13 1635, 165 197 16 e Galatians 5:5; Ephesians 1:18 IT Corinthians 1:7, 10, L35 32 00 5 14F 11021 58 13:6; s 2:12, 4:4;/Philippians 1:20, 2:19, 2:23; Colossians 1:5, 235217 3 I Thessalonians 1:3, 2:19, 4:13, 5:8; IT Thessalonians 2:16; I Timo (Elasy BEBTL A Sladld 41055k 5 Tituswili:2, 2:13, 3:7; Hebrews 3:6, (GRILIE L85 19, :7:19 » 10:23; I Peter 1:3, 1.3% 21 = 3 SN o hn LLeN2s TS Johnt 16:04. "Hoped": I8 Petiern 8i5t. Luke 24:21; Acts 24:26; Ephesians 1:12; Hebrews 11:1; "Hopes"': L ohn 373, Romans 8:24;‘1 Corinthians 13:7, I Timotfiy (825741 230ttley, pp. 779-780. 24Nelson's Complete Concordance of the Revised Standard Version (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1957), pp. 884-885. . & \Chapter 4 THE EMERGENCE OF "THE SCHOOL OF HOPE" Walter Capps uses the term "school of hope" whe?, in his book, The Future of Hope,l he spegks of those people who today hold an attitude that is preoccupied with the future. He feels tha# the specifics of that interest in the future were inspired by a book, Das Prinzip Hoffnung; written during thg 1940's by Ernst Bloch.2 Other books that are a part of th;s movement are future oriented. They use image language to show that hope and imagination are tied togéther. The Western world has been receptive toward these investigations, proposals, and discussions of the future. There have been a consi&erable number of symposia or "hope conferences" recently. Walter Capps further points out that the World Couficil of Churches chose as its theme for thg 1968 international conference in Uppsala, Sweden, the biblicalvstatement, "Behold, I make.all things new." One reason for the emergence of a "school of hope" is that people everywhere in this nuclear age seem to realize that the human future dare not be allowed to become a product of accident, cfiance, or arbitrary will. "Men sense that unless the future can be planned, unless human responsibility possesses a creative function with_respect lWalter H. Capps, The Future of Hope (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, TROIZ AN 5 Spre A1, 2Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip fioffnung (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1959). 26 27 to that future, there may be no future at all for mankind,"3 Industrial managers are aware of the fact that we need more than technology to build a good future for mankind. Contributors to the book The Dynamics e e Sl o [¢) f Change say, Because we have now arrived at a stage in our development 5/ e shortly will arrive there, where our most pressing problems are not technological, but political and social--we can achileve the world that we want by working together at it Another reason given for the emergence of the school of hope is the recent stress in biblical'theology upon eschatology and apocalyp- ticism. Eéchatoiogy is seen again as uniqge to the early Christian kerygma (proclamation). It.brings back the idea that the'Chfistian life is a pilgrimage toward a.longed—for destination. A third stimulus to thg emergence of the schoo% of hope is the increased acceptance of process philosophy. This attitude moves away from the "other-worldliness" of much of Christian thinking to an openness to time and change. It is a willingness to take "this world" more seriously. It is felt that this brings us nearer to the funda- mental direction of New Testament Christianity. An interesting feature of the school of hope is that it finds an affinity with some of the principlgs of Marxism. Walter Cappg sgmma— rizes these parallel lines of emphasis in the following paragraph: At bottom, many of the roots of Marxism are the same as those of the school of hope. Both accept Feuerbach's criticism of religion, for example, especially the side of it which judges "other- worldliness" to be an obstacle to human progress. Both sense that the perpetuation of the heaven syndrome has served to keep men poor 3Capps, Pritd 4Don Fabun, The Dynamics of Chan Had B S1\9.6.78) 550 Dis 105 ge (Englewood Cliffs: Prent?ce— 28 by reconciling them to their earthly poverty. Both believe that the restriction of salvation to the life beyond the grave implies the obviation of human hope. Each is sensitive to the plight of the underprivileged. And each proposes that the underprivileged cannot be emancipated unless they are also rescued from de pendence upon obsolete theologisms. Each repudiates the privatization of the benefits of religion. Each associates salvation with of corporate alienation, an overcoming an alienation which is apparent in societal class conflicts. Yet each judges traditional patterns of Christian belief to be a source--rather than a medi same alienation.?> ator or moéerator—-of that ~We turn now to a brief study of three of the most prominent figures involved in the school of hope: Ernst Bloch, a Marxist revisionist; Johannes B, Metz, a Roman Cathoiic representative of the movement; and Jurgen Moltmann, the Protestant propongnt of this movement, thse major works will be treated at considerable length in the next two chapters. THE INFLfiENCE OF ERNST BLOCH Ernst Bloch is présently on the philosophical faculty of the University of Tfibingen. He is one of the most listened-to Marxist theorists, He speaks for a revised form of Marxist tradition. These revisions, for which he is largely responsible, have made that tradition more attractive to those who speak on behalf of the Christian faith. It is of interest to note that Walther Zimmerli introduces his book on hope in the 0ld Testament’ by saying that Bloch's passionate utterances about the "principle of hope" have compelled the student of the 0ld Testament to give a fresh account of the basis of statements abogt hfipe in the Bible.® Knowing Ernst Bloch has caused theologiaps to have their own 5Capps, Pold: bWalther Zimmerli, Man and his Hope in the 0l1d Testament (London: SCM Press Ltd., 197155 ip-aiac. . 29 tradition refreshed He provides imaginative horizons which have not been present in such resourceful comblnations. Theologians have been enabled to perceive possibility in the Marxist Stratagem instead of nothing but fear-evoklng threats, Bloch makes extensive use of .the Exodus theme, To him man is a hoping animal with a desire for a home which is not yet. His pilgrimage is a kind of mystique of transcendence which is always rooted in the world of ever- restive change. He uses images in keeping with the apoca- lyptic mode. Ludwig Feuerbach another Marxist had disapproved of daydreaming because he considered it 2 substitute for work Bloch sees daydreaming as an instrument for reconcillatlon. He is also much more open to dlscussion with religious thlnkers than were his predecessors. Walter Capps is among those who feel that there mlght not be a school of hope, or even a theology of hope, if it were not for the work of Ernst Bloch.’ A SUMMARY OF THE WRITINGS OF JOHANNES B. METZ Johannes B. Metz isg dean of the Catholic faculty and professor of theology in the University of Munster, West Germany. He is the foremost spokesman within the school of hope. He is not satisfied with simply theorizing about the future, He feels that the future comes through creative militant action, To him " the future is essentially a reality which does not yet exist, which has never been: the 'new' in the proper sense of the word. "8 L e Seées pure contemplation as referring to what has already come into existence or still exists, This is not 7Capps, p. 19 8Quoted by Capps, p. 25 30 sufficient regarding the future in his estimation. The relationship to the future is an operative one for him. Metz claims that the Christian has no more knowledge of the future than others. Only a creatively actional stance will mediate the future. This requires the role of "suffering servant" or the "being for others'" which Bonhoeffer stressed. [ Like other hope theclogians, Metz has a distinct political tone .in his proposals. He agrees’yith Marx's statement that philosophers have merely interpreted the world in various ways but that what is necessary is to change it. His is a theology of change. This is a revolutionary principle and is by.its very nature anti-establishment. This gdes‘farther than the reform and-renewal called for ?y the Vatican Council which used the key word "aggiorna- mento,' ' which refers to the revitalization of a Iong~sthnding reality. Revolution, on the other hand,>calls for a mechanism which accelerates the death of an existing system. Vatican II with its proposals‘for church renewal has allowed Metz to spend his energies in the direction A of political concerns. He feels that the privatization and individu- alizing of religion tends to neglect the socio-political world. Metz has given much attention to modern man's inability to conceive of salvation as being something "above him' rather than under- standing it more realistically to be out in front of him as a prospect for mankind's good. He feels that an active, operative, even revolu- tionary orientation to the future is necessary if a be;ter world 1is to be accomplished. He feels that the Christian fai;h belofigs to this context, that all of it must be reqast with sensitivity to this context, and that current biblical scholarship confirms the primacy of this contextual framework. Based on biblical materials, Metz outlines his 31 creative, militant eschatology in terms of the ways in which Christian hope is formative in building the promised city of God. He says the realization of the vision of hope is dependent upon an.alleQiation of oppressive social conditions. "Salvatiofi, properly conceived, has reference to the realization of justice in society and peace throughout the world, "9 ine believes with Bonhoeffer that what makes a Christian is a "style of life" rather than something cognitive, mental Si O intellectual. He contends that brotherly love is the stance necessary for a sensitivity to things future. His biblical basis is I John 3:14, "We know that we have passed out of death to life, because we love the brethren." How does Metz see the role of the church in his emphasis on action? He wants it to be the agency which carries out: the necessary criticisms against present-day society instead of being a haven for those who are cultivating personal salvation strategies. He feels the church is in a position to do this because it has no particular social ideology of its: own. In his essay on "Religion and Society in the Light of a Political Theology" he writes: In the pluralistic society, it cannot be the socio-critical attitude of the church to proclaim one positive societal order as an absolute norm. It can only consist in announcing in and to this society the message of a critical, liberating content. The church's task here is not the elaboration of a system of social d octrine, but of social criticism. The church is a particular institution in society, yet presents a universal claim. If this claim is not to be an ideology, it can only be formulated and urged as eriticism. In short, Metz places Christians under the obligation to join alter H. Capps, Time Invades the Cathedral (Philadelphia: vFortress Bressis 197235 . 78. 10Essay included in Capps, The Future of Hope, pp. 152—153._ 32 worship of God with action toward the realization of freedom, peace, and justice in the world JURGEN MOLTMANN'S PLACE AMONG THE HOPE THEOLOGIANS Jurgen Moltmann is presently professor of theology at Tubingen University where he received his doctorate. He has served on the faculty at Bonn University and has been visiting professor at Duke University. His book Theology of Hopell had an important part in launching the hope movement. In his preface to Origins of the Theology of Hope, M. Douglas Meeks writes: It is difficult to imagine any theology in the near future which could function without being consciously or unconsciously influenced by Jurgen Moltmann's "theology of hope." It can be said that he has created a distinctive sensibility for current theological debates. Perhaps it will be said in the future that he has initiated a new theological era By appropriating and reinvigorating many repressed themes of the biblical and church traditions, Moltmann's theology has opened up a vast new era of theological reflection and has pointed the way to new options in the practice of Christian faith Moltmann himself has indicated the corrective, experimental, and heuristic nature of his theology For him, heology is a science which assists Christians in dwelling in the particular memories and promises of our past as we focus on what God has promised in his future in order to transform our present in correspondence to that future. With this confluence of eschatological and practical orientations, the theology of hope augurs a significant transformation in the task of theology as a science. Moltmann was influenced greatly by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Both of these men saw man and the world split between what is and what ought to be. Moltmann sees clearly that if religion is to survive it needs to do so at the expense of Western culture and not by llJurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, James W. Leitch, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). 12y, Douglas Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope (Phila- delpha: Fortress Press, 1974), p. xiii. » 33 forming a partnership with it. He sees the New Testament as an apoca- lyptic book. Of the New Testament and its relationship to Moltmann's theology Walter Capps writes: It is an apocalyptic book because the first Christians were an apocalyptic and eschatological community. Moltmann noted this, and he seized upon the correlation. The theology of hope seems to have been born, then, when Jfirgen Moltmann fashioned the instrumentation with which to tie a dominant twentieth century mood to earliest Christianity. He detected their common apocalyptic and eschato- logical sources. He found in the New Testament the materials by which systematic theology ,could be reconstructed according to the thrust of mid-twentieth century, postwar religious aspirations.l3 Moltmann: has alsb been influenced by writings of Marxists, especially Feuerbach and Bloch. He too has much sympathy for oppressed peoples. He‘shares the conviction that oppression is the direct result of heirarchical thinkingvand that the heirarchy serves as an instrument to maintain the authority of the highborn, well-positioned, and fortu- nately endowed. He agrees with Feuerbach's interpretation that the heirarchical "God" is employed to support the oppression of the poor.l4 Moltmann understands his theological position to be an articu- lation of an old emphasis in Christianity. Although he makes much of the New Testament, he.goes all the way back to the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. He draws most of his historical cues from the great historian, Adolf von Harnack, of the University of Berlin. As Harnack interfireted the fiistory of the Christian church, there was a radical difference in the motivations which pervaded the first Christian communities and those which came to prevail after that initial period had come to an end. Harnack believed the difference was one of fundamental intention, and also of basic temperament. The earliest Christians had been living in the expec— tation of the kingdom of God; however, after.generations had gone by 13Capps, Time Invades the Cathedral, p. 46, 14 Capps, p. 49. 34 without witnessing the realization of the kingdom, their counter- parts in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries tended to give more attention to the perpetuation of the institutional: church. The sign of that shift was the systematic interest that Christians devoted to matters of belief, thought, and social structure. In Harnack's view, the simplicity of the Christian kerygma, the gospel whose central feature had to do with the coming of the kingdom of God, had eventually given way to concern for "Christianity" (the phenomenon which occurred when Greek thought and language forms were imposed upon New Testament religious affirmations).l5 With Harnack, Moltmann sees Luther as a force trying to recover the purity and simplicity of the earlier kerygma after it had been in bondage to formal and systematic portrayal for so many qenturies. Luther was one of the champions of fundamental, neo-primitive Chris- tianity. Other heroes have kept the truth alive‘thrOugh the éenturies. Moltmann likes to say that the vision of the first Christians did not disappear after the first commgnity was replaced by others; it merely went underground. It has flourished there until today ;hen it has once again surfaced in very dramatic fashion. To Moltmann it is a sign of hope that oppressed peoples are ndw participating in an exodus. He sees the church's main function to be the challenging of the status quo so that life can be kept flowing and free. His writings set forth a program of social action and cultural work. The church is to prevent any institufiional stabilizing‘of.things. It is to be the vanguard of the future movement. It is to form and guide change. The kerygma of the New Testament is for him a "political hermeneutic." The gospel of the early Christian community was not an optun for suffering people, but a protest against real affliction. For him the cross is a confirmation of the reality of suffering against which the resurrection is an event of protest. 15Capps, Time Invades the Cathedral, pp. 51-52. » 35 When we understand the cross of Christ in this connection as an "expression" of real human affliction, then the resurrection of Christ acquires the significance of the true "protest" against human affliction. Consequently, the missionary proclamation of the cross of the resurrected one is not an opium of the people which intoxicates and incapacitates them, but the ferment of new freedom. It leads to the awakening of that revolt which in the "power of the LA resurrection, as Paul expresses it, fecllows the categorical imperative to overthrow all conditions in which man is a being who labors and is heavily laden. Paul has done this for his time, when religion and idols repressed mankind, with the gospel of free justification. The theology of hope, as it finds expression in Moltmann, is a The world is in theology of the cross, a theology of suffering. subjection. He turns again and again to Romans 8 where the creation is pictured as groaning in travail, waiting its time of adoption, having been subjectéd by the Creator in hope, a hope which is attached to something not yet seen. IDEAS FROM CALVIN AND LUTHER THAT ARE REFLECTED IN MOLTMANN'S EMPHASIS Moltmann frequently quotes two of the Reformation giants, Calvin and Luther. We' offer here some excerpts from their writings that stress facts brought out in Moltmann's theology. The first two passages are selected by William F. Keesecker from Calvin's Institutesyof the Christian Religion. The first is under the heading of "Hope": Although, therefore, Christ offers us in the gospel a present fullness of spiritual benefits, the enjoyment thereof ever lies hidden under the guardianship of hope, until, having put off corruptible flesh, we be transfigured in the glory of him who goes before us.l7 l6J{;rgen Moltmann, Religion, Revolution and the Future, M. Douglas Meeks, trans. P. 96. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,.1969) 17William F. Keesecker, ed., A Calvin Treasury. Selections from Institutes of the Christian Religion (New York: Harper & Brothers, 196191 P 61 36 Under the heading of "Death'" Keesecker lists the following from Calvin's writings: Whatever kind of tribulation presses upon us, we must ever look to this end: to accustom ourselves to contempt for the present life and to be aroused thereby to meditate upon the future life, ° ° ° But let believers accustom themselves to a contempt of the present life that engenders no hatred of it or ingratitude against God. Indeed, this life, however crammed with infinite miseries it may be, is still rightly counted among those blessings of God which are not ° ° ° to be spurned. And this is a much greater reason if in it we reflect that we are in preparation » SO to speak, for the glory of the Heavenly Kingdom,l18 Hugh Thomson Kerr, Jr., quotes Calvin on the ?elationship between faith an& hope: Hope is no other than an expectation of those things which faith has believed to be truly promised by God. Thus faith believes the veracity of God, hope expects the manifestation of it in due time; faith believes him to be our Father, hope expects him always to act towards: us in this character; faith believes that eternal life is given to us, hope expects it one day to be revealed; faith is the foundation on which hope rests, hope nourishes and sustains faith.l9 In his A Compend of Luther's Theology, Kerr offers selections from Luther's writings under the title of "The Christian Hope'': Looking at the Christian community with the eye of human reason and reflectdion, no more wretched, tormented, persecuted, unhappy people are in evidence on earth than those who confess and glory in Christ the crucified. In the world they are continually persecuted, tormented and assailed by the devil with all manner of w retchedness, misfortune, distress and death. Even to their own perceptions, it seems as if they surely are forgotten and forsaken by God in the sight of mankind. For he allows them to remain prostrate under the weight of the cross, while others in the world, particularly their persecutors, live in the enjoyment of honor and fortune, of happiness, power and riches, with everything moving to the fulfilment of their desires. The Scriptures frequently deplore this condition of things, especially the Psalms, and Paul in First Corinthians 15:19 confesses: "If we have only hopgd in Christ in 18Keesecker, pPp. 63-64, f. 19Hugh Thomson Kerr, Jr., ed., A Compend of the Institutes of Christian Religion by John Calvin (Philadel Christian Education, 1939), p. 94. phia: Presbyterian Board-of 37 tshi s kel we are of all men most pitiable." Now, assuredly this state of aff airs cannot continue without end; it cannot be God's intention to permit Christians thus to suffer continually whi le they live, dead. to die because of it and remain It would be incompatible with his eternal, divine truth and honor manifest in his Word. God of the pious, of them who For there he declares he will be the fear and trust him, and gives them unspeakable promises. Necessarily, then, he has planned a future state for Christians and for non- unlike what they know on earth. Christians, in either instance Later under the same heading of "The Christian Hope," he quotes the following statement: Those who are not Christians w evils, in the contem ill find small comfort, amid their plation of future blessings; since for them all these things are unc ertain, famous emotion called hope, Although much ado is made here by that of human comfort by which we call on each other,, in words » to look for better times, and continually plan greater things f or the uncertain future Even as Christ teaches conce » yet are always deceived rning the man in the Gospel 9 Luke xii, who said to his soul, "I will pull down my barns, and b and will say to my sou o8 Soult uild greater; thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be requir then whose shall ed of thee; and those things be which thou hast pr ovided? So is he that layeth up tr easure for himself > and is not rich toward God." Nevertheless, God has not so ut terly forsaken the sons of men that He will not grant them some me asure of comfort in thig hope of the passing of evil and the coming of good things. Though they are uncertain of the future, yet they h ope with certain hope, and hereby they are meanwhile buoyed up, lest falling into the further evil of despair, they should break dow some worse thing. n under their present evil, and do Hence, even this sort of ho pe is the gift of God; not that He would have the attention to that firm hop m lean on it, but that He would turn their e, which is in Him alone.2l Two selections which Kerr places under the heading bf "The Last Day" seem appropriate to quote for our purpose here, I hope that the day is near at hand when God will appear, for all thin the advent of the great gs everywhere are boiling, burning{ moving, falling, sinking, groaning, 22 When at the last da y we shall live again, we shali blush for shame, and say to ourse lves: "fie on thee, in that thou hast not been more courageous, bold 3 andvstrong to believe in Christ, and to 2OKerr, PP. 236-237,. 21Kerr, p. 240. 22Kerr, Da 205 38 endure all manner of adversities, crosses, and persecutions, seeing his glory is so great. If I were now in the world I would not stick to suffer ten thousand times more." 3 Although these references to Calvin and Luther are necessarily brief they help to demonstrate that much of Moltmann's theological thought is based on Reformation theology 23Rerr, p. 248 . Chapter 5 JGRGEN MOLTMANN AND HIS THEOLOGY We come now to a high point ifi this dissertatiog as we take up the work of the modern theologian, Jurgen Moltmann. We will take a brief look at his background,vexamine the emphasis of three of the teachers that influenced him most, summarize his major book, and then call attention to other books of his that are available in English, HIS BACKGROUND There is very little ipformation on the backgroPnd of Moltmann. We must content ou;selves with rather incidental references made to this N, phase of his life in several books. In his Foreword tb Origins of the Theology of Hope he refers to life in his parents' home in this way: With the eye of memory I see myself as a boy gazing out of the window of his parents' home upon the forests which cross the distant horizon of northern Germany. There the flatlands are wide and the heavens broad. There the horizon is a boundary which does not confine but rather invites one to go on beyond. That boy was filled with curiosity about what was on the other side of the horizon. It was from that early experience of the distant horizon that he developed this yearning for what lies beyond, for what is new and different. The horizon beckoned him to set out and travel--as Nietzsche, Gadamer, and Husserl put it--and the beckoning of the horizon has continued to fascinate him. There was something of the religious about this long-ago experience. God is the one who accompanies us and beckons us to set out. In the same Foreword he gives us some insight into motivations IM. Douglas Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope (Phila- delphia: Fortress Press, 1974), p. X. 39 40 for his emphasis on hope when he describes his experience in a prisone? of war camp. It would certainly be of interest to know more about the circumstances that brought him there and the length of fime referred to in this statement: As 1 continue to look back I see a young prisoner of war interned in an English camp. His horizon there is the barbed wire, even though the war had been over for some time. His path is one which curves in a circle around the edges of the barbed wire. Freedom lies beyond--out there where people live and laugh. To be sure, this prisoner was not in a morgue, as was Dostoevski in Siberia, Externally, at any rate, the internment camp was bearable. But hope rubbed itself raw on the barbed wire! A man cannot live without hope! I saw men in the camp who lost hope. They simply lay down, took ill, and died. When life's hopes flounder and crack up, a sadness beyond comforting sets in. But on the other hand, hope disturbs and makes one restless. One can no longer be content with his situation, with the way things are. Every little thing becomes a prison. One lives only for repatriation. That's all one dreams of. One becomes moody, impatient, often cynical, One cannot live--often, not even survive--without hope. But even this hope becomes the prisoners' tormentor. Hope turns their’ suffering to pain and their imprisonment to torment. The prisoner experienced an inner conversion when he gave up hope of getting home soon, and in his yearning he rediscovered that deeper "hope against hope." Hope made him free to accept, even laugh at the barbed wire, and to discover in his fellow prisoners human beings whose company he enjoyed, with whom he could be happy even in suffering. An American periodical once stated that the theology of hope was born in a prisoner of war camp. Autobiographically speaking, I believe it may have been correct. But the hope that was born there was not that painful, disturbing hope, but rather a deeper, liberating hope which works through love. The third personalbreferenge regarding his background deals with his feelings after he returned home following the war and took up his studies in theology. Still lookingbback, I see myself as a young student of theology who had returned home in 1948 with the hope for a new, more humane Germany, and for a liberated, liberating church of Christ. This student sat at the feet of Gerhard von Rad, Ernst Kasemann, Hans Joachim Iwand, Ernst Wolf, and Otto Weber at the University of GOttingen. There he imbibed the theology of the Confessing Church, 2Meeks, PP. x-xi. 41 inspired by Karl Barth and preserved throughout the years of struggle between the church and the Nazi state. The survivors of my generation came into the lecture halls from hospitals and prisoner of war camps inwardly shattered, their flesh bearing all the marks of war. A liberal, bourgeois theology would never have gotten through to us. But we learned the origin of the Christian faith in the suffering of him who was crucified and in the liberating power of the risen Christ. That is what gave us ground to stand on, what gave us a critical consciousness over against religious illusions that merely bore the name of Christian. During the post-war period we were, politically speaking, opposed to the restoration of things as they had been. So far as the church was concerned, we turned to renewal movements. I experienced the difficulty of this struggle between restoration and renewal out of the true origin while I was the pastor of a small congregation. At that time restoration meant a denial or suppression of the memory of Germany's terrible past, and of the many accommodations of the church to the rule of the Beast. Renewal meant for us the acknowledgment of our guilt and a new hope born of forgiveness. We could withstand the crucifying experiences of life only through faith in the vicarious suffering and death of Christ our brother, and in the freedom conferred by his resurrection. That is what made us so Christocentric. - Barth's theology was simply the first and most enlightening formulation of faith in such experiences. That is why we didn't become Barthians, but with gratitude went beyond him toward the eschatological, toward the theology of the cross, and toward a politically critical theology.3 Maryellen Muckenhirn in The Future as the Presence of Shared Hope refers to Moltmann as "a brilliant figufe among younger Eurbpean theologians" and says he "has been called 'the theologian of hope. '"4 She goes on to tell us that His first academic appointment came in 1958 as Professor of Systematic Theology and History of Theology at Wuppertal. Subsu- quently, he held posts at Bonn University and is currently at Tubingen University. During the 1967-68 academic year he was visiting professor at Duke University, North Carolina. Dr. Moltmann is co-editor of Evangelische Theologie, Verkun- digung und Forschung, and Begegnung mit Polen. He is a member of the Synode der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, of the Marxismum-Kommission, of the Oekumenische Arbeitskreis, and of the 3Meeks, pp. xi-xii. 4Maryellen Muckenhirn, ed., The Future as the Presence of Shared Hope (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), p. 9. 42 Paulus-Gesellschaft.? Another very moving reference to himself came out in a panel discussion between himself, Emil Fackenheim, and Johannes Metz with Walter Capps as moderator. We include it bere because it expresses some deep personal feeling;'of the man whose theology we are studying. The title of the panel discussion was "Hope--After Auschwitz and Hiroshima?" When I learned of the theme "Hope--After Auschwitz and Hiroshima?" I decided for my par t to be completely silent here, because I am a German and I am a theologian, and I have no answer to this, no explanation, no justification, only a deep feeling of shame, It is very difficult and terrifying to live with the dead of Auschwitz if you are a German, that is, to live with guilt, and with such an amount of guilt that it cannot be overcome with repentance, When I paid a visit to Poland and saw the places of execution, I heard the silent crying for God and his comin g--nothing more. For my part, I would like to enter into the commu nity of those who have No answers, but questions, and who have n CIYi o explanations, but only a When going throu gh this experience I felt like I wanted to sink into the floor, because it is impossible to go' through this experience and have a standpoint anywhere. The feeling is one of sinking into nothingness, Then I was perhaps, of Christ's descent into hell reminded of the meaning, > and I thought about the hope for the resurrection of the dead, and for justice, and this spoke to me. Since pgrsonal notes are rare in the numerous writings of a theologian like Jfirgen Moltmann, it may be of interest to the reader for us. to include a final reference of this type here. It 1sbcontained in the Foreword to Walter H. Capps' book, Time Invades the Cathedral. Here Moltmann expresses some of his feelings regarding the limitations of his work, as he sees it s, and gives a brief description of inadequacy Be as a theologian feels in the presence of God: The theologians of hope know perfectly well that their theology 5Muckenhirn, 12 ) bWalter H. Capps, The Future of Hope (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), PP. 95-96. 43 is at best a passageway, a bridge, a transitional stage s possibly even a tiny light on the path from exodus to the promis ed land. They do not presume to think that what the needs to be said. y are saying is all that Their theology--to use an analogy--may give the soup its savor, but it is not the whole broth. Their emphasis on hope must therefore remain open to fresh evaluat ions of remembrance. Their political theology, while intended as an antidote against pious withdrawal into the private life of the believer, does not mean to exclude the indispensable ‘personal dimension which belongs to faith itself. Their activism is dire religious and secular, cted against apathy, both but not against joy in living, adoration, meditation, and ascetic ways of life. Hence there are bound to be further surprises in store as this part icular theological style continues to take new turns. Capps makes some perceptive sugges- tions along this line. I should like to close with a brief personal note. Ernst Bloch's Das Prinzip Hoffnung has, of course, made a deep impression on me and I am greatly indebted to its auth or for many insights. But the theology of hope was in my thoughts—- and writings--long before that. After all s studying under Hans-Joachim Iwand, Ernst Kgsemann, and Arnold van Ruler was bound to have an effect on me. One cannot judge a theologian exclusively in terms of his mentor s, but neither ical expression, should one judge him wholly in terms of his philosoph While that is incidental matter. vimportant too, it is a ?glatively A real theologian is like Jacob wrestli Jabbok. ng the angel at thé Rilke put it this way: How small, that with which we wrestle, But how great, that which wrestles with us. 3 It always seems to me as if the theme and subject matter with whic theology has to do is "that which wrestles with us,” and that we theologians are like Jacob: we emerge from the struggle beaten and limping. That is why our best theology is " that Greater One. "imperfect, shattered by And that is why theology is at best only a direc- tional indicator, p ointing to the mysterious God who draws us to him, drives us on, and continually eludes all our concepts, images, and symbols. Deus semper major! TEACHERS WHO INFLUENCED HIM In an effort to study a great theologian like Moltmann we need to give consideration to the genius of his teachers. Ihe heart of the theology of hope is the dialectic of reconciliatipn. It is a theory- practice aimed at the reconciliatiop of thdse realities which are most TWalter H. Capps, Time Invades the Cathed ral (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), pp. xiii-xiv. 44 extremely separated: man and God, man in history, and man in nature. The conceptuality of this dialectic for Moltmann comes from Karl Barth' and Ernst Bloch. They are giants of an epoch. On the other hand, the theological vision of theology as eschatology comes from Moltmann's three great teachers at Gsttingen: Otto Weber, Hans-Joachim Iwand, and Ernst Wolf, They are the visionaries, the guides, the map makers, and the enticers to the journey, without whom the theology of hope would not have been launched, according to M. Douglas Meeks,8 The influence of Barth, the great revisionist of modern Protestant theology, and Bloch, the great revisionist of Marxism, is constantly apparent in the theology of hope. They provide the element of freshness and surprise in Moltmann's theology. The significance, 5 achievement s and open questions of Barth's theology are. well summarized by James Smart: Barth's eschatological perspective has relativized all theol- ogies including his own. Because God is a living God he is constantly moving on beyond us in his deal ings with our world, hastening toward his goal. with him. We have to be ready and willing to move The goal of the entire movement has already been revealed in Jesus Christ, but that gives us no final answers to our theo- logical questions. Rather, it sets us in motion toward the goal in response to the promise of God that we have heard in Christ. We can never take possession of the word of God in our theologizing because to possess it would be to have mastered God himself in our human The outcome of categories, which would be the ultimate blasphemy. this is that Barth's theology has been constantly in motion, not like a ship sailing before the wind but more like a ship tacking against the wind. Moltmann gives credit to Bloch's writings for bringing togefiher the loose threads of a biblical theology, of the theology of the 8Meeks, P EalSE 9James D. Smart, The Divided Mind of Modern Theology, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, 1908-1933 (Philadelphia: P 227 Westminster Press, 1967), 45 apostolate and the kingdom of God » and of philosophy into a pattern for a tapestry in which everything matched for him. He also gives credit to Bloch's "principle of hope" for conceptualizing the Christian doctrine of hope and helping it acquire a plan and mode of action. Bloch is a Marxist atheist who is enthralled by the Bible and its God. For him, philosophy is preeminently a theory of the practice of revolutionary transformation. From his point of view the revolution cannot be carried out without a constant reference to a transcendent reality. For this viewpoint Bloch was dismissed in 1961 from his chair in Leipzig University by his fellow Marxist scholars with the agcusation, "The philosophy of.hope is religion."” Bloch is passionately devoted to making hope, utopia, and the future primary concerns of philosophy. Hope is thué the key to the meaning of human existence and to the transformation of the present. His whole philosophy is directed toward bringing nature and history into a dialectical process on the way toward their "home of identity." Even thaugh Moltmann has been greatly influenced by Barth and Bloch he is neither a Barthian nor a Blochian. What is most distinctive in the theology of hope cannot be found in either man. He is able to criticize and move beyopd Barth and Bloch. The basic tenor of his theology developed prior to his acquaintance with Bloch and out of a highly critical reception of Barth. Moltmann sets out to accomplish what Barth intended but for various reasons was unable to accomplish, namely, the goal of drawing all of Christian theology out of its own peculiar subject matter and thus making it eschatological and therefore dialectical. The thou ght of Bloch is tremendously fascinating for Moltmann insofar as it can collaborate in this task. When the " principle of hope" is a detriment to this goal, Moltmann does not he sitate to refute and refuse Blochian philosophy. lOMeeks, pia= 195 . 46 In a search for thosg éources on the basis of which Moltmann has radically criticized Barth and Bloch, we must turn to his thtingen teachers. He began his university study of theology at thtingen in 1948. Here we have the most important fact in the genesis‘of the theology of hope. 1Its real progenitors were the three thtingen professors: Weber (1902-1966), Iwand kl899-1960), and Wo;f (1902-1971). All were nurtured in the spifit of Karl Barth. All were leaders in the Confessing Church's struggles against compromises with the National Each insisted that the church convict Socialism of thevThird Reich. itself of co-guilt for the catastrophes of this century. All were convinced that theology responsible to the church would have to become eschatological if it would have any identity over against the postwar society. Tfiey felt that the task of theology was polemically to say something new, both judging and promising, to this increasingly secular and technological society out of the eschatological traditions of Bible and church. We are fiependent on M. Douglas Meeks for a good summary of the kind of influence these three teachers brought to Moltmann. Meeks did intensive study in this respect and has much to offer by way of specific influences these men brought to Moltmann. In Origins of the ?heology of Hope he develops the points which are given only in summary here: Weber's ecumenical spirit is alive and expansive in Moltmann's theology and in his service to the world church. During the last ten years the theology of hope has played a major role in the great conferences of the WCC and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Iwand developed lasting relationships with the churches of Eastern Europe and was a leading figure in keeping open the lines of commu- nication with Marxist thinkers in Communist countries after the Second World War. This influence was felt directly in Moltmann's participation in the Marxist-Christian dialogue of recent years. Wolf constantly urged academic theologians to stay in touch with the practice of the church so that ghey could not only criticize the 47 church but also give an account to the church's criticism of them, He labored to bring together biblical, historical, and systematic theology into a common dialogue with secular disciplines, especially social history and social philosophy. Passionately keeping alive all these pursuits of his three teachers has made Moltmann's theology distinctive and compelling in the contemporary setting. His faithfulness to his teachers in these points is a greater factor in the newness o philosopher! f his theology than is his dependence on a Marxist Moltmann's teachers all struggled to overcome the traditional law tendency of German Protestantism by a critical practice of the Reformation traditions. Weber was a representative of the Reformed tradition and its emphasis on covenant, theocracy, election, and continuity in history; Iwand and Wolf were practitioners of the Lutheran tradition and its emphasis on cross and resurrection, the hiddenness of God, justification by faith, and discontinuity in history. As- they fermented in the theologies of Weber, Iwand, and Wolf, these significantly different traditions yielded their own peculiar eschatological perspectives. The dialectical juxtaposition of these different perspectives is responsible for much of the creative»tension in Moltmann's theology. Mo¥tmann's theology was shaped by the continuing dialogue of the student with his teachers. This took place through Moltmann's concern with historical theological research in Reformed eschatology, with a criticism of German Idealistic and Enlightenment influence on Protestant theology, and with a new eschatological emphasis in social ethics. We turn now to a close look at Moltmann's theology as it is set forth in his most famous book. A SUMMARY OF HIS MAJOR WORK, "THEOLOGY OF HOPE" It will be our purpose here to provide a digest of each chapter in Jurgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope. This will acquaint the reader with the main theses of this leading Protestant propoqent of hope and, we trust, enable the reader to assess the merits of this.theology. (Many of his references to German books and periodicals are too llMeeks, pp. 20-21. 48 incomplete to include in fgotnotes or in the bibliography.) The introduction to Theology of Hope is entitled '"Meditation on Hope." Eschatology has long been called the "doctrine of the last things" or the "doctrine of the end." These last things are events which will one day break upon man, higtory, and the world at the end of time: Christ's return in glory, judgment of the world, consummation of the kingdom, general resurrection of the dead, and the new creation of all things. Relegating these events to the "last day" robbed them of their directive,.uplifting,Aand critical significance for all the days which are spent here. In actual fact, eschatology means the doctrine of the Christian hope which efibraces both the object hoped for and also the hope inspired by it. From first to last{ and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology. It is hope, forward-looking and forward-moving, and therefore also revolu;ionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian proclamation. Christian eschgtology sefs out from a definite reality in history and announces the future of that reality, its future possibilities, and its power over the future, Christian eschatology speaks of Jesus Christ and his future. "He is our hope" (Colossians 1:27). Hope's statements of promise, however, must stand in contra- diction to the reality which can at present be experienced. Eyerywhere in the New Testament the Christian hope is directed towards what is not yet visible, Eschatology must formulate its statements of hope in contradictiog to our present experience of suffefing, evil, and death, Christian faith does not flee the &orld but it strains after the future. It is only in following the Christ who was raised from suffering, a god- 49 forsaken death, and the grave that it gains an open prospect in which there is nothing more to oppress us, a view of the realm of freedom and joy. Hope is the inseparable companion of faith. Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God. Without faith's knowledge of Christ, hope becomes a fitopia and remains hanging in the air. But without hope, faith falls to pieces, becomes a fainthearted and ultimately a dead faith. Hope finds in Christ not only a consolation in suffering, but also the pro;est of the divine promise against suffering. That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest , not patience but impatience. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it and to contradict it. There is no pleasant harmony between us and reality because of our unquenchable hope. This makes the Christian church a constant distur- bance in human society. It is 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. Lf faith depends on hope for its life, then the sin of unbelief is manifestlyvi}ounded in hopelessness. Temptation then consists not so much in the titanic desire to be like God, but in weakness, timidity, and weariness, not wanting to be what God requires of gs. That is the sin which most profoundly threa;ens the believeri Hopeléssness can assume two forms: (1) presumption{ a premature, self-willed antici- pation of the fulfillment of what we hope for from God, and (2) despair, the premature, arbitrary anticipation of the nonfulfillment of what.we 50 hope for from God. Both forms of hopelessness rebel against the patience in which hope trusts in the God of the promise. They demand either fulfillment "now already" or "absolutely no" hope. Christian eschatology, then, sees a world full of all kinds ofv possibilities, namely all the possibilities of the God of hope. Whére in faith and hope we begin to live in the light of the possibilities and promises of this God, the whole fullness of life discloseé itself as a life of history and therefore a l1life to be loved. Expectation makes life good, for in expectation man can accept his whole present and find joy not only in its joy but also in its sorrow. The Christian hope is directed towards a new creation of all things by the‘God of the resur- rection of Jeéus Christ. Eschatology and Revelation The discovery of eschatology and its ineffectiveness. One of the mos; important events in recent Protestant theology was the discovery of the central significance of eschatology for the message and existence of Jesus and for early Christianity. This discovery had its beginnings at thelend of the nineteenth century in Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, The recognition of the eschatological character of early Christianity made it clear that the automatically accepted idea of a harmonious synthesis between Christianity and culture was a lie. In this world with its assured and axiomatic re;igious positions in the realm of thought and will, Jesus appeared as a strangef with an apoca- lyptig message that was foreign to it. Johanpes Weiss did pioneer'work here. In 1892, he wrote: "The kingdom of God is in Jesus' view an absolutely supraworldly factor which 51 stands in exclusive contrast to this world."12 He realized this would make Jesus no longer appear as a moral teacher of the Sermon on the Mount but rather as an apocalyptic fanatic with his eschatological message. Weiss wrote, "He has nothing more in common with this world he has one foot already in the next,"13 However, after his sally into the no-man's-land of eschatology, Johannes Weiss returned again to the liberal picture of Jesus. Albert Schweitzer followed a similar procedure. He took seriously the foreignness of Jesus and his message as compared with all the liberal nineteenth century pictures of Jesus. The startling thing about Schweitzer's work is that he had no eschatological sense at all The consequences which he drew from his discovery of the apocalyptic of Jesus were aimed at the final conquest and annihilation. of what he considered an illusionary eschatologism. In his first edition of The Quest of the Historical Jesus he wrote: There is silence all around The Baptist appears and cries: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Soon after that in the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man comes Jesus, and lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological condi- tions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His pur That 1is His Eose, is hanging upon it still, victory and His reign. So the "wheel of history,'" symbol of theeternal recurrence of the same 12 5o0hannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes [n.p., n.n.] (1892), p. 42. 13Weiss, pailids Léplbert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1961), pp. 368-369. » 52 cycle, takes the place of ;he eschatological arrow-flight of history. After the first World War the founders of "dialéctical theology" took the eschatology that had thus been suppressed by idealism and condemned to ineffectiveness and set it in the center not only of exegetical but now also of dogmatic.sgudy. In 1933, Karl Barth said in The Epistle to the Romans, "If Christianity be not altogether and unreservedly eschatology, there remains in it no relationship whatever to Christ."15 1n this understanding, however, the eschaton, breaking transcendentally into history, brings all human history to its final crisis. This makes the eschaton into a transcendental eternity, equally near to all the ages of history and equally far from.all of them. So men became tfie victims .of a transcendental eschatology which once again obscured rather than developed the discovery of early Christian escha- tology. This development of early Christian eschatology becomes the inescapable task of modern theological thought, if the discovery of the eschatologi;al message of early Christianity is to be properly under- stood and is to involve consequences for theology and for the existence of the church. Mol tmann comeé to alcfucial point in his thought when he writes: Now these forms of thinking, in which the real language of eschatology is still obscured today, are entirely the thought forms of the Greek mind, which sees in the Logos the epiphany of the eternal present of being and finds the truth in that. Even where the modern age thinks in Kantian terms, this conception of truth is at bottom intended. The real language of Christian eschatology, however, is not the Greek logos, but the promise which has stamped the language, the hope and the experience of Israel. It was not in the Zogos of the epiphany of the eternal present, but in the hope- glving word of promise that Israel found God's truth. That is why_ 15kar1 Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, E. C. Hoskyns, trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 314. 53 history'was here experienced in an entirel open form. y different and entirely Eschatology as a science i s therefore not possible in the Greek sense, nor yet in the sense of modern experimental science, but only as a knowledge in terms of hope, and to that extent as a knowledge of history and of the historic character of truth. These differences between Greek thought and that of Israel and Christianity, between logos and promise, between epiphany and apokalypsis of the truth have today been made clear in many fields and by various methods., ° ° ° In order to attain to a real under- standing of the eschatological message, it is accordingly necessary to acquire an openness and unde rstanding vis-a-vis what "promise" means in the 0ld and New Testam ents, and how in the wider sense a form of speech and thought and hope that is determined by promise experiences God, truth, history and human nature. It is further necessary to pay attention to the continual controversies in which the promise-centered faith of Israel found itself »,~in every field of life, engaged with the epiphany-based religions o f the world about it, and in which its own truth came to light. The controversies continue also through the New Testament, espec ially where Chris- tianity encountered thg Greek mind.16 Christian eschatology in the language of promise will be an essential key to the unlocking of Christian truth. The.loss of escha- tology--not merely as an égpendix to dogmatics, bpt as the medium of theological thinking as such--has always been the condition that makes possible the adaptation of Christianity to its environment and » as a result of thisi the seif—surrender of faith. When, in its social form, Christianity installed itself as the "crown of society”" and its "saving center," it lost the disquieting, critical power of its eschatological hope. Promise and revelation of God. Theological inquiry into the relation between "promise" and '"revelation" needs to develop a view of the revelation of God which is eschatological insofar as i; seeks to discover the language of promise. God reveals h;mself ifi thé form of promise and in the history that is‘marked by promise. The examination 16Jfirgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, James W. Leitch s trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 40-41. . 54 in the ffeld of comparative religion of the special peculiarity of Israellte faith 1s today bringing out ever more strongly the difference between its " religion of promise" and the epiphany religions of the revealed gods of the world around Israel For the Reformers the gospel is identical with Promise, Faith is called to 1ife by promise and is there essentially hope, confidence, and trust in the God who will not lie but will remain faithful to his promise, It was only when theology began to employ a concept of reason and a concept of nature which were not derived from a view of the promise, but were not taken from Aristotle 3 that the problem of revelation appeared in its familiar form. Transcendental eschatology. The spell of "transcendental eschatology" governs the idea of self—revelation in both Barth and Bultmann. This is the underlying view of eschatology that dominates the concept of "self- revelation of God" as found in Barth and the understanding of revelation as the "disclosure of authentic selfhood" as found in Bultmann. In both of these views revelation does not o ) pen up a future in terms of promise, nor does it have any future that would be greater than itself Revelation of God ig then simply the coming of the eternal to man or the coming of man to himself The classical philosophical form of transcendental eschatology is found in Immanuel Kant, Its basic features recur wherever Kantian thinking is found in the revelational theology of modern times, For Kant there can be no such thing as an intellectual knowledge of the "last things since these "objects" lie wholly beyond our field of vision, The ideas of the last things have therefore to be ethically examined and considered in the sphere of the moral reason. In this view, then, eschatological perspectives are com » pletely irrelevant for 55 the knowledge of the world of experience. The condi?ions of possible experience which were understood by Kant in a transcendental sense must be understood instead as historically flowing condi;ions. The theology of the transcendental subjectivity of God. For Karl Barth God cannot be proved, neither from the cosmos nor ftom-the depths of human experience.. God proves himself through himself. Dogmatics should begin with "God said." His revelation is‘the proof of God given by God himself. No one reveals God but himself alone. Who this God is, is first learned from his revelation. God cannot be c?mmended and defended in his self-revelation. He can only be believed. God is.thé revealer, the act of fevealing, and the revealed. The theol;gy of the transcefidén#al subjectivity of man." According to Rudolf Bultmann, man is by nature in quest of himself. In and with the question raised by his existence there arises the question of qu. The statements of Scripture arise out of existence and are addressed to existence. Fo% him the self-revelation of God finds its measure gnd development in the disclosing of the authenticity and selfhood of man. God is objecéively unprovable and so is his action and revelation. He proves himself to the believing "self." Bultmann could say éhafi escha- tology has wholly lost its sense as goal of history and so is understood as the goal of the individual human being. Preaching and faith méke up "revelation." Not in what the word of proclamation says or in what it points to, but in the fact that it "happens," addressing, accosting, appealing, The active event of revelation is itself the presence of the "eschaton,”" for "to be in the moment" of proclamation and faith is the "authentic being" of man. In that case faith would itself be the 3 56 practical end of history and the believer would himself already Bé perfected. If it is precisely believers who wait for the redemption of the body, on the ground of the eschatologically understood "earnest of the Spirit" who is the Spirit of the raising of the dead, then in so doing they make it known that they have not yet attained ;o,identity with themselves. In hope afid confidence they are living to that end and here defy the reality of death. If faith awaits the "redemption of the body," a bodily resurrection from the dead, and the annihilation of death, then it begins to see itself in a profound bodily solidarity with the "earnest expectation of the creature" (Romans 8:19-21), both in its subjection to vanity and in the universal hope. "Progressive revelation" and the eschatology of salvation history. Another way of understanding God's revelation has been called "progressive revelation." This view sees the history of the wofld aé revelation. Thg Bible is read as a history book, as the divine commentary upon the divine acts in world history. It was the stért of a new, eschatological way of thinking, which called to life the feeling for history. The mistake of this method is seen in the fact Fha; it sought to discover fhe eschatological progressiveness of salvation history not from the cross and the resurrection but from other "signs of the times." So revelation became a predicate of history and "hiqury" was turned deistically into a substitute for God. The real concérn of this theology of salvation history was to show that revelation haé a face towards world history and eschatology. Although the idea of salvation history is philosophically'anachronistic and theological¥y deistic, it does preserve the question of the eschatological future » 57 outlook whiéh the Christian revelation holds for a world involved in history. The decisive question is whether "revelation" is the illumi— nating interpretation of an exiéting, obscure life process in hiétory, or whether revelation itself originates, drives, and directs the process of history. "History" as indirect self-revelation of God. Another attempt to free theological consideration of the "self- revelation" of God from @he fetters of the reflective philosophy of transcendental subjectivity is found in a volumé that came out in 1961, It is Offenbarung als Geschichte by W. Papnenberg, R. Rendtorff, U. Wilckens and T. Rendtorff. It starts out not from the proof of God from existence, but from ;he proof of God from the cosmos,lor by showing that the qu?stion of God arises from consideration of the question of reglity as a whole, History as a whole is thus revelation of God. Since it is not yét finished > 1t is only in the light of its end that it is recognizable és revelation. The full self-revelation of God takes place not at the beginning but a; the end of the revealing‘history. This theology of universal history obviously intends to extend and supersede the Greek cosmic theology. The place of the cosmological proof of God-fwhich argued from "reality as cosmos" to the one divine arche and so provided proof of a cosmological monotheism—-1s taken by a theology of history which argues back in the same way from‘the unity of " reality as history" to the one God of history. The world will one day be theophany, indirect self-revelation of God zn toto. Becaugse it is not yet S0, reality is open- ended towards the future and all knowledge of God and the world has an eschatologically quglified "provisignal" characte?. 58 One particularly difficult point in this method.is the thesis that the raising of Jesus from the dead is the anticipétion and forestalling of the end of univefsal history. In this apocalyptic of universal history also the theological significance of the cross 9f Jesus recedes in favor of his resurrection, Between the expectations of late Jewish apocalyptic and of‘Christian eschatology sténds the cross of Jesus, The contradiction of the cross permeates also the whole. existence, life, and theolqgical thinking of the church in the world, As we leave this viewpoint of revelation it needs to Be.emphasizedbthat the theologian is not concerned merely to supply a different interpre- tation of the world, histor&, and human nature but to transform them in expectation_of a diviné tfansformation. The eschatology of revelation. It is the influence of.Greek methods of thought and inquiry that causes the revelation of God in the biblical» scriptures to be understood as the " epiphany of the eternal present." Tflis does not dgscribe the God of the exodus and the resnrrection. Christian theo% £ p ng speaks of "revelation" when, on the g;ound of the Easter appearégéés of the risen Lord » it perceives and proclaims ;he identity of the risen one with the crucified one. Jesus is recognized in the Easter appearances as what he really was. That is the ground of faith's "historical” remembrance of the life and work, claims and sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth. The messianic titles all anticipate at the same time the not yet apparent future of the risen'Lord. The Easter appearances and revelations of the risen Lord areAmanifestly understood & as foretaste and promise of his gtiil future glory and lordship. Jesus B is recognized in the Easter appearances as what he really will be. If it is towafds hig own future and promise that the revelation qf thg 59 risen Lord is open, then its.openness to the future surpasses all subsequent church history and is absolutely superior to it. Toward the close of his chapter on "Eschatology and Revelation" Moltmann defines the place of the believer in God's revelation: The man who is the reci pient of this revelation of God in Promise is identified, as w hat he i s-=—and at the same time differ- entiated, as what he will be. for he is not yet freed from c ‘He comes "to himself"--but in hope, ontradiction and death. He finds the way of life--but hidden in the promised future of Chris t that has not yet appeared. Thus the believer becom hopes. es essentially one who He is still future to "himself" and is promised to himself, His future depends utterly and entirely on the outcome of the risen Lord's course, Christ. for he has staked his future on the future of: The event of promise does not yet bring him to the haven of identity, but involves him in the tensions and differentiations of hope, of mission and of self-emptying.... It makes him ready to take the pain of love and of self-emptying upo n himself in the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead a dead.... He gains himself b nd who quickens the y abandoning himself, He finds life by taking death upon him. He attains to freedom by accepting the form of a servant, That is how the truth that points forward to the resurrection of the dead comes to him. Promise and History Epiphany religi?ns and faith in terms of promise. The study of the history of religion in Israel and the surrofinding oriental worldvreveals that Israel achieved a syncretism between the religion of the nomad and of the Canaanite peasant. "Syncretism" is here used to refervto-the struggle which is kindled in various historic situations by various matters about which conflict arises and s Precisely from the various tensions, we are enabled to recognize the peculiarity of the contegding parties. Here in the Israel of Palestine the kinetic élements of.the old nomad religion meet the static elements of the peasant religion of Canaan. Nomadic religion is a religion of promise. The nomad does not l7Moltmann, pp. 91-92, » 60 live within the cycle of seedtime and harvest but in the world of migration. The gods of the nations are locally bound. The trans- migration God of the nomads, however, is not bound territorially and locally. He journeys along with them. He is himself on the move. The Israelite tribes took the wilderness God of promise with them from the wilderness along with the corresponding understanding of‘ existence and the world s retained them in the land amid the totally new experiences of agrarian life, and endeavored to undergo and to master the new experiences in the land in the lighg of the God of promise. Oriental culture had stones, waters, trees, groves,‘and mountains that were sanctified by hierophanies. It was striking that Israel was little concerned to.understand the essential meaning of the "appearances" of Yahweh in Eerms of such hallowing of places and times. . For Isragl the "appearing" of God is immediately linked up with the uttering of a word of divine promise. Thé effect is that the hearers of the promise become incongruous with the reality around them as they strike out ifi hope towards the promised new future. Where the bands of Israel enter the land » they receive the land and the new experiences of settled life as "fulfillment of the promise." This is an essentially different assurgnce»of existence from what Israel found in the land and fertility cults of Palestine, It is from promise that there arises that element of unrest which allows for no coming to terms with a present that is unfulfilledi Under the ggiding star of Promise this reality is not experienced as a divinely stabilized cosmos, but as history in terms of moving oP, leaving thifigs behind and striking ‘out towards new horizons as yet unseen. The word of promise. If promise is the key word of Israel's "religion . 61 of expectation,” then we must now explain what we have to‘understand by "promise” and more specifically the "promise of God."’ (a) A promise is a deéla reality that does not yet exi st. ration which announces the coming of a ° ° ° If it is a case of a divine promise, then that indicates that the ex pected future does not have Present, but arises f to develop within the framework of the P ossibilities inherent in the promise. ° o rom that which is possible to the God of ® 3 (b) The promise bind of history. ° e ° S man to the future and gibes him a sense The future which it discloses is made possible and determined by the promis ed fulfilment. ° ° ° (c) The histor does not consist in y which is initiated and determined by promise cyclic recurrence, but has a definite trend towards the promised and out standing fulfilment, ° ° ° (d) word has If the word is a word of promise, then tha t meané that this not yet found a realit y congruous with it, but that on the contrary it stands in contradic experience now and tion to the reality open to _heretofore. ° ° ° (e) The word of promise therefore always creates an interval of tension b etween the uttering and the redeeming of the promise. In so doing it provides man with a peculiar area of freedom to obey or disobey, to be hopeful or resigned. ° ° ° : (£) and surpr The fulfilments can very well contai n an element of newness ise over against the promise as it w as received. ° ° ® (g) The peculiar character of the 01d Te seen in the fact that the stament promises can be ha promises were not liquidated by the istory of Israel--neither by disappointment nor by fulfilment--but that on th € contrary Israel's ex periences of history gave them a constantly new and wider interpr etation. ° ° ° The God who is recognized in his promises remain s superior to any fulfilment that can be experienced.l The experience of history. Beneath the star of the promise of God it becomes possible to experience reality as "history." The stage for what can be experienced, remembered, and expected as "history" is set and filled, revealed and fashioned by promise. Only where Yahweh had revealed himself in his word and acts did history exist for Israel. This means, however, that the experience of reality as'history was made possible for Israel by the fact that God was revealed to Israel in his 18Mo1tmann, pp. 103-105. 62 promises and that Israel saw the revealing of God again and again in thg‘ uttering of his promises. The events that are ekperienced as "historic" eventg give a foretaste of the promised future, The overspill of promise means that they always have a provisional character. They intimate and point forward to somethinglwhich does not yet exist in its fullness in itself. The stories of Israelite history--the histories of the patriarchs, of the wilderness, of David--are treated as themes pregnant with future. Since the ‘history that was once experienced contains an element that transcends histor y in its pPastness and is pregnant with future, and to the extent that history must again and this is so, two things follow: first, this again be recalled and brought to mind in the present, and secondly, it must be so expounded to the present that the latter can derive f rom history an understanding of itself and its future path and can also find its own the working of God's promises.19 plage in the history of Revelation and knowledge of God. How does God become knowable, if his revelations are esséntially promises which open up new, historic, and eschatological horizons for the future? God reveals himself as "God" wheré he shows himself as the same and is thus known as the same. The presupposition for the knowledge of God is the revealing of God‘by God, To that extent God remains Subject and Lord even of the process of man's knowing. In proving his faithfulness in history, he reveals himself. The essence and the identity of the God of promise lies not in his absoluteness over and beyond history, but in the constancy of his freely chosen relation to his creatures, God reveals himself in his name, which discloses tfie mystery of his Person to the extent that it discloses the mystery of his faith- 19%01tmann, pp. 108-109. » 63 fulness. The name of God and the promises contained in the name of God also tell us something "about” God, for in them he gives surety for his future, They tell us who he will be. God is not first known at the end of history, but in the midst of history.. Knowledge of God is then a knowledge that draws ug onward--not upward--into situations that are not yet finalized but still outstanding. To know about God-is always at the same time to know ourselves called in history by God. The guarantee Qf the promise's congruity with reality lies in the credibility and faithfulness of him who gives it. Hope does not merely hope personally "in him" but has also subs;an;ial hopes of his lordship, his.peace, and his righteousness on earth. Otherwise/hope itself could unobtrusively change into a kind of fulfillment and there would be noéhing more in which our hopes could be ffilfilled. Promise and law. The promises of God create an interval of tension between their being issued and their coming to pass. This raisesvan important question about directions for the filling out of this interval and the existenée thus constituted in it. Originally promise is combined with obedience. It is necessary to arise and go to the place to which the promise points, if one is to have part in its fulfi}lment. Whoever receives the promises enters into a covenant with God; The obedience which the injunctions demand springs from firm confidence and is a natural consequence of the promises. To "keep" the covenaht which God has founded means both to "keep" the words of the promise and #fo keep his commandments." We "keep" the promises when "with all our heart and all our strength" we trust and hope in them and do not doubt. Not only disobedience is punished by not experiencing the fulfillment but so 64 also is resignation, weariness, and departure from the living hope. Despondency and despair are sin. The commandments of the covenant are the ethical reverse of the promise itself, The non- realization of promises upon which we had depended, the distress tha t arises when the protection and guidance of the God of promise fail to come, possible: makes the following theological reflections (a) God lies, had not kept them. They were his promise and his covenant, but he brook "Wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful » as waters that fail?" (Jer. 15:18, RV), (b) God is faithful. comes to pass. He does not deny himself. What he says Therefore if it does not come to pass, it was not the promise of God, but the lie of false prophets. History itself proves them to be false prophets. Reflections of this kind were manifestly often brought forward ev en against the charismatic leaders of Israel, (c) The reflection turns a gainst the sorely tried, or even already disappointed man himsel f. The reason for the withholding of the fulfilment, for the distance and absence of God and for his judgment, lies in man, whether because he has departed from the hope in the God of the promi se and fallen into idolatry (the golden calf) or the worship of other injunctions of the comma gods, or because of his disobedience to the ndments., Promise in the eschatology of the prophets. The concept "eschatology" has become hazy since the rediscovery of the eschatological character of the words of the Bible witnesses. In orthodox dogmatics it referred to theslast'article, often unrelated and supplementary. In dogmatics and exegesis today it has acquired various‘meanings, according to the par- ticular material to which it is applied: simply "future," "extending beyond thé present," "last age, " "transcendent," "directed towards a final goal," or "finally valid." VAmong 0ld Testament scholars the dispute narrows down to whether the term applies to hopes within history, or whether the term should be reserved fqr prophécies which speak of the end of history as suchf It is hard to establish the points 2OMoltmann, pp. 122-123, 65 at which we can say, "Here prophetic promise ends, and there eschatology begins." We can say that thosg promises and expectations are eschato- logical which are directed towards a historic future in the sense of the ultimate horizon. What part of the promised future is the ultimate fgture is determined by the perspecfiive in which the viewer sees ‘the time that is now void but will then be filled. It is possible for eschatological perspectives to expand and for that which appeared to one generation as "ultimate" to be seen by a later generation as within history and surpassable, But when and how do hopes for history'become hopes that are to be called "eschatological"? When does a promise become an eschatolog%cal promise? The crossing of the first decisive frontier for- Israel was its mastering of agrarian‘culture when its tribes occupied Canaan. The second major frontier was crossed when Israel mastered the great experi- ences in the world history of the seventh and sixth centuries, when Israel perished as a nation and yet survived in the religious sphere. Here faith in the promise underwent t;emendous expansion. In the message of the classical prophets it developed into prophetic escha- tology. Their message arose in the shadow of the increasing menace from Assyria, Babylon, and Persiq. They interfiret this history of collapse as Yahweh's judgment on his apostate people. The threat that the history of the attacking peoples will bring Yahweh's judgment upon Israel marks a decisive universalizing of the divine actionm. This threat of uniyersal judgment is as early as Amos: God judges all wrong, including that among the peoples>who do not know his law. Consequently the God who uses the nations to judge his 66 apostate people is also thgir Lord and will also be their Judge. If he uses these nations to judge Israel according to his law then he will also judge these nations according to his law. On its political deathbed Israel brings the nations, as it were, into the hands of its God and into his future. By this very means Yahweh's threats and promises for the future are set free from their restriction to the one specific people and its particular future in history, and become eschatological. The moving horxizon of the assurances for the future given by the God of promise, once it is extended to embrace "all peoples', then reaches the utmost bounds of human reality as such, and becomes universal and so also eschato- 5 logical.21 The prophets' message of judgment nevertheless points onge more also to a different future, to a day of Yahweh, which will arise out of the night of judgment. It can be conceived as a ju&gment that paves the way for sométhing finally new. It consists of visions of the end, of the unheara-of new salvation that is on the way, of the new covenant, of the coming glory of Yahweh in his sovereignty over all the earth. This universalizing of judgment, which involves all the peoples, makes thg coming salvation of Yahweh eschatological in its breadth and unrestrict- edness. Seeé as part of the missionary task of Israel--being a light to the Gentiles and a witness for Yahweh in his controversy with the gods of the nations--they are still Israelo-centric eschatologies. However, the more the new saving action of God that is to come outstrips all analogies from the history of Israel's dealings with its God in past experience and tradition, and the more the judgment that begins with Israel moves on through the history of the nations, the more clearly there appear‘the first signs of a universal eschatolégy'of mankind. But in the message of the prophets there still remains at first 21Moltmann, p. 129. 67 one boundary--death As long as death is felt to be the natural boundary of life, God remains a God of the living But if the death- boundary is understood-as a judgment of Yahweh, then his power extends also beyond death The dead too, can be recognized as included within Even death itself is seen as a the realm of his promise and glory. transformable possibility in his hand and no longer as a fixed reality that sets a limit to his working. Thus the term "eschatological" would now have to be used for a promise whose horizon of expectation surmounts and overcomes all experiences of the total judgment of God in life and death The historifying of the cosmos in apocalyptic eschatology It is difficult to explain the phenomenon of late Jewish apocalyptic and its contents. Is it a legitimate continuation of the prophetic message or a falling away from the prophetic faith in the promise? The futuristic and eschatological outlook is common to both the prophets and the apocalyptists. However, there are distinctions: (a) Apocalyptic cherishes a religious, deterministic view of history. The temporal sequence of the aeons is settled from the start and history gradually unfolds a plan of Yahweh's. In the prophets, however, there is no trace of the idea that the eschata have been firmly determined since the beginning of time. (b) In apocalyptic the factor standing over against the God who acts in history is the "world" that lies under the power of evil. In the prophets, however, we have "Israel and the nations." (c) The apocalyptic expectation is no longer directed towards a consummation of the creation through the overcoming of evil by good, but towards the separation of good and evil and hence the replacement of the "world that lies under the power of evil'" by the coming "world of righteousness'. This shows a fatalistic dualism which is not yet so found in the prophets. (d) The judgment is not seen as something which in the freedom of God can be recalled and which can be averted, if it may be, by repentance, but as an immutable fate that is assuredly coming, as a fatum irreparabile. (e) The prophets stood in the midst of the people of Israel and thus also in the midst of its history. The apocalyptists stand in 68 the post-exilic congregation of the righteous of Yahweh. (£) The prophets in their predictions quite openly took their stand in their own historic present. From that standpoint they The apocalyptist, however, unfold their historic perspectives. veils his own place in history.2 The question arises whether apocalyptic thinking does not ultimately show signs of nonhistoric thinking. However, the apocalyptic picture of history is firmly rooted in the historic thinking of Israel and bound up with the prophetic eschatology. Apocalyptic contains perceptiblg traces of‘the distant God of deism. Yet there is always a note of exhortation to be found. It is the exhortation to persevere in the faith of the righteous. The Resurrection and the Future of'Jesus Christ Gospel and promise. When we examine the revelation‘of God as seen in the New Testament, we discover that there is no clear concept of revelation. The gospei éf the revelationbof God in Christ is in danger of being incomp}ete if we fail to notice the dimension of promise in it. But how is "promise" proclaimed in the New Testament as compared with the 01d Testament history of promise? The approach to Christology hasvbeen sought in Christian dogmatics along different lines. We here select two basic tybesras illustrations of the problem. (1) Since the shaping of Christian dogmatics by Greek thought, it has been the general custom to approach the mystery of Jesus from the general idea of God in Greek metaphyéics: the one God, for whom all men are seeking on the ground of their experience of reality, has appeared in Jesus of Nazareth. The mystery 22Moltmann, pp. 133-134, . 69 of Jesus is then the incarnation of the one, eternal, original, true, (2) and immutable divine Being. In modern times the approach to the mystery of Jesus has often been from the general view of the being of man in history. The actual experiencing and conqeiving of the existence of man as historic, the radical disclogure of the historic character of human existence, came into the world with Jesus. Both app;oaches to‘ the mystery of Jesus set out from the universal in order to find its true expression in the concrete_instance of his person and his history. The Neither approach necessarily takes the 0ld Testament into account. approach of Jesus to all men, however, has the 0ld Testament with its law and its ?romise as a necessary presupposition. It is important»for theology to take seriously the following two (1) It was Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, propositioné: the God of the promise, who raised Jesus from the dead. Who the God is who is revealed in and by Jesus, emerges only in his difference from, and identity with, the God of the 0ld Testament. (2) Jesus was a Jew. Who Jesus is, and what the human nature is which is revéaled by him, emerges from his conflict with the law and the promise of the 01d Testament. In these two propositions, the path of theological knowledge leads irreversibly from the particular to the general, from the historic to the eschatological and universal.‘ In Jesus Christ the God of Israel has revealed himself as the God of all mankind. The path leads from the concrete to the universal. Christian theology has to think along thie line. The'concrete, unique, historic event of the crucifying and raising of Jesus by Yahweh, the God of promise who creates being out Qf nothing, becomes general through the universal eschatological horizon it anticipates. 70 On the other hand, if theology takes seriously the fact that Jesus was a Jew, then this means that he is not to be understood as a particular case of human being in general, but only in connection with the 0ld Testament history of promise and in conflict with it. Only when the real, historic, and religious differences between peoples, groups, and classes are broken down in the Christ event in which: the sinnef is justified, does there come a prospect of what true humanity can be and will be. The God of the prémise. In the New Testament God is known and described as the "God of promise." Hi§ essence is not his absoluteness as such but the faithfulness with which he reveals and identifies himself in the history of his promise as "the same." His divinity confists in the constancy of his faithfulness. 'The word which reveals God has thus fundamentally the character of promise and is therefore eschatolbgical in kind. The life, work, death, and resurrectiqn of Jesus are thgrefofe not described after the pattern of the appearance of epiphany gods but D in the categories of expectation that are appropriate to the God of promise. Just as for rabbinism and apocalyptic the figure of Abraham as the example of righteousness becomes the focal point of the inéerést in the promise, law, and righteousness of God, so also Paul sets this figure in the center of his exposition of gospel and promise. Paul links the traditional Abrahamitic promises with the promigse of life and obviously understands "life" no longer in the context of possessing the land, being fruitful and multiplying, but as "quickening of the dead" (Romans 4:15, 17). As in Judaism, so also he is certain that God keeps 71 his promises. Yet the ground of this assurance is new: because God has the power to quicken the dead and call into being things that are not, therefore the fulfillment of his promise is‘possible. However, if the promise of God is bound to law, then the promise is invalidated: it then depends no longer on the power of'the God who has promised but on the power of the man who obeys. If the true heirs of Abraham, the father of tfie promise, are those in whom the Abrahamitic promise giveslproof of itself in the Christ event in the power of the God who justifies men and creates life out of death, then that is the end of the Jew's precedence over the Gentile in thg history of salvation. What was promiéed to Israel is now valid for all believers, both Jews and Gentiles. The promise is no longer exclgsive but becomes inclusive. It becomes finiversal. In the gospel the 0l1d Testament history of promise finds more than a fulfillment which does away withvit; it finds its future. The gospelAis not to be understood as antiquating the promises of Israel or even putting an end to them. In the ultimate, eschatqlogical sense of these promises it is in fact identical with them. Paul and Abraham. How are we to regard the connectién between gospel and promise and thus in a wider sense also the relatioh between the New and the 01d Testaments? Two radically opposed conceptions suggest them- selves: the continuipy can be understood in terms of a view of history as history of salvation, or the discontinuity can be undgrstood ifi terms of an existentialist interpretation of fihe gospel. A view of the continuity in terms of history of election or of salvation understands the gospel as the fulfillment of the history that 72 has preceded it. The event of Christ accordingly fiannot be taken by itself as an isolated fact. It always requires the witness of the history which it fulfills, i1f its significance as an event of universal eschatological salvation is to be intelligible. An existentialist interpretation of the discontinuity, on the other hand, takes "history" out of the light of the p:omise and sets it in the light of the law. "History" is here understood as a genealogical force. The It becomes the epitome of transience and degeneration: element of continuity between Abraham and the believer is not to be regarded as a "product of historic development," but can only be under- stood as "a rgtrospective projection of faith," which is not demon- strable by historical science and must therefore itself again be an object of faith. Regarding this view, it is no doubt true that Paul rejects the idea of the Jews' genealogical connection with Abfaham being in itself soteriological. Yet what he puts in its place is hardly a picture of Abraham as projected by Christian faith.. The continuity with the Abrahamitic promise can therefore be taken neither as a product of historic development nor as a retrospective projection of faith. The promise finds in fhe gospel its eschatological future, while the law finds its end. The '"newness'" of the gospel is thus not "totally new 1" It proves its newness by asserting itself against the old, Just as the against human nature in the_context of law, sin, and death. promise is validated in the gospel, so also the 0ld Testament, inasmuch as it is witness to the history of the promise, is véliaated and renewed in the New Testament. What the Scr%pture that was."written in former days" (Romans 15:4) offers must therefore contain possibilities and a future to which present hope éan be directed. 73 Fulfillment ecstasy in primitive Christianity and the eschatologia erucis. The promissory character of the gospel can be seen not only from the language used especially by Paul and in Hebrews, but it shows itself still more plainly in the conflicts in which Paul was involved with various tendencies in primitive Christianity. While Christianity remained within the sphere of Judaism, Christians tookvan.eschatological view of the Christ event and of the gospel. Here within the bounds of the Jewish expectations they understood themselves as the '"renewed covenant" of Israel. It>was only the move into the Gentile world that When the church compelled them to a new understanding of the gospel. consisted of bqth Jews and Gentiles, it could no longef understand itself as the '"renewed people of God" but now only as the '"new people of God.fly The cflurch could no longer understand itself as a Christian synagogue, but it also had to avoid the misunderstanding of being a Christian mystery religion! The view of the Christian faith as a mystery religion took palpable form in.that ecstatic Hellenistic fervor with which Paul finds The Christ event can here be understood himself embroiled in Corinth. in a wholly noneschatological way as epiphany of the eternal bresent in the form of the dying and rising Kyrios of the cultus. Baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ then means that the goal of redemption is already attained, for in this baptism eternity is sacramentally present. All that now remains for him 6n earth is to exhibit his new, heavenly nature in freedom. In the sacramental and spifitual presence of Christ, resurrection from the dead is already ifiparted to the receivers and is eternally present fo them. It is plain that the ecstasy of Christian mystery religion has its presupposition in an 74 apocalyptic ecstasy which was a feature of primitive Christianity. It perceived in the experience of the Spirit the fulfillment of long- awaited promises. What are the consequences of this view of presentative escha- tology as the presence of eternity? The event of promise, which is what the life, teaching, dying, and raising Qf Jesus were held to be, now becomes an event of redemption, which can be subsequently repeated in the cultus in the form of a mystery drama. In place of the hidden Lord of the world, who. in truth is as yet only designated as such and whose return in glory to assume earthly power is still awa;ted by the church, we have the Lgrd who now already reigns over all forces and powers and thus over the world hitherto dominated by thefi. With this view came alsgga waniflg of theological interest in the cross. History thus loses its eschatological direction. It is not the realm in which men suffer and hope, groaning and travailing in expectation of Christ's future for the world, but it becomes the field in which the heavenly lordship of Christ is disclosed in church and sacrament, The cross becomes a timeless sacrament of martyrdom which perfects the martyr.and unites him with the heavenly Christ. In this context Paul's passionate polemic against Hellenistic ecstasy in‘Corinth_acquires an abiding significancé, as do also his correctives to that Hellenistic type of Christian theology which after- wards became standard., His criticism had two focal po;nts: (1) There is an "eschatological proviso" which he maintains.against'this‘fulfill— ment ecstasy; it consists of "relicg of apocalyptic theology'" which assert themselves in his view of the resurrection of Chriét, the sacrament, the presence of the Spirit, the earthly obedience of the 75 believer, and of course in his future expectations; and (2) there is his theology of the cross, in which he opposes the ecstasy that abandons the earth on which that cross stands. Both of these objections can be called the eschatologia cructis. The polemic in which Paul attacks Hellenism is marked both by a new recognition of the significance of the cross of Christ and also by a new recognition of a truly futuristic eschatology. The apostle's anti-ecstatic struggle, however, is in the last and deepest analyéis fought out in the name of apocalyptic. This is not the old Jewish apocalyptic but means his own apocalyptic, which is kindled by an eschatology of the cross and is therefore hostile to every eschato- logical ecsFasy of fulfillment. For Paul, baptism is the means of participation in the Christ event of the crucifixion and death of Christ. Fellowship with Christ is fellowship in suffering with the crucified Christ. The baptized are dead with Christ, if they are baptized into his death. In the power of the Spirifi who raised Christ from the dead, they can obediently take upon them the sufferings of discipleship and in these very sufferings await the future glory. Christ is risen and beyond the reach of death, yet his followers are not yet beyond the reach of death. It is only through their hope that they here attain to participat%on in the 1ife of the resurrection. Faith does not come to its own in becoming radically unworldly. By hopeful outgoing into the world it becomes a benefi; to the world. By accepting the cross--by taking upon it the tr;als and.struggles of obedience in the body and surrendering itself to the pain of love--it proclaims in the everyday world the future of the resurrection, life, and the righteousness of God. The future of the resurrection comes. to . e, 76 it as it takes upon itself the cross. Thus the eschatology of the future and the theology of the cross are interwoven. city " The reason why the Church-of Christ has here no "continuing is, that it seeks the "city to come" and therefore goes forth without the camp to bear the reproach of Christ. The reason for its here having no continuing city is not that in history there is nothing that continues at all. In the eyes of Christian hope the epithet "transient" belongs not only to the things which we generally feel are destined to pass away, but it sees as transient those very things which are generally felt to be always there and to cause the transience of all life, namely, evil and death. Death becomes transient in the promised resurrection. Sin becomes transient in the justification of the sinner an S for which we'have to hope. d the righteousness‘ The "death of God" and the resurrection of Christ. Christianity stands or falls with the reality of the raising of Jesus from the dead by God. Paul is clearly taking over a basic form of the primitive Christian confession when he says in Romans 10:9, "If you éonfess'with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." It"is‘the recognition of the fisen Christ that gives rise to the church's recognition of its own commission in the mission to the nations. The question, "What can I know of the his- torical facts?" cannot here be separated from thé ethical and exis- tential question, "What am I to do?" and from the eschatological question, "What may I hope for?" Only when concerted attention is‘given to these three questions does the reality of the resurrection disclose 7 itself, When the question of the reality of the resurrec?ion is raised today, then it mostly takes the form: "In what sense is "Is he risen?" he risen?" It can only be a question which embraces the whole modern 23M.oltmann, p. 165, » 77 experience of the world, of self, and of the future--a question whicfi we ourselves constitute with our whole reality. The statement of Hegel and Nietzsche, "God is dead," is not merely a statement of philosophical metaphysics or of/theology, but is one which also seems to lie at the foundations of modern experience of self agd the world, and to provide the ground for the atheism that characterizes the methods of science. Only when along with the knowledge of the resurrection of Jeéus the "God of the resurrection” can be shown to be "God" in terms of the "death of God" that has become familiar to us from history, from the world and from our own existence--only then is the procla- mation of the resurrection, and only then are faith and hope in the God of promise, something that is necessary, that is new, that is possible in an objectively real sense. The historical questionvof the resurrection of Christ and the question- ableness of- the historical app?oach to history. The first question regarding the reality of the resurrection of Christ wili always be concerned with the fact which is reported and proclaimed by the Easter witnesses, Since this fact is reported as an event--namely, as the "raising of Jesus from the dead by God"--the question as to the reality of this event will in the first instance take the form of a historical question. They spoke of a fact and an event whose reality lay for them outside their own consciousness and their own faith. The Easter narra- tives themselves compel us to ask about the rgality of the evént of which they tell. It is solely the reality of the fact declared and proclaimed that must correspond with their declarations and their proclamation. The questions as to the certainty of the reality which underlies the proclamation of the resurrection have taken the form of historical 24Moltmann, p. 168. . 78 examination. The controversy between the disciples and the Jews was concerned with the question: has God raised him from the dead according to his promises, or can God according to his promises not have raised him? The modern controversy on the resurrection, however, is concerned with the equestion whether resurrection is historically possible. IE it is true that the experiences of history on the basis Qf which the concépts of the historical have been constructed have nowadays an anthropocentric chafacter, then it is plain that on this presupposition the assertion of the raising of Jesus by God is a "historically'" impos- sible and therefore a "historically" meaningless statement. It is.generally acknowledged that historical'understanding nowadays is always analogical understanding and must therefore always remain within the realm of what is understandable in terms of analogy. The omnipotence thus attaching to analogy presupposes that there is always a common core of similarity, on the basis of which the differ—» ences can be sensed and perceived.lfiln face of this basing of historical understanding on a metaphysical definition of the core of history, Christian tfieology finds itself in grave difficulties as it seeks to reflect upon the proclamation of the resurrection. Theology has the possibility of constructing its own concept of history and its own view of the tale of history on the basis of a theological and eschatological understanding'of the reality of the resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is without parallel in the history known to us. But it can for that very reason fie'regarded as a "history-making event" in the lighF of which all other history is illumined, called in’question, and transformed. As the church is engaged with its surrounding society in a struggle for the truth, so 79 theology, too, has a part in the missipn of the church. It must engage with historical world views in a strugglé for the future of the truth and therefore also in a battle for the reality of the resurrection of Jesus. The approach of form-criticism to the Easter narratives ?nd the questionableness of its existentialist interpretation. The critical examination of the resurrection narratives in regard to their historical correctness, which has been usual since the Enlightenment, has been transformed by fo?m—critical examination of the narratives. The form- critical method is originally a sociological method. From its stand- point the Easter texts present themselves primarily as kerygma, as proclamation by the church in faith and to faith. It w?s no longer a question of the historicity of the statements in the old sense of historical criticism. It was now a historical question of the motives and forms of the statements themselves, and of the changes undergqne By these motives and forms. Still, the insight into the fact that in‘ these texts we have to do not with historical reports but with testi- monies of faith on the part of the primitive Christian church is also a historical insight. The important question for theology arises only when the results of the form-critical analyses of the primitive Christian message are removed from their own historic ground and theologically grounded in a different reality from that of which they speak, when the enquirer has no desire at all to know how things really were, but only how the believers saw them and how they represented them in terms of their faith, when the texts are no longer taken as statements about a reality, but are understood only as expressions of the Church's faith. Do these pieces of witness and of proclamation have their ground in a new self-understanding of the existence of the witnesses and proclaimers? Is the kerygmatic character of these statements grounded in a revelational commission which can no longer be grasped historically? The form-critical approach clearly provided the possibility of conceiving these statements as grounded elsewhere & » 80 than in the reality of the events to be proclaimed--the possibiiity of understanding them no longer as "statements about' something, but as "expressions of" personal or corporate faith. -This change of subject has come about through the alliance between form—critical research and dialectical theology, especially in existentialist interpretation since the twenties. If the reality of the resurrection is not to be conceived as a historically accessible reality, then it can of course still become real for man in another sense of the word "reality." The resurrection of Christ becomes for him a reality which affects him in the question- ableness of his own existence and faces him with a decision. ‘The "reality" of the'resurrection encounters us as word of God, as kerygma, to which we can no longer putvthe question of its historical legitimacy, but which asks us whetber or not we are willing to believe. That the resurrection actually took place is not thereby denied, but does not lie within the field of interest. Of vital interest to our'existence, on the other hand, is the Easter faith of the witnesses and the under- standing of existence which emerged in primitive Chrisfianity asva new possibility for human existence. / It is An undeniably true insight that the Easter narratives are not meant to be "narratives", but to be proclamation directed to faith, and that the reality of the resurrection of Jesus is inseparably bound up with the witness of universal missionary proclamation; but it is an insight that can lead in the way just indicated to no longer enquiring into the historical legitimacy of this proclamation, but putting in place of that an existential verification of it to heart and conscience or to a historic self- understanding in terms of a general historic questionableness of human existence. The transition from form-critical research to existentialist interpretation often proceeds by the following stages: 1L The place of the question, "What do the accounts in substance say?" is taken by the question, "Who speaks in these accounts?" 2. Once it has been estab}ished that thé Church in these 25Moltmann, pp. 183-184. 81 accounts and in the forms assumed by them is expressing its relation to Jesus, there follows the further question, "How does the Church understand its relation to Jesus?" 3 Once the Church's christological conceptions of Jesus have been established, the next question is, "How does the Church under- stand itself?" Then its understanding of Christ is grounded in its understanding of faith, and its understanding of faith is grounded in its self-understanding and is understood as an expression of the self-understanding that is sought by all men. Christology is then the variable, anthropology the constant. . e This whole approach in terms of reality" as a reality which concerns existence leaves out of account the fact that these texts speak of God and his action on Jesus, and purposely so speak-- that they speak of the world and the future and certainly do not mean all this merely as an "expression of a new self-understanding. The existentialist interpretation examines the texts in order to find the "meaning" of what they say, and takes it for granted from the start that this meaning is existential truth and not factual truth. This is today no doubt a "meaningful" way of appropriating what was then proclaimed, but is not at all in harmony with its own original intention.?2 The reality which stands behind the proclamatory reports must plainly be of such a kind that it compelled proclamation to all peoples and the continual formation of new christological conceptions. I1f we no longer ask merely how the church preached and to what changes the form of its proclamation was subjected, but why it spoke as it did and what provoked its proclamation, then we are on the road to raising the historical question in a new way and seeing the existential truth of faith as grounded in the factual truth of what is to be believed Only missionary proclamation does justice to the historical and eschato- logical character of this event. The eschatological question as to the future horizon of the proclamation of the risen Lord In the resurrection narratives experience and judgment manifestly take place within a decidedly eschatological horizon 26Moltmann, pp. 186-187 82 What of expectations, hopes, and. questions about the promised future. is spotlighted in the resurrection appearances is expounded in terms of the earlier promises. This exposition in turn takes place in the form of prophetic proclamation of the future of Christ which was spotlighted in these appearances. Christian eschatology differs from 0ld Testament faith in the promise, as also from prophetic and apoéalyptic eschatology, by being Christian eschatology and speaking of "Christ ahd his future.”" It is related in content to the person of Jesus of Nazareth and the event of his raising. It speaks of the future for which the ground is laid in this person and this event. Christian eschatology is at heart Chris- tology in an eschatological perspective. What God madg manifest, according to the statements of the Easter narratives, was not the course of history,\nét the secrets of the higher world of heaven, not the outcome of the future world judgment but the future of the crucified Christ for the world. When Jesus is described as "the firstfruits of them that slept,”" then that goes beyond the bounds of apocalyptic inasmuch as it means that the raising of the dead has already taken place in this one case for all. It means, too, that the raising was performed not on one faithful to the law but on one who was crucified. Cpnsequently, future resurrection is to be expected not from obedience to the law but from the justification of sinners and from faith in Christ; The Christian hope for the future comes from obsérving a specific, unique event--that of the resurrection and appearing of Jesus Christ. To recognize the resurrection of Christ means to recogpize in this event the future of God for the world. Christian eschgtology» 83 examines the inner tendency of the resurrection event s asking what It rightly can and must be expected from the risen and exglted Loxd. recognizes as the outer tendency, or as the consequence of this tendency, its own mission: "The gospel must first be preached to all nations" (Mark 13:10). One could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ and therefore leads immediately to the Practical knowledge of mission. The Christian consciousness of history is not g consciousness of the millenia of all history, in some mysterious knowledge of a divine plan for history, but B k) missionary consciousness in the knowledge of a divine commission, ‘It is therefore a consciousness of the contradiction inherent in this unredeemed world and of the sign of the cross under which the Christian mission and the Christian hope stand. It is only in this context, human nature” arises--the too, that the question of "true question of what makes man to be true man--and is answered by the disclosure of a way, a promise and a future in which " the truth" comes to man and into the truth. he himself is brought Communion with Christ, the new being in Christ, proves to be the way for man to become m an. In it true human nature can be sought in it. emerges, and the still hidden and unfulfilled future of human nature This is an openness of h the world and towards the future--an openness uman existence towards and kept alive by that grounded manifested openness of the revelation of God which is announced in the event this event points beyon of the resurrection of Christ and in which things, 27 d itself to an eschaton of the fulness of all The identity of the Lord who appears as risen with the crucified Christ. Nowhere is the actual pProcess of the raising of Jesus described in a historicizing or mythological way. It is covered by a term ("raising from the-dead" ) for which there is no basis in experience hitherto and 27Moltmann, p. 196. 84 elsewhere. What "resurrection of the dead" really is, and what "actually happened"” in the raising of Jesus, is thus a thing which not even the New Testament Easter narratives profess to know, They use the term "raising" to express not only a jydgment about something that happened to Jesus but at the same time also an eschatological expectation, The disciples’ proclamation that he was raised from the dead does not arise fr9m peculiar powers of imagination or from a unique kifid of inspiration. It arises from the comparing of the two contradictory experiences which they have of Christ. The experience of the cross of Jesus means for them the experience of the god-forsakenness of God's ambassador--that is, an absolute nihil embracing also God. The experience of the appearance of the crucified one as the living Lord therefore means for them the experience of the nearness of God i n the god-forsaken one, of the divineness of God in the crucified totality which annihilates the tota and dead Christ--that is, a new 1 nihil. The two experiences stand in a radical contradiction to each othe r, nothing and everything, godlessness and the divi like death and 1life, how can it be possible t nity of God. But o identify both experien ces in one and the same person without resolvin and making it of no account? g either the one experience or the other The Easter appearances involved not only visions but also auditions as well, Without the speaking and hearing of words it would have been unlikely--indeed impossible-~to identify the one who éppéared with the crucified Jesus, It is surely a fact.that the appearances themselves hardly provided the possibility of identifying the one who appeared with the one who was crucified.. So we have to loqk for whaf was said by the one who appeared. What he said must have contained something in the nature of a self-identification ("It is Ay We can 28Moltmann, p. 198. 85 call this a self-revelation of Jesus. The Lord who is believed and proclaimed at Easter therefore stands in‘continuity with the earthly Jesus who had come-and been crucified--a continuity which must repeatedly be sought and formulated anew and can never be surrendered. The identity of Jesus can be ‘understood only as an identity in, Bgt not above and beyond, cross and resurrection--that is, that it must In that remain bound up with the dialectic of cross and resurrection. éése the contradictions between the cross and the resurrection are an inherent part of his identity. What happened between the cross and the Easter appearances is an eschatological event which has its goal in future revelation and universal fulfillment. It points beyond itself, and even beyond Jesus; to the coming revelation of the glory of God. Then Jesus identifies himself in the Easter appeargnces'as the coming one, and his identity in cross.and resurrection points the direction for o coming events and makes a path for them. The appearances of the risen Lord were experienced by those involved in service and mission to the world, not as blissful experi- ences of union with the divine Being appearing here. His appearances were vocatory appearances by which the men involved were éet to follow the footsteps of the mission of Jesus. The perceiving of the evefit of resurrection which took place in him thus led by logical necessity to a Only when his perception of their own mission and their own future. history is thus seen as determined by the eschaton, and only when our own consciousness of history takes the form of a consciousness of mission, can the raising of Jesus from the dead be called "historic." The future of Jesus Christ. If we ask what the future of the riseg Christ contains by way of promise and expectation, we discover promises » 86 whose content is already 1lit up in certain outline by the prophetic expectations of the 0ld Testament but whose form is determined by the words, the suffering, and the death of Christ. Knowledge of the future has its stimulus nowhere else than in the riddle of Jesus of Nazareth His future, in the light of which he can be recognized as to what .he is, is illuminated in advance by the promise of the rightecusness of God the promise of life as a result of resurrection from the dead, and the promise of the kingdom of God in a new totality of being. The future of righteousness. Righteousness means "being in order, standing in the right relationship; it means correspondence and harmony and is to that extent akin to "truth." But righteousness also means "being able to stand,"” having subsistence, finding a basis on which to exist, and is to that extent akin to existence as such. Righteousness in the Old Testament does not mean agreement with an ideal- norm or with the logos of eternal being, but describes a historic communal rela- tionship which is founded on promise and faithfulness. When Israel praises the righteousness of God, then it thankfully remembers his faithfulness to his covenant promises as it has taken practical shape in the history of Israel Yahweh's righteousness is his faithfulness to the covenant. " That is why his righteousness "happens, and why one can '"tell" it and trust in it for the future and expect''"salvation from this righteousness. In trusting in God's faithfulness to this covenant, and in living in accordance with his covenant in promise and statute, men do right by God and are set right. They are set right not only in relation to God, but also in their mutual relationships and in relation to things,29 The righteousness of God is the essence of the stability and the ground of the subsistence for the whole creation. Without his justice and faithfulness nothing can exist but everything is swallowed up in nothingness. Hence God's righteousness is universal With the coming of the righteousness of God we can expect also a new creation. In the New Testament the divine righteousness is understood by 29Moltmann, pp. 203-204 87 Paul as God' s faithfulness in communal relationships, as an event brought about by God and as an event from which theré arises a new creation and a new life, Paul sees this divine rightedusness as revealed in the gospel (Romans 1:17) and grasped in faith. This divine righteousness has its ground both in the event of the cross and in that of the resurrection. Theldivine rigbteousness which is here revealed finds its measure not in the sin it forgives but in éhat new life in the glory of the risen and exalted Christ which it promises and to which it points. The divine righteousness is present in faith and in baptism, yet in such a way that it is engaged in a process which will be completed only at the parofisia of Christ. Justification fiéans not only that the unjust is given a right tq stand before God and to enduré‘the judgment, but it has' also a theo- logical meaning--namely, in this event God attains his rights over against his creation, If in the justification of the sinner God attains to his rights, then this justification is the beginning and fore- shadowing of»hfs sole lordship., The future of life. What sort of expgctation of life and what sort of experience of death were quickened by the promises of Israel?. e is surprising that for lon dreams g the Jews had no thoughts or about the last agony. They were as much a this-worldly people as the Greeks, and yet vigorously determined by futur their life was incomparably more e goals. All dead things represented for Israel the acme of uncleanness, All pollutions of this kind involve exclusion from the service of God. 30Quoted in Moltmann, Prinzip Hoffnung (Frankfurt: Theology of Hope from.Ernst B loch, Das Suhrkamp, 19590 " p.. 1323 88 The dead are cut off from God and from living communion with him. Being able to praise God and being no longer able to praise him are here synonyms for fhe antithesis of life and death. Death cuts man off from God by separating him from his promises and his praise. The hopes of resurrectign did find a place on the periphery of the 01d Testament and in the apocalyptic of late Judaism. According to Ezekiel 37:11, the people of the promise can now recognizé themselves only in the piéture of dead bones, i.e., of hope that has come to nothing, and then are given to hear the prophetic message of a new promise of life by Yahweh: "Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shal live" (Ezekiel 37:5). This promiées a creative act of Yahweh upon his people beyond the bounds of the temporal and the possible. I; is a promise that has no conditions and no presuppositions, a promise of life from the dead on the ground of a creative act of Yahyeh ex nithilo. In the context of these expectations, Jesus' death is experi- enced and proclaimed as god-forsakenness, judgment, curse, exclusion from the promised life, reprobation, and damnation. His resu;rection must then be understood not as a mere return to life as such but as a conquest of the deadliness of death. Jesus' resurrection was not seen as a private Easter for his private Good Friday but as the beginning and source of the abolition of the universal Good Friday. It means following the intention of God by entering into the dialectic of suffering and dying in expectation of eternal life and of resurrection. Just as the urge of promise is towards fulfilmenfi, as the urge of faith is towards obedience and sight, and as the urge of hope is towards the life that is promised and finally attained, so the urge of the raising of Christ is towards life in the Spirit and towards the eternal life that is the consummation of all things. This eternal life here lies hidden beneath its opposite, under trial, suffering, death and sorrow. Yet this its hiddenness 1s not an » 89 eternal paradox, but a latency within the tendency that presses forwards and outwards into that open realm of possibilities that lies ahead and is so full of promise. The future of the kingdom of God and of the freedom of man. The real heart of eschatology is doubtless to pe found in the promise and expec- tation of what is known as the "kingdom of God" and the "lordship of God." Bound up with the expectation of the lordshipvof God is the expectation that his people, mankind, and all that he has made will attain to salvation, peace,bhappiness, and life. Faith in his lordship finds its expression in the confession that Yahweh is king (Judges 8:23). In the nomadic period of the Israelite tribes wé find the idea that Yahweh is the Leader who goes before his people and rules them by leading them as a shepherd. God's lordship originally means lordship in pro;ise, faith- fulness, and fulfillment. In the idea of the lordship of God, two elements are combined: remembrance of his historic lordship and confi- dence in it anq expectation.of his universal lordship in which the world and all nations and things become. his universe. In the New Testament the "kingdom" is obviously a central concept--especially in the synoptic tradition. The message, acts, miracles, and parables of Jesus before Easter are described asv"the kingdqm of God." The peculiar feature of his proclamation of the kingdom lies in the fact that entry into the kingdom is bound by him to the decision of the hearers and their attitude to his own person. Eschatology and History 31Moltmann, DPis 21:37 » 90 Criticism and crisis, Modern man's epochal experience of history is grounded in the experience of infinltely new and overwhelming possi- bilities which cannot be mastered by the Customary methods of his tradi- tions, It is in terms of crisis that history becomes perceptible to him. Historical criticism of his traditions is the offspring of this consciousness of crisis, All reflection on "history” by historians, sociologists, and philosophers of history on the continent of Europe in the nineteenth century has behind it the earthquake of the French revolution and before it the incalculable consequences of that event ° With it there came an awareness of the totally historic character of life as the total criticalness of man's world. "Crisis" has ever since become the theme of historical research and the bas1c concept of reflectlon on the philosophy of history. The sense of history, the interest in history, and the necessity to understand history always rise in critical times of unrest, New possibilities that were hitherto unknown and unsuspected begin to dawn on the horizon: The crisis becomes one of universal world history and affects the whole existence of man and his world Every crisis throws up the question of the historic future, This means that for the present a decision has to be made which finds no precedent in the past and for which traditional custom no longer provides any rule, The decision which is forced upon the present must arise from our dream of the future, Since 1789, the land of " utopia"” no longer lies somewhere beyond the seas, but by means of the belief in history and the idea of progress it is shifted to the future which is possible. For the first time history is subjected to the influence of an apocalyptic millenar- lanism and an apocalyptic enthusiasm of spirit for which the end is » 91 other than the origin, and. the goal greater than the beginning, and the future more than all the past. - The historical method. Without "method" no assured knowledge can be attained. Historical methodology therefore embraces principles_for historical research and principles fér the critical control of their results, Certain minimum requirements from the concept of science associated-with natural science have been introduced also into the science of histqry: (1) The science of history is not art, fiction, or legend, but the concept of truth which underlies it is that of a veri- fiable truth of fact; (2) the historical correctngss of our knowledge of history, however, presupposes that our insights are controllable; (3) this controllability, however? Presupposes that histori?al objects can in principle be reconstructed; and, (4) historical science, too, works with definite hypotheses, plans, approaches, and outlooks, by means qf which the events are illumined and perceived as events. The hifitorical method is applied critically to the traditions and the historical sources. This sort of destructive criticism of the traditions of an event, however, is itself always bound up with the historian's own power of picturing and imagining how things may "in fact" have been. This means that historical criticism is always bound up with historical heuristics. The historical approach must regard bast history in that historical detachment in which it can be objectively examined. This, understandably enough, becomes more difficult the more it is a question of "contemporary history." For here the object is not firmly established but is still in the state of flux. At bottom, all history is "contemporary history." The historian's object is thus 92 engaged in a twofold movement which derives first from the process character of all past life and secondly from thg continual change in the man who contemplates history and is himself éubject to historic development. Historical heuristics. The historical method does not only work with destructive criticism of past pictures of history, in order to inves- tigate the "bare" facts, but must itself approach the source material with its own problems and plans. The natural scientist in his exper- iments must isolate his object, eliminate factors which do not enter into the question, and disregard other problems if he is to attain unequivocal fesults. This is very difficult ;n the case of historical objects because here we have always to do with highly é?mplicated structures whose isolation destroys the fact of their being s0 multi- fariously conditioned. When historical science moves on from isolated, individual facts to more general statements embracing historic processes, then there arises the problem of the forming of historical concepts. These concepts acquire their binding force from the standpoint and perspective of the moment. Therefore they cannot claim to reflect the historic processes as such but are heuristic modes of contemplating historic processes and means of explaining and understanding them. One such means is the "historical law." An event becomes explicable when its causes can be seen. We can certaihly argue from effects to causes but hardly ever from causes to effects. Hence the really historic factor lies in the'concept of possibility rather than in that of necessity: we never find all the possibilities turned into‘ 93 unequivocal necessities. Thus the concept of causality too can have only heuristic significance. Another conceptual means of grasping connections is the discovering of "tendencies." It means that the stringency of the causality of natural science is renounced, and the transition in historic movements is described not as a transition from causa to effectus but from possibility to reality. What stagds between possi- bilities and realized realities is not a causal necessity but tendency, impulse, inclination, trend, and specific leanings towards something which can become real in certain historic constellations. E. Rothacker has recommended as a means towards the grasping of historical complexes the concept of "style." What is called "historical thinking" in the emphatic and passionate use of fhe term has indeed its primary aim not in the establishing of facts but in grasping as congenially as may be the appearances of the immanent logos, the styles in which these facts arrange themselves. This involves the anthropo- logical and sociological connection of acts and events with the "envi- ronment" in the experiences of the moment and in the current views of life. In much the same way the concept of "structure" attempts to grasp the social institutions in which histbry was accepted and mastered at a given momént, by seeing them as the world of the orders and expressions of life that.exercised their influence on‘higtory. This framework of ideas leads on to the history of "forms." It examines not so much the individual statement as once made but rather the Sitz im Leben provided for the statements by religion, law, culture, pqlitics, and art. 94 Lastly, the concept of the understanding of existence is also a heuristic medium of this kind. Here the phenomena of past history are interpreted and brought to consciousness on the basis of the possibil- ities of man's understandings of existence. The historian is then not so much interested in the events themselves and their causal or tendentious connections with other events but rather im the historic character of the several existenées that have been and in the possi- bilities of human existence. Summarily, it is not due merely to‘the defective range of the human mind that history remains dark to it. This is due to history itself, which has not yet reached its end and therefore cannot yet be resolved i?to historical knowledge. It is knowledge only in a proleptic or fragmentary way. Historiology. The question of historical heuristics leads of itself to the problem of the philosophy of history. But how can a philosophy of history be possible in the Greek sense of.knowledge and of science? J. Burckhardt says the essence of history is change, yet change is the direct opposite of essence. We see an often unconscious transition from historical heuristics to philosophy of history. Ranke was cgns;antly in search of a "general bond" of history. In a similar way, Ferdinand Christian Baur attempted to comprehend history as a universal whole. For Johann Gustav Droysen, the realm of the historical method is the cosmos of the moral world. To see this moral world in its development and growth, in its successive movements, is to see it as history. For Wilhelm Dilthey, history is a human scienée, and the human sciences rest on the relationship between life, expression, and understanding. éll 95 ; ¥ expressions of life stand in a sphere of community.and are under standable only in such a sphere. Martin Heidegger sets out from the view of history contained in Dilthey's philosophy of life. For him the "basic weakness" of thus seeing history in terms of the philosopfiy of life lies in the fact that "1ife" itself has not been taken as an ontological problem. ngming up this brief review of the philosophy of histor;bthat emerges from historical heuristics, we find that the definition, compre- hension, and understanding of history inevitably,brings about at the same time abrogation, negation, and annihilation of history. Whén the primary question is that of the origin, substance, and essence of history, t@en the concrete movements, changes, crises, and revolutions which constitute history are related to some factor that does not change, always exists, and has equal validity at all times. An escha- tology of history, however, which revolves around the concepts of the new and the future, would be in a position to take history as history, to remember and expect it as historyand thus not to annihilate history but t? keep it open. Eschatology of history--philosophic millenarianism. It was the theo- logical evaluation of "time" resulting from the expectatibn of the arrival of the promised ffiture of God in terms of Jewish and Christian messianic thought that first opened the Greek mind for the prgblem.of history and for the philosophic idea of a purposeful, irreversible, and unrepeatable process of history. The combining of both spheres of truth and both ways of thinking brought about the decisive transition in Greek thinking from the static to the dynamic, from substance to function? 96 from the eternal present of being to the open possibilifies of the future, from the metaphysical glorification of the casmos to the sense of mission that transforms the world. In recent years all historians and thinkers on history have possessed a sense of mission, 9 a belief in a history thét is meaningful and a faith in the great task of mankind. Modern views of history can no longer renounce the governing idea of a "universal history or world history." It can be said that only where a knowledge of mission supplies the sense of a future and a purpose is there room for the concept of the uniqueness of events and of a meaningful future. If there are no prospects at all then history becomes pointless. The understanding of history, of its possibilities fpr good and evil, of its direction and its meaning lieé in the field of hope and can be acquired only there. Death and guilt as driving forces of the historical outlook. One historian said correctly, "To me the great historic events of the past always seem like frozen cataracts--pictures that have stiffened in the cold of vanished life and keep us at a distance. "32 5o why do we do it and why do we not rather flee the shédowy realm of the past? -Underlying all history is the fact that history is memory. Our faculty of remem— bering matters of history is always selective. Remembering and forgetting are inéérwovgn in each other. Historical science has a task of criticism and purification. R. Wittram has called éuilt the secret motor which keeps the movement going, mostly hidden, always at work, the 32Reinhard Wittram, Das Interesse an der Geschichte (Gsttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958), Py 51 » 97 real perpetuum mobile of world history. In everything that is remem- bered as guilt there lurks SOmething which is not yet over and done with. The past becomes determinative for the burdens and tasks of the present, What is true of guilt with regard to "history as memory" is also true regarding death. This is always the hardest and the most certain fact of past history. The historian's reawakening of the dead, which takes place only "in a manner of speaking," means anticipating escha- tology and projecting upon history the last act of hiétory. The "reason in history" has a messianic light and shows things with all their flaws laid bare and ready for redemption. it yill no longer be possible to regard the past only archaeo- logically and take it merely as the origin of the particular present, The past will have to‘be examined in regard to its own future. All history is full of possibilities--possibilities that have been profited by and not profited by, seized and blocked. Past ages will have to be understood from' the standpoint of their hopes, It is the open future that gives us a common front with earlier ageg and a certain contempo- raneity which makes it possible to enter into discussion with them, to criticize and accept them. The dialectic of past bappening and present understanding is always motivated by anticipations of the future and by the question of what makes the future possible. The peculiarity of the hiéto;ian's universal concepts. As long as our reality has not yet "completed" itself and not yet become a rounded whole, a metaphysic of the historical universe in the sense of the Greek logos is impossible., All the historian's universal concepts therefore 98 prove to be elastic concepts which themselves belong to history and make history. The universal concepts, which themselves belong to history afid are used by histo;ians in an effort to grasp what man is, what the world is, and so on, arise only supposedly and only wrongly from abstraction. In actual fact they contain the note of prophecy and of mission towards the future land of the 'realized generic concept." Thgy always contain a futuristically anticipated eschatology. What "world" history is, is decided by what is desired and hoped forras the one, future world. What the history of "mankind" is, is decided by what mankind one day should be énd will be. Both are directly related to present mission. Thus there exjst'only histories on the way to yorld histofy, but there is not yet a world history. The lines on which these histories are on their way towards: world history are all maintained by the consciousness of having a mission towards world history. The hermeneutiqs of Christian mission. Among the presuppositions of a rational Christian theology, hermeneutic reflections on the principles of the understanding of biblical texts have today repléced the old proofs of God which once constituted the prefatory remarks fo; what Christianity says of God. This, however, is not by any means the end of these proofs of God which demonstrated the existence and nature of God. On the contrary, they recur in all their conceivable forms in the hermeneutic reflections in which the exposition and preaching of the biblical witness to God and his actions are formulated today. The traditional proofs of'Cod can be divided into three major groups: (a) the proofs of God from fhe world, from the cosmos or ?he 99 history of reality; (b) th‘e proofs of God from human existence, from the soul or from the self- consciousness of man's necessafy ability and obligation to be a self; and (c) the proofs of God from "God," the proofs of the existence of God > or of the quest of God, from the concept or name of God. These three possibilities have their corresponding results in the principles of hermeneutics, exegesis, afid the scientific treatment which that involves in our dealings with history and with the historic witness of the Bible. All proofs of God are at bottom anticipations of that eschato- logical reality in which God is revealed in all things to all. They assume this reality as already present and as immediately perceptible to every man._ The hermeneutic principles develope@ from them take the presence of God which can be demonstrated, experienced s° Or perceived from and made it the point of reference for the exposition of the historic witness of the Bible, The key to the hermeneutics of the historic witness of the Bible is the "future of Scripture." All the biblical scriptures are open towards the future fulfillment of the divine promise whose history they relate. The point of reference and the aim in the exposition of the biblical witness is not something universal which lies at thé béttdm of history or at the bottom of existence and keeps everything moving, but the concrete, present mission of Christianity towards the future of Christ for the world. God is revealed in this mission as the God fiho calls and promises. The dominant question of all anthropology--who or what is man? who am I?--does not arise in the biblical narratives from comparing man with the animals or with the things of the world. It arises in the face » 100 of a divine mission which transcends the bounds of the humanly possiblg. Man attains to knowledge of himself by discovering the discrepancy between the divine mission and his own being. Hence the answer received to man's question about himself and his human nature runs: "I will be with thee." The theory of world-transforming, future—seekiflg missionary Practice does not search for eternal orders in the existing reality of the world but for possibilities that exist in the world in the direction of the promised future. The call to obedient molding of the world would have no object if this world were immutable. The man who is summoned by the divine promise to the fransforming of the world falls outside the sphere of Greek cosmic thinking. He has here "no continuing city," for he seeks '"the coming city of God." For him, the world can be changed by the God of his hope and to that extent also by the obedience to which this hope moves him, His experience and his expectation of history is both opened up and tied down by the future promises of the God hé believes, We can speak of "the tradition of the eschatological hope." Christian proclamation begins with the raising of the crucified Christ and his exultation to be Lord of the coming world of God. Christian proclamation is not a tradition of wisdom and truth in doctrinal principles nor is it a tradition of ways and means of living according to the law. It is the announcing, revealing, and publishing of afi eschatological event. Christian proclamation shares with the 01d Testament tradition its orientation toward the future. e The new aspect in the Christian proclamation, however, lies in its universal mission to all peoples. Christian "tradition" is mission 3 101 that moves forward and outward. It does not ride the line of the generations from father to son but spreads outward to all men. It is not through birth, but through rebirth, that faith is propagated. The Christian mission has no cause to enter into an alliance wi;h roman- ticist nihilism against tfie revélutionary progressiveness of the modern age and to present its own tradition as a haven of traditionalism for a contemporary world now grown uncertain and weary of hoping. We cannot turn our backs on the open horizons of modern history and return to perpetual orders’ and everlasting traditions. We must take these horizons up into the eschatological horizon of the resurrection and thereby disclose to modern'history its trug historic character. Exodus Church Modern society and the cult of the absolute. We now raise the question of the concrete form assumed by a live eschatological hope in modern - society., Here the title "Exodus Church" is meant to focus attention on the reality of ‘Christianity asrthat of the '"pilgrim people of God" as to him described in.the Epistle go the Hebrews: 'Let us go forth outside the camp, bearing abuse for him. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come."33 What does this mean for the social shape of Christianity in modern society and for the task it has there to fulfill in the field of social ethics? When we speak of "church" and "Christianity" we mean the whole body of believers ifi'every aspect of their 1lives. Christianity must contingally présent itself in the weekday obedience and the worldly callings of Christians and in 33Hebrews 13:13-14. » 102 their social roles as wgll as be the company that gathers around the word and sacrament in divine woréhip. The weekday obedience has receded unduly into the background in the movements of the modern evangelical cburch towards reform. From the standpoint of sociology this is undefstandable, but ffom the standpoint of theology it is unintelligible. It is precisely at this point where it must be decided whether Christians can become an accommodating group or whether their existence within the horizon of eschatological hope makes them resist accommodation and their presence has something peculiar to say to the world. By "modern societyh we mean the society that has eétablished itself with the rise of the modern industrial system, This society considers itself neutral.towafd matters of religion and questions of value. Modern society hag emancipated itself from the classical concept of religion. From the days of the Emperor Constantine and until farr into the nineteenth century, the Christian church possessed a clearly defined character in public social life. The Christian faith had become the religion of society. Modern society, however, acquired its nature center. and its power precisely through its emancipation from this religious This society, in contradis;inction to all previous societies, restricts itself to such social relationships as bind individuals labor. together in the satisfying of their needs by means of their dividgd Everything else that makes up a man's life--culture s religion, tradition, nationality, morals, etc, --is excluded from the necessary social relationships and left to each man's individual freedom. The Christian church has lost the character of cultus publicus to which it had been accustomed for more than a thousand yeérs. It » 103 became something which in its religious forms it never was and which, from a theological standpoint based on the New Testament, it can never seek to be, namely, a cultus érivatus. The cult of the Absoiute is no longer necessary for the integration of society. Even though the church no longer has to represent the highest goal of society, it can be assigned other roles in which it can be effective. This allows the church infinite possibilities of variation. Religion as the ;ult of the new subjectivity. The primary concepti@n of religion in modern society assigns to religion the saving and preserving of personal, individual, and private humanity. "Islands of meaning" are sought in a world which, while it is certainly not meaningless, is nevertheless nonhuman. As a rgsult of the fact that al} things and conditions can be manufactured by dint of technique and organization, the divine in the sense of the transcendent has disappeared from the world of nature, history, and society. The world no longer offers man a home and an ab?ding shelter. The world is surrendered to the reason of man. Our '"neighbor" comes on the scene onlf in personal encounter but not in his social reality. It is the man within arm's length or at our door who is our neighbor but not man as he appears in the soc;al‘and juridicial order. A cultural saving of humanity by means of cultivating and deepening our subjectivity in constant metaphysical reflection, in art and religion, is romanticist escapism as long as social conditions are not changed. A theology which settles faith in the "existence" of the individual is a theology which from the viewpoint of sociological science stands at the very place to which society has banished the cultus privatus in order to emancipate itseif from it. 104 Religion as the cult of co~humanity, The second role in which modern society expects religion to be effective consists in the transcendent determination of co-humanity as community. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the romanticist reaction to the conditions that seem to rob man of his humanity has clung again and again, and in ever new forms, to the idea of "community." This ideé of cofimunity, which is held to promise the saving of culture from technical civilization, has its origins in romanticism. It is found in the Communist Manifesto as the revolution's goal in a "free association of free individuals." The idea of community is found with sociaily critical and socially thera- peutic intent also in Roman.Catholic social teéching. However, in the course of ghe progress of industrial society this ideal of community has also lost its revolutionary power and been integrated into the indus- trial system. In the circle of his friends, his intimate colleagues, neighbors and children, at home, in the choral society, and in the local community, it is as if man's businesslike and inhuman outlook were suddenly blown away. Through small groups the church can have its place and carry out its function. Here it can become a refuge of the inner life, away from the supposedly "soulless" world of affaifs, Conditions in the vast industrial complexes transcend our intellectual range and can no longer be mastered morally. Religion as the cult of the institution. A third role in which modern society expects the Christian religion to be effective is, surprisingly enough, once more to be found today in the institution with all it involves in the way of officialdom agd official claims. Industrial_ 105 society in the highly industrialized countries is today again consolif dating itself in new institutions. This institutionélizing, however, brings about at the same time by an inner logic the suspepsion of the question of meaning. The Christian religion is left alone and unopposed onsthelsfiilolidioiE ideologies and world views. Modern man is prepared to delegate to the church as an institution the problems fegarding his own believing decision and leave ;he detailed questions td theological specialists, If Christianity, according to the will of him in whom it believes and in whom it hopes, is to be different and to serve a different purpose, then it.must address itself to no less a task than that of brgaking out of these socially fixed roles. It must then display a kind of conduct which is not in accordance with these. This is the conduct which is impqsed on every Christian and every Christian minister. If the God who called them to life should expect of them something other than what modern industrial society expects and requires of them, then Christians must venture an exodus and regard their social roles as a new Babylonian exile, It is achieved by breaking through social stagnation. Hope alone keeps life--including public, social life--flowing and free. Christianity within the horizon of the expectation of the kingdoh of God. Christianity has its essence and its goal not in itself and not in its own existence. fIEts li§es from something and existslfOr something which reaches far beyond itself, The risen Christ calls, sends, Justifies, and sanctifies men and in so doing gathers, calls, and sends them into his eschatological future for the world. As the promise of 106 an eschatological and universal future, the word of God points beyond itself, forward to coming events and outward into the breadth of the world to which the promised coming events are coming. The word of God is itself an eschatological gift. In it the hidden future of God for the world is already present. It is present in the form of promise and awakened hope. Baptism, too, is "ahead of itself." In baptizing men into the past death of Christ, it seals men for the future of the kingdom that is being brought by the risen Christ. Likewise, the Lord's Supper is not to be regarded in terms of fiystery and cult but‘eschgtologically. The congregation at the Table is not in possession of the sacral presence of the Absolute but is a waiting, expectant congregation seeking communion with the coming Lord. The Christian church which follows Christ's mission to the world is engaged also in following Christ's service to the world. Its existence is completely bound to the fulfilling of its service. For this reason it is nothing in itself, but all that it is, it is in existing for others. The Christian church is not to serve mankind in order that this world may remain what it is but in order that it may transform itself and become what it is promised to be. It»aims at reconciliation with God, at forgiveness of sins, and abolition of godlessness., But salvation must also be understood as shaiom in the 01d Testament sense. This does not mean merely salvation 9f the soul, individual rescue from the evil world, comfort for the tfoubled conscience but also the realizatiog of the eschatological hope of Justice, the humanizing of man, the soctalizing of humanity, and peace for all creation. 107 The calling of Christians in society. The coming lo#dship of the risep Christ cannot be merely hoped for and awaited. The life of the body, including also social and public life, is expected as a sacrifice in day-to-day obedience (Romans 12:1-2), The hope of the gospel has a polemic and liberating relation not 6nly to the religi?ns and ideologies of men but still more to the practical life of men and to the relationships in which this iife is lived. The Reformers' rediscovery of the "universal priesthood of all believers" made'it plan that the call of the gospel is issued‘to every man. Everyone who believes and hopes is called and has to offer his life in the service of God. The call according to the New Testament is once for all, irrevocable and immutable, and.has its eschatological goal in the hope to which God callé us. Our callings, however, are historic, changing, changeable, temporally limited » and therefore to be shaped in the process of being accepted in terms of cail, hope, and 1love. This world is not the heaven of self- to be in Idealism. realization, as it was said This world is not the hell of self-estrangement, as it is world is said to be in romanticist and existentialist writing. The not yet finished, but is understood as engaged in a history. It is therefore the world of possibilities, the world in which we peace. can serve the future, promised truth and righteousness and This is an age of dias pora, of sowing in hope, of self- surrender and sacrifice, for it is an age which stands within the horizon of a new future. Thus self-expenditure in this world, day- to-day love in hope, becomes possible and becomes human within that horizon of expectatio n which transcends this world. The glory of self-realization and the misery of self- estrangement alike arise from hopelessness in a world of lost hor izons. To disclose to it the horizon of the future of the crucified Chris Christian Church. 3% t'is the task of the 34Moltmann, pr 3381, . Chapter 6 DEVELOPMENTS IN MOLTMANN'S THEOLOGY ACCORDING TO LATER BOOKS, ESSAYS, AND LECTURES Moltmann's major work is Theology of Hope. This book brought him to the attention of the theological world. Since then he has written several other books and essays., He has also become a popular lecturer, We include here a digest of his second most important book, The Crucified God » and a brief summary of his book on anthropology, Man, We call attention to, and fiake some brief comments also on, two collec- tions of essays and lectures, Religion, Revolution and the Future and The Experiment Hope. "THE CRUCIFIED GOD" Moltmann in this book stresses the theology of the cross. This theology began ‘with Paul, leaped forward to Luther who gave it explicit expression, and is present today in the persecuted churches of the poor and the oppressed. Taking seriously the theology of the cross means to go beyond a concern for personal salvation and inquire about the liber- ation of man in the demonic crisis of society. It means to take seriously the claims of Reformation theology to criticize and reform. Moltmann feels this is the reverse side of the Christian theology of hope, whose starting point is in the resurrection of Christ.l He lJ{irgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, R. A. Wilson and John % Bowden, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 3-5. 108 109 intgnds to make the theology of hope more concrete by stressing the theology of the cross. The Identity and Relevance of Faith Moltmann stresses the need for the church to change in order to exist for the humanity of man in changed circumstance§; He uses the term "oriticali political theology'" to emphasize having the church spend itself for others. It will be necessary for Christians to have the courage to be different and to identify with the cross of Christ. This will bring contradiction, resistance, and opposition. Personal, inner change without a change in circumstances and structures is an idealist illusion » as though man were only a soul and not a body as well. But a change in external circumstances without inner renewal is a materialist illusion, as though man were only a product of his social circumstances and nothing else. Christian identification with the crucified Christ means soli- darity with the sufferings of the poor and the misery of both the oppressed and the oppressors. This makes a theology of the cross a practical theory. The cross of Christ represents not merely the death of Jesus but also God's identificationAwith the sufferings of the world. The Resistance of the Cross against its Interpretations There has always been resistance to the cross by making it a symbol of the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is the really irreligious thing in the Christian faith. Even the disc?ples all fled from their master's cross. Roman humanism 1ookeq on it as unrespectable and perverse. The crux of the cri;icism of Feuerbach and Freud is the 2Moltmann, Pl 235 110 Cross. Radical Christian faith, however, can only mean committing oneself without reserve to the "crucified God." There is nothifig so scandalous and unpopular as theb"religion of the cross," even among "coreligionists" in one's own circle. It is a symbol which leads out of the church into fellowship with the oppressed and abandoned. On the other hand, it is the symbol which calls the oppressed'and godless into the church and through the church into fellowship with the crucified God. The church has produced "the cult of the cross," making ChrisF present in the sacrifice of the mass. The church suppressed pagan sacrificial actions and cultic drama but replace& them with its own cult. Jesgs died "once for all." His death is not a sacrifice that can be repeated. Cultic religién'must be replaced by the spreading of the word of the cross and the practical following of Jesus. Through his own abandonment on the cross Jesus brihgs God to those who are abandoned by God Through his suffering he brings salvation to those who suffer. Through his death he brings eternal life to those who are dying. The church has abused the theology of the cross in behalf of those who cause suffering. Too often peasants, Indians, and black slaves have been called upon by represen;atives of thg dominant religion to accept their sufferings as "their cross" and not rebel against them.3 Jesus' sufferings and humiliation came from his preaching of a kingdém of sinners and tax unconditional grace and from his table-fellowship with " coliectors." By becoming a "friend of sinners apd tax collectors" he made their enemies his enemies. 3Moltmann, Pt 49. 111 Questions about Jesus Christian faith basically lives only as a profession of faith in Jesus. Wherever Jesus is acknowledged as the Christ of God there Christian faith is to be found. But who was Jesus of Nazareth? The more his divinity was emphasized the more difficult it became to demon- strate that God was of one substance with Jesus of Nazéreth. TS possible to interpret Jesus as the perfect man to those who by tradition are already Christians but hardly to pagans and post-Christian atheists. Modern Jesuology cannot reconéile the resurrection with e&ents in the physical world and finds it impossible to take into account Jesus' abandonment by God. Therefore attention is turned away from his death and céncen;rated on his life and preaching. The events which took'place around Jesus and at.his word are signs of the messianic age. His office is upheld by the future of the kingdom which is inaugurated in and around him. Thevquestion about Christ is one of being questioned rather than of questioning. He asks the question, "Who do you say that I am?" Tfiis question aroused memories of figures in the past like Moses, the prophets, and the Baptist. It aroused the expectation of Israel. We should let Jesus change and correct our ideas about God and man. By confessihg Jeéus as the Christ, faith also confesses that his future is real. It antici- pates the future in which Jesus is proclaimed worthy as the Lamb that was slain% and as the time when "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.'? The Historical TrigI of Jesus 4Revelatlo R evelation 7:17. sl In this chapter Moltmann attempts to understand Christ in the light of his life and ministry. By "trial" he does not mean simply his appearance before the Sanhedrin or Pilate but his struggle for the truth of God in which he was a witness and his trial in the judgment of God in which his witnesses speak up on his behalf. The crucified Christ is the key for all the divine secrets of Christian theology. His preaching was eschatological preaching like that of Paul. Jesus preached the kingdom In the one case the of God; Paul preached the righteousness of God. future is just beginning and in the other case it has already begun. Jesus preached the traditions of contemporary Judaism. His announcehent of the kingdom of God was so novel it led to his crucifixion. The content of his preaching also showed this change: he proclaimed the righteousne;s of God as the law of grace. His preaching was tied to his own person and with his hour, and his hour with the hour of his kingdom. The historical and hermeneutic question is how Jesus who preached became Christ who is preached. The basic christological question is how.the dead Jesus became the living; the crucified, the This eschatological resurrected; and the humiliated, the exalted. mystery lies in the faithfulness of God who manifests himself to be the same in the abandonment and in the resurrection of Jesus. Scarcely any historian now doubts that Jesus of Nazareth lived at the beginning of our era. The question of the meaning of his death His life and death are accessible on the cross, however, remains open. to us in the sources only in the context of the interpretations in which his death was understood and recounted. His death cannot be understood without his life. His life cannot.be understood without the one for whom he lived, his God and Father, and the gospel of the kingdom fqr the 113 poor for which he lived. Jesus was accused of blasphemy because in his preaching he put himself above Moses, claimed the right to forgive sins, and proclaimed the kingdom of God open to those outside the Law--those justified by grace. Through his own poverty, lowliness, and abandonment the righteousness and grace of God comes to the poor, lowly, and abandoned. His execution must be seen as a necessary consequence of his conflict with the law. As a result, the theological trial of Jesus after Easter turns on the question of righteousness. It is a contest between gospel and law, righteousness by faith and by works, énd between the justification oflthe godless and the justification of the righteous. Jesus' proclamation of God' s law of grace affected not only the Phar- isees and ?ealots but also the cultic and political religious founda- tions of the Pax Romana and the archaic conceptions of righteoushess held by all men. Socrates and Zealot, Stoic, and Christian martyrs died calmly. Jesus' death was different.® e need to see his death not only in relation to human authorities but also in relation to his God and Father. Jesus died with the signs and expressions of a profound abandonment by God. Anyone who lived in such direct fellowship with God could not regard his being handed over to death on the cross as a human misunderstanding but was bound to experience it as rejection by the very God whom he had dared to call "my Father." This made it the torment of hell. In the theological context of what Jesus preached he must have felt that the deity of God was at stakg as thofigh he were crying out, "My God, why hast thou_forsaken thyself?" "The cross of the 6See Hebrews 5:7, Mark 15:37, Psalm 22:1, and Mark 15:34. 114 Son divides God from God to the utmost degree of enmity and distinction. The resurrection of the Son abandoned by God unites God with God in the most intimate fellowship."7’ The Eschatological Trial of Jesus In this chapter Moltmann attempts to achieve an understanding of Jesus in the light of the eschatological faith which proclaims his resurrection and so proclaims him as the Christ. .The risen Christ s the historical apd crucified Jesus and vice versa. The union of Jesus with God and of God with Jesus was constituted for primitive Chris- tianity by that eventvwhich it originally.and rightly called " the resur- rection of Jesus."S Jesus' resurrection from.the dead was never regarded as a private and isolated miracle for his authentication but as the beginning of the general resurrection of the dead , ;s the beginning of the end of history in the midst of history. In this senselit was the beginning of the eschatological transformation of the world by its creator. Jesus' historical crucifixion was, therefore, understood as . the eschatological event of judgment and his resurrection as a hidden anticipation of the eschatological kingdom of glory in which the dead will be raised. So in the history of the unrighteous world there are already anticipatory revelations of his future. Easter faith can never mean that the dead Jesus returned to this life, which leads to death. Lazarus, who was raised by Christ, died again. The symbol of "resurrection of the dead" means a qualitatively new life which no longer knows death and therefore cannot be a contin- 7Moltmann, P 1520 8Note especially Romans 10:6 and I Corinthians 15:1. » 115 uation of this mortal life. Resurrection life is not a further life after death, whether in the soul or the spirit, in children or in reputation. It means the annihilation of death in the victory of the new, eternal life, as Paul declares in I Corinthians 15:55, The new wofla of the righteousness and presence of God has already dawned in this one person in the midst of our history of death. ""Whereas Jewish apocalyptic says that men should wait for 'the resurrection of the dead,’ Easter faith says that men should believe in 'the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.'"® Early Christians understood ;he resurrection as a preparatory and preliminary action of God in Jesus for the good of themselves and the world., His resurrection qualifies the one who has been crucified as the Christ and his suffering and death as a saving event for us and for many . God himself was active with his own being in the dying Jesus. He suffered with him. God suffered in Jesus, God himself died in Jesus;, for us. God is on the cross of Jesus Y"for us.” Through that he becomes God and Father ‘of the godless and the godforsaken. The true God is therefore not recognized by his power and glory in the world but thrbugh his helplessness and his death on the scandal of the cross of Jesus. Moltmann says, "For Christ's sake I am an atheist in respect to the gods of the world and world history, the Caesars afid the political demigods who follow them."10 The Crucified God Moltmann goes on to develop the consequences of this theology. He feels that without nej insight into the Christian faith Christianity 9Moltmann, prg il lOMoltfiiann, p. 195. 3 116 will not achieve any public eredibility in the human and social problems of our divided world. The '"death of God" theology has compelled theo- logians to begin with christology and so speak of God in relation to Jesus. A trinitarian approach to the death of Jesus allows us to affirm that the Father suffers with him on the cross but not in the same way. When the crucified Jesus is called the "image of the invisible God" it is meant that this is God, and God is like this. God is not more glorious than he is in his self-surrender; Jesus' death cannot be understood "as the death of God" but only as death in God. The origin of Christian theology is only the death on the cross in God and God in Jesus' death. Moltmanq says that most previous statements about ''the death of Goq" have lacked the trinitarian dimension. With the Christian message of the cross of Christ SOmethifig new and strangé has entered the metaphysical world. Faith must think of the suffering of Christ as the power of God and the death of Christ as God's potentiality. Conversely, it must think of freedom from suffering and death as a possibility for man. No Christfan eschatology is possible without the knowledge of the God who creates from nothing and raises the crucified Christ. Metaphysical atheism sees an unjust and absurd world of trium- phant evil and suffering without seeing the countenancg of a God. It says belief in the devil is more plausible than belief in God. The peak of metaphysical rebellion against the God who cannot die is a freely- chosen death, suicide. A God who 1is incapable of suffgring is a being who cannot love either He is a loveless, uninvo;ved beihg. Protest atheism will arrive at its own trugh if it recognizes man--erring, loving, and suffering, unrighteous and protesting against injustice--and sees that in his human experiences he is greater than all gods and 117 idols. A radical theology of the cross cannot give any theistic answer to the question of the dying Christ. Nor can it give an atheistic answer. For Christian theology, God and suffering are no longer contra- dictions, as in theism and atheism, but God's being is in suffering and suffering is in God's being itself because God is love. Moltmann feels that misunderstanding of the crucified Christ stems from a weakly Christianized monotheism which so many Christians hold. This general religious monotheism, he feels, is a permanent occasion for protest atheism. The doctrine of the Trinity became isolated speculation and a mere decoration'forvdogmatics after the Middle Ages. The theological concept for the perception of the crucified Christ 'is the doctrine of the Trinity. The material principle of the doctrine of the Trinity is the cross of Christ.- The formal principle of knowledge of the cross is the doctrine of the Trinity. The suffering and dying of the Sén, forsaken by the Father, is a different kind of suffering from the suffering of the Father in the death of his Son. To understand what happened between Jesus and his God and Father on the cross it is necessary to talk in trinitarian terms. The grief of the Father here is just as important as the death of the Son The Fatherlessness of the Son is matched by the Sonlesshess of the Father. The deep community of will between Jesus and his God and Father is expressed precisely at the point of their deepest separation, in the accursed death of Jesus on the cross. The doctrine of the Trinity becomes a shorter version of the passion narratiye of Chfist. The relationships in the T;inity between Father and Son are not llMoltmann, Pp. 240-241. 118 fixed in static terms once and for all but are a living history. It begins with the sending and delivering up of the Son,-cofitinues with his resurrection and the transference of the rule of God to him. It only ends when the Son hands over this rule to the Father. There is no loneliness and no rejection which he has not taken to himself and assumed in the cross of Jesus. The godforsaken and rejécted man can accept himself when he comes to know the crqcified God who is with him and has already accepted him. v Ways towards the Psychological Liberation of Man Here Moltmann asks the question, "Who is man in the face of the rejected Sqn’of Man who was raised up in the freedom of God?" This leads into a dialogue with the anthropological science which is also concerned with the therapy of sick men. Here he first refers to the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud whose criticism of religion is important for critical theology. We need a psychological hermeneutics of the word of the cross. ‘The theology of Paul and the Reformation speaks of the liberation of man by faith from the obsession of works. Psychological hermeneutics discovers a point of correspondence to this obsession in the obsessive ideas and actions of sick people and seeks to free them for love and for unrestrained sympathy with life. Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis in the.therapy of sick individuals. Although he was very careful in transfe:ripg the patterns of individual illnesses to society, he kept their determining conditions under constant investigation. This caution is less detectable in some of his followers. The transference of patterns of individual illnesses to society as a whole is no more meaningful than the transference of a » 119 critique of society to an individual case. There is no thregt to man which arouses more fiostility than to threaten his idols or those of his group. People like himself support him, He needs this support to suppress his anxiety. People who differ from him disturb him because they question his idols and laws, his world. The crucified ng renounces the privileges of An idol. I n becoming weak, impotent, vulnerable, and mortal, he frees man from the quest for powerful idols and protective gompulsions and makes him ready to accept his humanity, his freedom, and his mortality. Man can open himself to suffering and love. Ways towards the Political Liberatiqn of Mankind In this chapter Moltmann says psychological hermeneutics of 1life need to be supplemented by a corresponding political hermeneutics. What are the economic, social » and political consequences of the gospel of the Son of Man who was crucified as a "rebel'? The freedom of faith is lived out in political freedom. Political hermeneutics calls especially for dialogue with socialist, democratic, humanistic, and antiracist movements, In the democratic movement the church can discover a parable of its own brotherly christocracy and conversely offer itself in its ecumenicai fellowship as a model for correspondences in social politics and international politics. Imperialistic religions are completely monotheistic in order to lend religious support to the central authority. Patriotic religions are for the most part polytheistic because each fatherland has its special gods. In socialism the political religions tend towards pantheistic materialism. Capitalism in turn displays primitive forms of 120 fetishism, involving gold and possessions, Early Christianity was persecuted as godless and hostile to the state by both the Roman authorities and by pagan philosophers. Christian apologists were therefore all the more zealously concerned to rob these charges of their force and'to present the Christian religion as the religion which truly sustained the state, Recollection of the fate of the crucified Christ and his followers retreated into the back- ground. Christian theology must adopt a critical attitudg towards political religions in society and in the churches. It must seek to demythologize state and society. The crucified God is a stateless and classless God. This does not mean that he is an unpolitical God. He is the God of the poor, the oppressed, and the humiliated. Just as there are psychological pattern formations which make men ill, so too there are hopeless economic, social , and political pattern formations which drive life toward death. Liberation must be sought in all these areas in every specific situation. The cause of liberation is not established but is constantly in process and is only comprehended by participatory, dialectical thought. "MAN" Under this titlel2 Moltmann asks, "What is man?" Man is here compared with animals, with other men, and with God. He writes, "Christian anthropology is an anthropology of the crucified Lord: it is in relation to this 'Son of Man' that man recognizes his truth and first l2Jl'1'rgen Moltmann » Man, Johfi Sturdy, trans. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974). 121 becomes true man."l3 According to one reviewer, He examines a variety of secular definitions and holds each one in turn up to the light of the love of the crucified Christ. Looking at answers proposed by biological, cultural, religious, and Christian/anthropolgy, Moltmann finds in the first three categories valid, if limited, answers, and in the context of these disciplines he underscores man as a being whose very nature drives him to a constant, future-oriented redefinition and completion of himself Moltmann challenges the established church as well as secular definitions of man. Man no longer lives so much in the realm of nature but increasingly in the surroundings of his own works, organizations, and techniques. In the course of his release from the uncomprehended powers of nature, man comes at once into a new dependence upon his own works and organizations. Technical progress is regarded as identicail with human progress. It is believed that everything that can be done also should be done, just because it is technically possible to do it. Finally, it is believed that maximum technical efficiency and unlimited economic, technical, and military growth in strength are values in themselves. Following the crucified Jesus creates the distance of Christians from this passing world" which one can only have as if one had it not " (I Corinthians 7:29) Following the crucified Jesus also creates the strength for the incarnation of love in those possibilities which one has or finds. This love grips this life as if it were everything and yet at the same time knows that that which is is not all there is. It finds God in the concrete, and yet it knows that everything concrete is transcended by God 13Moltman, Man p, 20 l4Marianna Forde, "Man," Dlalog, Vol. 14, No. 4, Fall 1975, ppis 3113198 1522 At the heart of the book lies an excellent dialog with Marxismi These anthro- plus a critique of other contemporary "images of man." pologies contain models of the humanity after which men inquire in their experience of inhumanity. They also offer doctrines of salvation. Moltmann sees no point in exclu@ing the evaluations, norms, and doctrines of salvation from anthropology as many scholars do. In his final chapter Moltmann argues that God is the criticism of man. This stands in opposition to the basis of the modern anthro- pocentric understanding of the world, according to which man is the criterion of God. Only through knowledge of God can man break through the "images'" of himself, which he uses for self-divinization, and become truly humaq. Man becomes human when he is put in a position to leave his self-deifications and his worship of idois. Who puts him in this position? The recognition that God has made our fate and our guilt his own in the way of Jesus, the recognition that the future of man has already begun in the crucified Son of Man. He reconciles man and liberates him from pride and énxiety, which have always been the sources off idolatry. This freedom we call faith. Man can give himself up to this unredeemed world with love, humility, and patience without having to be afraid of losing himself, and without the)compulsion of having to realize himself. Here is where the distinctive nature of the Christian possibility for man lies. Life in hope means being able to love and being able to love in particular the life which is unloved and rejected. Reconciliation and hope are spread by concrete, personal, and social love. The deepest possibil- ities for human man in an inhuman world lie ultimately in a creative, 123 reconciling, and hoping love. ESSAYS AND LECTURES "Religion, Revolution and the Future"l> This volume consists of a grofip of essays that were delivered in the United States by Jurgen Moltmann from September 1967 to April 1968. During this time he was Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at Duke Divinity Scfiool. He traveled to almost every major region of the nation and visited many of the large academic and urban centers. This book comprises a portion oflthe lectures and essays yith which Professor Moltmann introduced himself and his thought to the American continent. They were written for many different occasions but all share the common, practical intent of re-Christianizing religion in terms of revolution andlthe future. He shows genuine awareness of the intellectual, social, and political conditions of American society. Space w?ll not permit us to comment on each of these lectures. However, it may be of interest to list the titles so that the reader can ascertain the scope of Moltmann's cogcern and have some direction in discovering treatment of areas that migfit be of personal inte?est. The ten chapters are entitled: What Ié "New" in Christianity: The Category "Novum" in Christian Theology; Religion, Revolution and the Future; The Revolution of Freedom: Christians and Marxists Struggle for Freedom; Toward a Political Hermeneutic of the Gospel; New Frontiers of Chris- tianity in Industrial Society; God in Revolution; Hope and Confidence 15Jflrgen Moltmann, Religion, Revolution, and the Future, M. Douglas Meeks, trans. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969). . 124 A Conversation with Ernst Bloch; The Future as New Paradigm of Transcendence; and Hope and History. "The Experiment Hope"16 This new book contains essayslby Jflrgen Moltmann published ten years after the German publication of Theology of Hope. 0f the countless movements appearing in the 1960's, Moltmann's theology is one of the very few still relevant to the practice of Christians in the world. Regarding this new volume of essays the translator says: The lasting value of the essays collected here is the development of Moltmann's "theology of hope" (1) in a new historical and social situation and (2) according to .the internal fermenting of its subject matter. From the beginning Moltmann viewed his theology as experimental. He didn't mean this in the sense that theology should try something new every time the winds change. He was rather proposing that theology find a practical correspondence to the fund- amentally experimental relationship of God with the world and of the Christian mission with history. "Experiment," in this sense, belongs to the language of promise and covenant. It points to a reality in which all things are open to the future and on the move and whose final transformation is already expected and provisionally embodied in the present. In the midst of God's experiment with his creation and Christianity's experiment with the other history-making events of human history only one thing is utterly certain and beyond all doubt: the faithfulness of God to himself and to his Word of promise. In continuity with the promissory traditions of the Bible, such a theological perspective is able to live through time precisely because it does not adapt to the times. Some of the themes in these essays may at first seem far removed ~ or even contradictory to the theology of hope. These new phases of the experiment of hope do not represent a refusal or even a correction of the theology of hope as much as a development of certain more or less latent elements of the theology of hope. They can be viewed as 16J3rgen Moltmann, The Expériment Hope, M. Douglas Meeks, trans. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975). l7Moltmann, Pp. ix-x. » 125 connecting links between Moltmann's two major books, Theology of Hope and The Crucified God. One can see here the developmént of a theology of the process of the Spirit and the church. The present collection of writings shows the growth of Moltmann's thought in the direction of a trinitarian theology which is focused in the theology of the cross and aims at a "pathic" anthropology. We have space here only to give the reader the range of topics treated by Moltmann. We do this by listing the chapter titles which are quite descriptive of the material covered: Christian Theology and Its Problems Today; Where There Is Hope, There Is Religion; Ernst Bloch and Hope without Faith; Introduction to the "Theology of Hope'"; Jewish and Christian Messianism; The Crucified God and the Apathetic Man; Dostoevsky and the Hope of Prisoners; Political Theology; The Ethic of Calvinism; Racism and the Right to Resist; The Theological Basis of Human Rights and of the Liberation of'Human‘Beings; The Humanity of Living and Dying; Bringing Peace to a Divided World; and On Hope as an Experiment: »A Postlude. Chapter 7 A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MOLTMANN'S THEOLOGY OF HOPE For me, the reading of Jargen Moltmann's books, lectures, and essays has been both fascinating and baffling. He presents a Christian theology that seems to me to have marvelous possibilities. Much of what he is saying is intended to be corrective of previous theologies and understanding of the Christian hope. Moltmann is known as a diaiec— titian. He is able to resolve.contradictions like life and death in the course of his theology. Sometimes this dialectical presentation is difficult to follow. It has been a struggle for me to Fry to understand this rather complex theology, but certainly the struggle has been eminently worthwhile. The writings of this theologian are becoming more numerous, We want here, however, to select several aspects of this theology and reYiew thém, making some comments and raising some questions. HIS EMPHASIS ON THE HORIZONTAL Moltmann, in his writings, stresses the fact that God is out ahead of us. He states that the original proclamation of the early church gradually was replaced by an gmphasié on formalism and personal salvation. He remarks from time to time that the Chriétian faith must be de-privatized, meaning that its emphasis should not be so much on personal salvation but on moving out into the world and identifying with 126 1827 oppressed and deprived people. Even though this seems to be an attempF to correct an emphasis of the past, it neglects an embhasis also on the necessary dimension of one's personal relationship to God. This "horizontal" approach to the Christian faith parallels modern process philosophy. Thgt philosophy emphasizes God ahead of us so much that it seems to lose sight of the fact that God is also with us now and that we can be grounded in fellowship and a faith relationship with him. There seems to be a downgrading of the vertical dimension in a believer's life because of the emphasis on the horizontal. Walter Capps in his evaluation of hope theology speaks of these two tendencies as "Religion A," the vertiéal dimension, and "Religion B," the hori- He Qrites: zontal dimgnsion. "Religion A" has cultivated sensitivity to the ‘sort of — transcendence which is defined in contrast to all things natural. "Religion B" is trained to look for whatever transcendence there is in things as they are. Individual or personal salvation, in the + first, derives from the awareness that beyond common human experience--or beneath, behind, or above it--rests a permanence whose reality is threatened only by man's failure to recognize it. In the second, human salvation depends upon corporate resource- fulness in facing and overcoming both the threat and the reality of nonpermanence. Hence, the disposition which moves toward a transcendent '"otherness" also exhibits particular interest in the well-being of the individual; frequently it attempts to characterize the integrated, healthy, or whole personality by means of religious and devotional terminology. The second disposition, more often than not, seems almost willing to forego the priorities placed upon individual salvation, or to subsume them within a sensibility which assumes socio-political upheaval, intellectual unrest, and cultural transformation to be persistent religious necessities. We mention this emphasis in the theology of hopé because we feel that both of these aspects of the Christian faith need to be stressed. They need to be in tension with one another and élso, at times, in ljalter H. Capps, Time Invades the Cathedral (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), pp. 115-116. 128 cooperation with each other. We do not mean to imply that Moltmann is. = not aware of this but simply are saying that in his pfesentation this aspect of the Christian faith seems neglected, and, therefore, it can be pointed out that it also needs to be fully considered for a well- balanced theology. THE USE OF THE FUTURE TENSE In his book, Theology of Hope, Moltmann begins with an excellent study of the term "eschatology." He indicates that in thebpast this has either been understood to refer only to those things which will come to pass at the end of history,or it has simply been a kind of appendix to Moltmann writes: Christian QOCtrine. In actual fact, however, eschatology means the doctrine of the Christian hope, which embraces both the object hoped for and also the hope inspired by it. 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. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day. Throughout the course of his wfitings Moltmann places so much stress upon the future that it seems neéessary here, in an analysis of his theology, to mention that one must not neglect the other fefises, namely, the past and the present. This emphésis causes S. Paul Schilling, in his review‘of Theology of Hope, to say: In its concern to correct past errors, the theology of hope is endangered by a one-sidedness of its own. The claim that the future is "the only real problem" in theology is dubious at best. The nature of God's past and present action also demands investigation, 2J‘drgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, James W. Leitch, transi (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 16. . 129 which can hardly be limited to the implications of that action for the future. To use Pauline language, faith and love as well as hope abide, and while both of them are intimately related to hope neither can be reduced to it. The case for hope can be convincingly made without downgrading other concerns of Christian belief. Walter Capps has also noted this tendency among the theologians of hope. He says that since their statements are often dialeqtiéal they sometimes tend to be one-sidedf When abstracted from their dialectical counterparts, the conten- tions of hope theology are often overstressed and one-sided. For articulated example, the Christian faith can simply not be properly by reference to one time temse exclusively. The "category" of hope can never gather together all that must also be said about faith and love. And apocalyptic awareness is not the only viable religious mode. Furthermore, the New Testament is not an '"apocalyptic book" exclu time. Zively, and cathedrals are not necessarily antithetical to THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH There is in Moltmann's theology a rather frequent reference to the church. These statements often express a justified impatience with the church. However, there seems to be a definite necessity for a development of ‘the function of the church within the framework of the theology of hope. The reference seems more often to be to believers rather than to the institution of the chufch. Surely if the implication of mission, as theology of hope presents it, is to be implemented, then a well-organized church will need to carry this task forward. M. Douglas Meeks has seen the lack of this element in Moltmann's‘ theology of hope: 3"Theology of the Future," S. Paul Schilling, Interpretation, Vol. XXII, No. 4, October 1968, p. 483. 4Walter H. Capps, pp- 131—132. 130 The crucial question'which should be addressed to the theology of hope comes at the point of the concept of the church and What bears or embodies political theology. The question is this: the Christian mission which is set in motion by the eschatological act of God? Is there not a necessity of ecclesiological mediation for a political theology? From the vantage point of the eschaton there is a tendency in the theology of hope to assimilate the total reality of the church to the action of mission. As a "community of eschatological salvation, " its gathering as well as its sending out must be spoken of in terms of eschatological expectation (Otto Weber). The Word which is proclaimed and the sacraments which are celebrated in the church do not point to anything within the church but set it on the way toward what is expected. The church is nothing within itself; it exists completely for the reconciliation which is God's shalom, the realization of the eschatological hope of justice and of the humanizing of man. Surely if the vision of the theology of hope for mission on the part of the churches is to be fulfilled it will require a healthy church. By_"healthy church" we mean here one that is strong in its faith-relation to God and in its ministry of the members to each other. Only in tfiat way can it effectively carry forward its mission of trans- forming society with a view to the future hope. NFED FOR DEVELOPMENT OF TRINITARIAN EMPHASIS Mol;mann has received criticism for his emphasis upon Chris- tology to thé exclusion of the place of the Father and the Spirit in the theology of hope. It seemed that he gave a great deal of emphasis to the Father as well as to the Son, but there really has been little in the way of a treatment of the work of the Holy Spirit in the writings that were available to me. Nevertheless, Moltmann stresses the importance of a trinitarian approach. M. Douglas Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope (Phila- delphia: Fortress Press, 1974), pp. }60—161. 131 To understand what ‘happened between Jesus and his God and Father on the cross, it is necessary to talk in trinitarian terms. The Son suffers dying, the Father suffers the death of the Son The grief of the Father here is just as important as the death of the Son. The Fatherlessness of the Son is matched by the Sonlessness of the Father, and if God has constituted himself as the Father of Jesus Christ then he also suffers the death of his Fatherhood in the death of the Son. Unless this were so, the doctrine of the Trinity would still have a monotheistic background Here is a rather typical instance of Moltmann's call for a trinitarian approach to the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ Nevertheless, he very seldom makes reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. It may well be that by this time he is also developing this aspect of his theology. We can only hope so and look forward to that element in this exciting theology. LACK OF THE NOTE OF CELEBRATION It has been pointed out by others that much of Moltmann's theology is rather somber. My reading has given me the same impression. True, it deals with death and then with the joyous and certain victory over death that will come in the future. However, the whole presen- tation seems to lack a sense of the joy that springs from this kind of hope Harvey Cox puts it well when he writes: I would like merely to suggest--and not try to devise any theology about it here--that there is another element in our contemporary cultural and indeed religious sensibility which is extremely important, and which both of these movements [theology of hope and radical theology] have overlooked That element is the sense of comic hope the note of celebration, of mirth, of joy, of affirmation of life, even of gaiety, even though there does not seem to be much empirical evidence that would support our gaity or celebration in the world around us., I had a striking experience of this when I accompanied some 6Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, R. A. Wilson and John Bowden, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), P. 243. » 132 divinity students to the induction center in Boston for an induction refusal. In fact, they are now beginning to call it the induction - refusal center of Boston. Previous induction refusals had been very grim, serious, and scary affairs. Everyone was scared. The army inductors were just as scared as anyone else. At the last one, however, a young man who was refusing his induction, got some of his friends to bring along a rock and roll band, the girlfriends made some bread and passed out jam, balloons were in evidence, mini- skirts, and banners, and the whole affair took on the air of a celebration. Something changed. The induction was again refused, the witness against the war was made, the hope for a better world without war and without killing was stated. But, at the same time, something else was stated which seems to be missing both in the theology of hope and especially in the radical theology: a kind of celebrated affirmation of the flesh, a joy in the here and now which does not preclude hope and criticism, and suggestion to those at the induction center and to those involved in the demonstration that when one is celebrating and kissing and loving the flesh, one does not burn it with napalm. I would like to see a theology which is a rediscovery of the celebrative aspects of life, the goodness of the flesh, the wonderful gift of joy, and which at the same time does not become lost in a wallowing in that discovery, but also affirms our hope for the future. I think this is possible. I think there are traces of it in Moltmann's theology. traces of it in Moltmann himself. There are.a lot more Inclusion of the above quotation leads me to regommend to any reader who would like several evaluations of Moltmann's theology of hope to secure The Future of Hope. In this book Moltmann presents an essay entitled Theology as Eschatology. Several American theologians then respond. The book contains their statefiehts that are reactions to Moltmann's presentation. Then in the final chapter Moltmann himself makes a response to what.these Americans have said about his presen- tation. This last chapter is entitled Towards the Next Step in the Dialogue. This is a valuable volume for anyone who would like to give further evaluation to the theology of hope. Moltmann's theology is refreshing and exqiting. He presents God 7Frederick Herzog, ed. The Future of Hope (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), pp. 79-80. 133 as the God of hope. He grounds our Christian hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He certainly has thought through manj'of the impli- cations of his basic premises. I am one of those who is highly appre- ciative of our access to this theology. My appreciation stems primarily from the fact that this is a theology based on the biblical revelation, that it struggles with some of the major actions of God on behalf of mankind, and that it suggests to the church specific steps that it needs to take to engage the world in a transformation of society that is in keeping with Christian theology. Chapter 8 HOW A PARISH PASTOR CAN USE MOLTMANN'S THEME OF HOPE IN HIS PREACHING Christian theology deals with concepts of God. 'Jurgen Molt- mann's theology does this very commendably. It is based primarily on the revelation of God in the Scriptures. It has much to say to modern man. The finest.medium of communicating theology to the members of the church is the sermon. It is our purpose here to make a beginning in translating Moltmann's theology into messages that can be given where the church gathers to worship. Our first step is to survey Moltmann's two major Qorks, Theology of Hope and The Crucified God, with the purpose of finding concepts that offer possibilities for the pastor in his preaching. We will summarize some of Moltmann's comments on these concepts that are useful for sermons under several headings. As Moltmann says, .'Sermons belong in a worship service and a living community."l It is our hope that this effort will lead to some fruitful preaching where God's people worship, HOMILETICAL POSSIBILITIES PROVIDED BY THIS THEOLOGY The God of Hope He is a God with future as his essential nature. ‘This is brought out in the experience of the Exodus and in the prophetic lJ{irgen Moltmann, The Gospel of Liberation, H. Wayne Pipkin, trans. (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1973), p. 10. 134 135 writings of Israel. Moltmann sees him as the God whom we "cannot real;y have in us or\over us but always before us, who encouhters\us in his promises for the future."? We cannot "have" him but can only await him in active hope. The God of the exodus and of the resurrection promises his presence and nearness to him who follows the path on which he is sent into the future, This God is the source of new tfiings that are to comes a new future His name is a wayfaring name, a name of promise that discloses » @ name whose truth is experienced in history inasmuch as his promi: se discloses its future possibilities. He is therefore, as Paul says, the God who raises the dead and calls into being the things that are not (Rom. 4:17). This God is present where we wait upon his promises in hope and tran sformation. When we have a God who calls into being the things that are not, then the things that are not yet, that are future, also become "thinkable" because they can be.hoped for.3 God's essence is not his absoluteness but the faithfulness with which he reveals himself in the history of his promise. His divinity consists in the constancy of his faithfulness, He is revealed in the New Testament as the "God of promise" (Hebrews 1023 Q=139 (UThe word which reveals God has thus fundamentally the character of promise and is therefore eschatological in kind,"4 Paul believed that because God has the power to raise the dead and call into being things that are not (Romans 4:17), the fulfillment of his promise is possible. Because God raised Jesus from the dead, the fulfillment of his promise is certain. The Person of Christ In Jesus Christ the God of Israel has revealed himself as the 2Jurgen Moltmann, Theolo gy of Hope, James W. Leitch, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 196508 plali6 ° 3Moltmann, pe’ 30, 4Moltmafin, P 143 136 God of all mankind.? The risen Christ Zs the historical and crucified Jesus, The first creeds we know of speak of "Jesus the Lord" (Romans 10:9) and "God who has raised him from the dead" (I Corin- thians 15:1) in the same breath. They combine a formula about a person with a formula about a work. Primitive Christian recollections of Jesus were determined from the start by the experience of his resurrection through God. As a merely historical person he would long have been forgotten because his message had alfeady been contradicted by his death on the cross. His historical crucifixion was understood as the eschato- logical event of judgment and his resurrection as a hidden anticipation of the eschatological kingdom of glory in which the dead will be raised.6 The Work of the Holy Spirit The.believer is given not the eternal Spirit of heaven but the eschatological "earnest of the Spirit, ! This Spirit has raised Christ from the dead énd will quicken our mortal bodies (Romans 8:11).7 It is the Qork of the Holy Spirit to enable us to enter into the dialectic of suffering and dying in expéctation of eternal life and resurrection. Paul calls him the "life-giving Spirit" who ratsed yp Christ from the dead, dwells in those who recognize Christ and his future, and shall quicken our mortal bodies. The Spirit is a pledge of Christ's future of universal resurrection and life, The Spirit gives 5Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 141. 6Jlirgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, R. A. Wilson and John Bowden, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 160-163. 162, 7Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. » 537 the believer freedom and opens the way to eternal life for him. He leads us into the "fellowship of the sufferings of Christ" and into thé love which exposes itself to death because it is upheld by hope.8 The Second Coming of Christ Parousia for the Greeks meant the epitome of the presence of God, the epitome of the présence of being. The parousia of Christ, however, is conceived in the New Testament only in categories of expectation, so that it means not braesentia Christi but adventus Christi, and is not his eternal presence bringing time to a standstill, but his "coming", as our Advent hymns say, opening the road to life in time, for the life of time is hope. With this understanding the believer does not simply take the day as it gomes but looks beyond the day to the things which according to the promise of him who is the creator ex nihilo anq raiser of the dead are still to come. The hope for the parousia does not bring time to a standstill but opens the way for time and sets history in motion. It does not tone down the pain caused us by the nonexistent but means the adoption and acceptance of the nonexistent in memory and hope. Hope makes us ready to bear the "cross of the present." Where in faith and hope we begin to live in the light éf_the possibilities and promises of this God, the whole fuilness of life discloses itself as a life of history and therefore a life to be loved.10 In this perspective we can have agape, a love for the different, the unworthy, the worthless, the lost, the transient, and the dead. The church along with the whole creation groans for its 8Moltmann, Theology of Hope, pp. 211-212. 9Moltmann, oy Sl lOMoltmann, pp. 32-33. 138 redemption from the powers of annihilation in the future of Christ (Romans 8). The imperative of the Pauline call to nefi obedience is not merely a summons to demonstrate the new being in Christ but also the coming of the Lord to judge and to reign.ll The raising of Jesus did not complete all that needs to be done, The end of death's dominion is still ahead. All opposition to God will be overcome in that future reality of which Paul says that "God will be all in all" (I Corinthians 15:28),12 Christian eschatqlogy‘speaks of the future of Christ which brings man and the world to light. It is not man's goodness or world history that brings Christ to light. He guides time to his day. "The' return of Christ dqes not come 'of itself,' like the year 1965, but comes from himself, when and és God will according to his p):omise."l3 Nowhere in the New Testafient does the "end of the world" bring about the second coming of Christ. The New Testament looks fqrward to the very reverse, namely, that the second coming of Christ will bring the end of destruction and persecution in the world, 14 Christian Faith Belief and obedience are possible in the midst of a world of contradictions because of our hope. Faith does not come to its own in be coming radically unworldly, but by hopeful outgoing into the world i t becomes a benefit to the world. By accepting the cross, the suffering and the death of Christ, by taking upon it the trials and struggles. of obedience llMoltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 162. leoltmann, pi= 1637 13Moltmann, p. 194 14Moltmann, The Crucified God, p. 21. 139 in the body and surrendering itself to the pain of love, it proclaims in the everyday world the future of the resurrection, of life and the righteousness of God.l5 Christian Joy According to Moltmann, hope b;ings man happiness in the present. In fa;t, he calls hope '"the happiness of the present."l_6 It can pronounce the poor blessed; receive the weary and heavy laden, the humbled and wronged, the hungry and dying, because it perceives the parousia for thep. Expectation makes life good, for in expectation man can accept his whole present and find joy not only in its joy but also in its sorrow, happiness not only in its happiness but also in its pain. Thus hope goes on its way through the midst of happiness and pain, because in the promises of God it can see a future also for the transignt, the dying and the dead.l? Over against this happiness, hopelessness is hell. The hope that is staked on the one who can create Qut of nothing becomes the happiness of the present when it embraces all things in love. It abandofis nothing to annihilation but brings to light how open all things are to the possibilities in which they can live and shall live. What It Means to be Human It is the Christ event that first gives birth to what can be theologically described as "man," "true man," "humanity'"--"neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female"f (Galatians 3:28). Only when the real, historic and religious differences between peoples, groups and classes are broken down in the Christ event in 15Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 163. 16Moltmann, Pt 1324 17Moltmann, P 32 140 which the sinner is justified, doe g there come a prospect of what true humanity can be and will be,l "True human nature" arises when the truth comes to man and he is brought into the truth. Communion with Christ proves to be the way for man to become man. Here true human nature emerges and the still hidden and unfulfilled future of human natufe can be sought. .This is an openness toward the world and the future which is grounded énd kept alive by the openness of the revelation of God announced in the event of the resurrection of Christ.l19 All antfiropology asks, "What is man?" The question arises in the face of a divine mission which tfanscends the bdunds of the humanly possible. Moses raises this question when he is called (Exodus 3:11). Isaiah raises the same questign in the face of his call (Isaiah 6:5). Jeremiah has a similar experience (Jeremiah 1:6). Self;knowledge comes about in the face of the call of God which demands the impossible of man ! This knowledge comes about when man discovers the discrepancy between the divine mission and his own being. He learns what he is and what he should.be, yet cannot of himself be. Man's question is then answered with the words, "I will be with you." It tells a man what he will be and can be in that history and future to which the migsion leads him. 20 Law and Promise Paul was certain that God keeps his promises. He saw unbelief in the theology of Torah in which the power of the promiée towards its 18Moltmann, Theolongof Hope, p. 142, l9Moltmarm, p. 196. 2OMoltmann, Ps 285. 141 fulfillment is bound to the fulfilling of the law. If, however, the promise of God is bound to the law, then the is invalidated: promise it then depends no longer on the power of the God who has promised, but on the power of the man who obeys. But the wrath of God will be revealed upon all who leave the law unfulfilled or transgress it. Hence law and promise are mutually exclusive, just as glorying in the works of the law and glorying in the God who justifies sinners and quickens the dead are mutually exclusive. The law does not have within it the power of the promised life and of the resurrection, but exposes life to death and leads it to death. The law does not have within it the power of justification, but the power to expose sins and to make them exceeding sinful, 2l For Paul‘the righteousness of faith and the validation of the promise in the raising of Christ belong together. WIEit dis the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void'" (Romans 4:14). If, on the contrary, the promise is set in force by God, then it confgrs righteousness by faith: If it is of faith, it is by grace. If we seek to attain the inheritance made to Abrahém by fulfilling the law, then we will lose this inheritance. Throhgh the‘ promise God showed himself to Abraham as gracious. "For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise'" (Galatians 3:18). The true heirs of the promise and children of Abraham are those who are partakers of the prgmise by faith in Christ (Galatians 3:29). The gospel makes the Gentiles partakers of the promise in Christ (Ephesians 3:6).22 1In the gospel, the 0ld Testament history of promise finds its fulfillment and its future. 21Moltmann, Thedlogy of Hope, p. 145-146, 22Moltmann, p. l46. 142 Following Jesus The idea of following Christ has been neglected in bourgeois Protestantism because it no longer wished to recognize the suffering church. It established itself in a situation of apparent harmony with the "Christian world." Only when the church and society were in conflict did anyone have the experience of consciously‘foilowing Christ and understand once again what it means to be crucified with him. The gospels represent faith as a call to follow Jesus. The call to follow him is associated with Jesus' proclamation of suffering (Mark 8:31—38). The call was a direct ;ppeal, "Follow me!" (Mark 1:17; 2:14). It meant It is a call into breaking all links with one's family, job, and self. the future of God which is now beginning in Jesus. This requires a break witfl the world which is-passing away. Like Christ, we are to be ready to be rejected by men. He was aiso rejected by God but we suffer and die in fellowship with Christ. This makes following Jesus joyful.23 "Christian identification with the crucified Christ means solidarity with the sufferings of the poor and the misery both of the oppressed and the oppressors."24 Bearing One's Cross The cross in the church symbolizes the contradiction which comes into the church from the God who was crucified "outside." The symbol of the cross in the church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar but between two thieves in the place of the 23Moltmann, The Crucified God, pp. 54-56. 24Moltmann, D25 143 skull where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city. The cross is thus a symbol which leads out of the church into the fellowshib of the oppressed and abandoned. To make the cross a present reality in our civilization means to put into practice the experience one has received of being liberated from fear for oneself; no longer to adapt oneself to this society, its idols and taboos, its imaginary enemies and fetishes; and in the name of him who was once the victim of religion, society and the state to enter into solidarity with the victims of religion, society and the state at the present day, in the same way as he who was crucified became their brother and their liberator. Christian Discipleship Baptized believers can, in the power of the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, take upon themselves the sufferings of disciple- ship. In these very sufferings they await the future glory. Through their hope £hey here attain to-participatiqn in the life of the resurrection. Their everyday life becomes the sphere of true service to God (Romans 12).26 The coming lordship of Christ goeé beyond waiting. This hope sets its stamp on life, action, and suffering in society. The earthly life in social and public life is expected to be a sacrifice of day-to- day obedience (Romans 12). The hope of the gospel has a liberating relation not only to the religions and ideologies of men, but.even more to the practical life of men and the relationships in which this life is lived.27 As the Reformers rediscovered, the "universal priesthood of all 25Moltmann, The Crucified QOd, p. 40. 26Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 161. 27Moltmann, pp. 329-330. 144 believers" makes it plain that the call of the gospel is issued to eve?y man. Everyone who hopes and believes is called and has to offer his life in the service of God. Christians are called to fan out into the world in their earthly callings to serve human society.28 Christian Atheism The true God is notbrecognized by his power and glory in the world but through his helplessness and his death in the scandal of the cross of Jesus. -The gods of the power and riches of the world and world history belong on the other side of the cross. It was in their name that Jesus was crucified. If the crucified one is the "Son of God," then Pharaoh and Caesar are no longer "God's sons" though this may be what they call themselves. Welcan use a very pointed e;pression and say, '"For Christ's sake I am an atheist," that is, an atheist with respect to the gods of the world and world history, the Caesars and political demigods who follow them!29 The autfiority of God is no longer represented by those in high positions, the powerful, and the rich but by the outcast Son of Man, who died between two wretches. Christiap theology must adopt a critical attitude toward political religions in society and in the chu;ches. The political theology of the cross must liberate the state from the political service to idols,30 The Church Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up wifh reality as it 28Moltmann, Theology of Hope, pp. 330-331. 29Moltmann, The Crucified God, p. 195. 30Moltmann, P 327 3 145 is but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. The objection to hope arises from the religion of humble acquiescence‘to ;he present. Hope makes the Christian church a constant disturbance in society. It 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, This Church is It committed to "answer for the hope" that is in it (I Peter 3:15). is called in question "on account of the hope and resurrection of the dead! "(Acts 23:6). Wherever that happens, Christianity embraces its true nature and becomes a witness of the future of Christ.31 The Mission of Fhe Church Christian eschatology sees the mission of the church as a consequence of the resurrection of Christ. "The goépel must be published among all nations" (Mark 13:10). Christian eschatology leads immediately to the practical matter of mission. The Cfiristian consciousness of history is a missionary consciousness in the knowledge of a divine commission. It is conscious of the contradiction inherent in this unredeemed world and of the sign of the cross under which the Christian miss?on and the Christian hope stand. Knowledge of Christ and knowledge of his mission and future coincide. So also self-knowledge and the knowledge of being called into his future coincide. 32 Christianity has its essence and goal not in itself and its own existence but lives from something and exists for something which reaches far beyond itself. To learn the secret of its existence we must inquire into its mission. If we want to fathom its essence we must inquire into that future on which it sets its hopes. The risen Christ 31Moltmarm, Theology of Hope, Do 22} 32Moltmann, pp. 194-195. 146 calls, sends, justifies, and sanctifies men and sends them into his eschatological future for the world. The church lives by the Word of God which is proclaimed and which sends. This word points beyond itself to coming events and into the breadth of the world to which these events are coming.33 The Christian church which follows Christ's miésion to the world is also engaged in following Christ's service to the world. Its existence is completely bound up in the fulfilling of this service. It exists for others. The church does not serve mankind so this»world may remain what it is but in order that it may transform itself and become what it is promised to be. The church takes the society with which it lives into_its own horizon of expectation of justice, life, humanity, and sociability.34 Christians exist, act, suffer, and speak in the present, with the open Bible in their hands, as it were. Whoever closes the Bible in order to speak more effectively and contemporaneously no longer has anything new to tell his age. Whoever breaks off the conver-— sation with the present in order to read the Bible more effectively finally merely engages in sterile monologues.35 Baptism Paul taught that baptism is the means of participation in the Christ event of the crucifixion and death of Christ. Fellowship with Christ is fellowship in suffering with the crucified Christ. The baptized are dead with Christ but attain participation in the resur- 33Moltmann, Theology of Hope, pp. 325-326. 34Moltmann, pp. 327-328. 35Frederick Herzog, ed., The Future of Hope (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), p. 157. 147 reétion of Christ by a new obedience which unfolds itself in the‘realm ol resurrection.36 Baptism, like the church, is "ahead of itself." In baptizing men into the past death of Christ, it seals men for the future of the kingdom that is being brought by the.risen Christ. Only an eschato- logical church has the right to perform the act of baptism. It must be open toward that which still lies ahead,3’ The Lord's Suppér The Lord's Supper‘needs to be seen eschatologically, like baptism. The congregation at the table is not in possession of the Absolute but is a waiting, expectant congregation seeking communion with the coming Lord. The communi;ants are a community of those who, on the ground of the resurrection of Christ, wait for the Kingdom of God and whose life is determined by this expectation.38 Death For the Jews death meant being cut off from God and from living communion with him. Being able to praise God and being no longer able to praise him are synonyms for the antithesis of life and death. Hopes of resurrection found a place on the periphery of the 0ld Testament and in the apocalyptic of late Judaism. Ezekiel expounded the power of the God of promise whom even death cannot rob of his due. He speaks of a creative act of Yahweh beyond the bounds of the temporal and the possible (Ezekiel 37:1-14). Here for Israel the idea of "raising the 36Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 161. 37Moltmann, P 326. 38Moltmann, P. 326. 148 dead" is formulated within the framework of the religion of promise. Even beyond death this God will achieve his judgment in both righteoué and unrighteous.39 The Resurrection from the Dead Jewish apocalyptic says that'men should wait for "the resur- rection of the dead." Easter faith says that men should believe in "the resurrection from the dead." Believers no longer live in this unredeemed world of death. In that one man, the future of the new world of life has already gained power over this unredeemed world of death and has condemned it to become a world that passes away. Through faith in the risen Jesus, men already have true life in tfie midst of false life, This is true only for those who live in communion with the one who was crucified by that false life. The future has already bégun. Jesus proclaimed, "The Kingdom of God is near at hand." So on basis of his resurrection from the dead the early church proclaimed, '"The day is ét hand"” (Romans 13:12) and "The end of all things is at hand" (I Peter 4:7).. The "night" of false life, unrighteousness, and the unredeemed world is "far spent."40 "Resurrection of the dead" excludes any idea of a reyivification of the dead Jesus. Easter faith can never mean that the dead Jesus returned to this life which leads to death. In that case he would have had to die again like Lazarus. "Resurrection of the dead" means a qualitatively new life which no longer knows death and therefore cannot be a continuation of this mortal life. "Christ being raised from the 39Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 208-210. 40Moltmann, The Crucifieq Gdd, pAial 7, 3 149 dead will never die again’” (Romans 6:9). Resurrection life is not a further life after death. It means the annihilatiofi of death in the victory of the new, eternal 1life (I Corinthians 15:55) .41 A STUDY OF SEVERAL.SERMONS BY MOLTMANN It was a delight to discover a book of sermoné by Moltmann available in English. This offers us an opportunity to see how he translates a complex theology into messages that appeal to.the worshipper and ‘conveys to him the treasure of the gospel. According to my conviction, scholarly theology has for its target the sermon just as every recognition of truth aims at a practice which will change false reality. A theology of hope has for its goal a practical liberation of men from the chains of sin, of law, and of anxiety; its desire is to provide concrete liberation from the demonic circle of oppression, of exploitation, and of evil death. Though not the only means, the sermon is one of the best for liberating the internally and exter nally oppressed man for faith, love, and hope. We will here give the sermon topics, the.biblical texts, and the major ideas Moltmann uses in several of his sermons included in his book entitled The Gospel of Liberation. "God Is Different," based on Isaiah 55:6-11 "Seek the Lord as long as he may be found," demands the prophet and thereby says two things: whoever does not seek persistently also will find nothing; where nothing is to be found, there we also have nothing to seek. Seek God so long as he is to be found, for theré is a time in which he is not to be found and gives no further answer. The AlMoltmann, The Crucified God, ép. 169-170. 42Moltmann, The Gospel of Liberation, pp. 10-}1. . 150 misunderstanding of the géneral religious faith in God is that God is always there, eternal, unchanging; that he does not fun here and there as we do when we are in a hurry; that he lives in hea§en like a great king in his palace. For the prophets of Israel, however, God is quite different than this "Other." He is a living God who leaves us and seeks us, If he comes near to us, then it is time to seek him, If he is far, then we cannot seek him but must remain where we are. If he announces that he is coming near, " then it is time to pay attention and to seek him, to set out and go to'meet him. Was there a time in Israel when the Lord was not to be found, when a leéden heaven overwhelmed everything? The prophet h%mself lived publicly in such a time (Isaiah 40:27; 49:14), That was the lamentation of the captive, ‘the dispersed,’ the humiliated, and the abandoned from Israel in the Babylonian exile. This questioning faith is like a groping in the dark. Ii lies in God, when we are brought thus into sorrow, into exile, into solitude, and into questions without answers., Many people today are of the opinion that this is indeed the last word about our situation in our time. But the lesson of Deutero-Isaiah, the salvation-prophet of the forsaken in Babylon, is different. Hear the word of God in the time of God. The time of God is the end time, ;hg end of exile, the end of silence, and the end of forsakenness. This is also the hour of the gospel of the anointed of God, who has come in our flesh, in our questions, in our pain, until the last cry on the cross. In the coming of the Crucified, God himself approaches. We can begin anew. We can 1lift our heads out of thé mire of self- depreciation. Why ? Because freedom approaches wherever God comes. The IS world is no longer changeable but can be transformed It makes sense, therefore, to knock on the still closed doors. The prophet having heard a saying of God, has a vision. While he announces it, he begins to act, and that is enough for us. There are these early signs, omens, and promises in which a new future of God and man and also of the world makes itself known The saying in which the coming God approaches is, first of all a harsh contradiction: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord." We know that God is different. He is by no means the fulfillment of human thoughts and the heavenly guarantee of human ways. The disturbing, incomprehensible, and actually entirely other in this contradiction of God, however, is that God, once again, is entirely other than we think that he is different Our thoughts are thoughts of judgment. The thoughts of God however, are thoughts of giving and of joy. Out of this contradiction--of the joy of God as over against the self—Judgment of man--springs then the vision of a new creation'of God through the effecting, creating word of his deed. It will not return empty but will do what pleases God, Empty-returning words we know well enough There are also succeeding words which bring about something new. Parents hear the requests of their children and often fulfill them. However, there are more unheard cries and requests in the world than there are ears to hear them or hands to fulfill them. The productive word with which God creates what he wants is another thing. It is the word of a new creation out of nothing., Faith in God who creates new life out of nothing is a faith that transforms death and life, Whoever trusts in the final success of the creating and saving word of God cannot give up . 152 anything or write off anyone, even though all experience hits him in the face. He begins to love. According to the saying of God which the prophet announcés to the men in exile, he then comes again himself to speak with a noble vision, The captives return home to the land of freedom. Joy abounds and peace accompanies them, The exodus from captivity into freedom is no event of grim battle but of contagious joy which the whole creation echoes, To me it appears that here the cosmic dimension of men's liber- ation has been paraphrased in images. Thus, according to Paul, the entire waiting creation yearns for the revelation of the children of God. There is no redemption of the soul without a liberation of the body. There will be‘nb exodus out of the night of God's obscurity for man without a new habitable cfeation coming out of this world of chaos. Our quéstion, however, is what shall I begin? Where shall I begin? (1) Seek the Lord and call on him. The passage into freedom begins with calling, praying, and questioning after God. Whoever prays in this way, as the prophet iptended H gains a foretaste of freedom where he is and becomes free himself. (2) The godless should leave his way. One can actually leave the haughtiness and bitterness against God and join in the joy of God. One sees the man next to him with different eyes, with the eyes of the joy of God. (3) The evildoer must return to the Lord. Grasped by the joy in God, he is no longer tied to his crimes but free because he is loved, "The God of Hope," based on Romans 15:4-13 There are many gods in the religions of the nations and many idols in our lives. But these are gods without hope and idols withéut » -~ 153 future. The God of the Bible, however, is the God of hope. He encounters us in his promises and attracts us into his rich future. We can say further that the God of hope is the God of freedom. He breaks through defenses of anxiety and the walls of care. He breaks into the boundary of our soli;ude in which we have hidden so that no one will come near us. He despises the difference between black and white, poor and rich, educated and uneducated. He seeks men--poor, suffering, hating and ugly, cramped and stunted men--and accepts them as they are. That knowledge makes us free and is a source of support. This God of hope is the boundless God. Whoever hears of him, ;hinks of him, prays to him is g?asped by hope. Whoever obtains what this hope promises stops at nothing, has no rest until all boundaries are broken, until every corfier of the earth and every impulse of our bodies are permeated with the promises of God and free and ready to obtain his joy. Naturally we would gladly be more hopeful in our work and more confident with our fellowmen, but there are simple limits, limits of strength » in the possibilities qf others, and of hard reality. Certainly some go out "beyond the 1limits" of the church and their home into foreign lands--missionaries in India and Africé. Some become doctors and engineers in developmental help. Certainly many go "over the boundary" from Sunday worship and Christian custom and do something unexpected in politics. But mostly one sees nothing special being done by those who are called by the God of hope » no boundaries being stepped over, but rather the painful observance of boundaries afid competition in that society where they live. It‘is not the great evil we do but the good we omit that condemns us. So many doubts and considerations come to us in this way. ‘Hope 154 is indeed the obtaining of all understanding and powers for the promising future. Doubt is only a hope which has lgét its object and which now begins to devour itself. But where can we learn that hope again? Paul gives us two very simple things: (1) We learn hope in the Bible, and (2) We may hope since Christ has received us. (1) We can go out‘into the world in order to.iearn fear. We encounter it in the small unpleasantness of the ordinary day, in human insufficiencies, and in sickness. This is why we read the Bible--in order to learn hope in vexation, monotony, fear, and the daily degra- dations. Paul says: "Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scrip?ures, we might have hope" (Romans 15:4). The Bible is the textbook of hope. The best presupposition for the theology and church of today to understand it correctly is this: every page and every word is concerned with the burning question, What may I hope? (2) In order to hope we need to be loved a little and have the knowledge that there is one who hqpes in, waits on, answers for, and believes in us. "Accept one another just as Christ has accepted you, to the praise of God," Paul states. With the resurrection of Jesus, God has accepted us, just as one accepts and brings to honor something which is lost and believed forgotten. He is the God of hope because he has hope for us and practices the patience of hope with us. Whatever may always be wrong with us, we are the hope of God in Fhis world. He makes us hope because he has patience with us——boundless, untiring patience. For what does this hope hope? It hopes for all men. That is what Isaiah meant: "The root of Jesse shall come to rule the Gentiles, 155 and in him shall they hope." How can we believe without having faith and without hoping for the Indian, the Chinese, the fiuddhist, and the Communist? Where Christianity begins to accept men, that is, to hope for all men, pray for all men, and recognize that all are responsible, there begins the infection of the heathen with hope. This hope goes for all, namely, for the peace Sf the entire dismembered creation. If hope is to go to that point, how can we look on peacefully when there is enmity, hate and contempt; degradation and offense in this'creation?. Mission is then also the infection of public life in society and politics with hope. Whoever makes a man laugh again unlocks for him the heaveniy kingdom. Whoever gives a man patience infects hip with hope. Whoever accepts a man as he himself is accepted by Christ loosens his tongue for praise. "Look, Everything Has Become New," based on II Corinthians 5:17-21 Paul was no visionary, no optimistic fanatic who viewed every- thing through fose-colored glasses. What reason can he have, therefore, for this shocking assertion that we and everything around us have become new? It is as if he were to lead us before a mirror which we had never before known > @ mirror in which we see ourselves with different éyes, and which shows us our new face. TS the»mirror of the crucified Chirdisits Is anyone in Christ? He forgets himself, for he experiences himself as loved, accepted sy reconciled--as a new creature, as a creation of love. The old has passed away. He no 1onger_needs to seek himself, for today and tomorrow and in eternity he is found. Whoever learns to see himself thus in the mirror of the cross also obtains new eyes, He sees his neighbors and his surroundings 156 differently. In so doing, he sees the world as free--free from sin, free from anger, and free from evil death. Look, evérything has become new In the death of Christ, the protest of his anger against evil has’ become the sacrifice of love for the malicious and the forsaken. Let us therefore already do today what shall be tomorrow, The world is no longer a hopeless case. 1In the final time there ére no longer any hopeless cases. One can become hope for the other since God through Christ became hope for us all. Nevertheless many among us will still say, "It could be that one who is right in Christ and believes quite firmly can experience this and see the world with suéh enlightened eyes, but who is already in Christ?" We must not falsely attribute this certainty to ourselves. It does not come from men, but,‘as Paul continues, "All this is from God." Whét did God do there in that man whose last word cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" He took our contempt upon himself, my coldness of heart also. He took the sufféring of the world on himself, and my sadness also. "He has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we become through him, the righteousness of God." God reconciled the world in Christ. Thus all whb live and die in this world are included. No one is excluded. God lets ué pértic— ipate in the reconciliation of the world. He does not make us accusers of other men. He makes us agents of reconciliation in this society. Reconciliation cost ‘God dearly, as the cross of Jesus makes clear. It demands--as is seen in the life and death of Paul--the full use of a life which lives no longer to itself alone but stands in the service of a greater one. The world is reconciled and therefore it can be changed, say those who hope. . 157 "The Return of Christ," based on Matthew 24:1-14 Two things concern all of us daily: first, the future of God, for we believe in hope and expect the fulfillment of all our prayers. At the same time, we are concerned about the future of the earth on which we live and work, love and suffer with others. How can we bring both together: community with hope in God and community with the sorrows of the earth? The first thing which springs before our eyes out of the small Synoptic Apocalypse is the wide scope of questions of the disciples. They agk about the setting up of the kingdom of Christ. They ask about the end of a world from need, tears, pain, and sin, Whoever enters into the commudity of Jesus always learns both emotions at tbe same time: the passion of hope that makes us joyful because the kingdom of God is near and the painful sorrow of love, experiencéd in solidarity with oppressed humanity. It is difficult for us today to bring the hopes of Christian faitp and our sorrow for the fate of the earth into one common denominator. Many minds go their separate ways here. One believes in God but ignores the world as if it weré nothing. The other involves himself politically and socially in the.history of the earth and disregards God as if he were nothing. When the disciples found the messianic hopes for heaven and earth fulfilled in Jesus, they were converted. Today men are not converted to the hopes of Christ if the Christians théy'see have not already been converted to the suffering of humanity. But how should we live with this certainty of the ffiture in history? It means first: do not Zet.yourself be led astray. There.will be many Vho come and say, "I am the Christ, the leader, the.libe?ator.” 158 They will say, '"We bring to you the fulfillment of all desire. God 15 not helping you; leave him and join our movement." Therefore remain with Christ. Remain fools of the great world hope of God. Secondly: do not let yourself be frightened. Nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will no longer be anything firm in the political, social, indeed even the cosmic order. Premature despair is something we are not permitted. The end does not lie in the feap befofe which nothing on earth is certain. Not the catastrophe but the messianic kingdom of Jesus is the end. Hold firmly on to hope. Nothing is yetllost. In the second part'of Jesus' speech, the terrors of history and the future.of the Christian church itself importune. From the fate and the future of the world, the emphasis turns to the fate and the future of the disciples of Jesus. "You will be hated by all nations for my name's sake." What Israel often experienced as a people of God in a godless world comes now to Christians. The church offers no security either. It tob is not yet the place of shelter nor the end of history. False prophets will enter among them and lead them astray. They do not like the fact that Jesus has not abolished the law but has instead fulfilled it with better righteousness. Thoughts of the future emerge again in the warning, "He who endures to the end will be saved.” There is salvation. It lies in persevering with Jesus until the end, until the kingdpm_of Christ. We persevere in the love of Christ for the degradedvand the wronged. We bring friendliness into a world of cold indifference. Perseyerance until the end, that means going on ahead with the message of freedom and of the kingdom, penetrating to all places and circumstances with the . 159 conviction that the end is the kingdom of Christ. Cfiristian hope is thus the hope of a love which takes the sorrow of humanity upon itself and looks for the kingdom where "peace and joy laugh." SUGGESTED SERMON OUTLINES EMPHASIZING OUR CHRISTIAN HOPE We have listed some homiletical possibilities that na:urally arise out of the theology of hope. We have examined a few of Moltmann's sermons in which he presents his theology in simple and provocative form, based solidly on biblical texts. We now offer some sermon outlines that a parish pastor may find helpful in conveying Christian hope to the members of a worshipping congregation. A "Keep Your Hope Alivei" based on Hebrews 10:23—25 Our hope is based on God who is faithful to his promises. i He showed his faithfulness in his covenant with Israel. He opened the way into his fellowship through the work of Christ. Our We need not waver in our confession of hope in God today. hope is expressed by works of love to each other. We gather at worship to encourage and strengthen each other. N We minister to each other with love and good works. Together we look toward the future which God will bring! JEL "Christ Is the Lord of Al1!" based on Romans 10:5-1 A. We are saved through what Christ has done! 3. If we were saved by keeping the law, we could by such goodness ''ascend to heaven to bring Christ down." The gospel reveals Christ and the true way of salvation. Salvation can be accepted in a very simple way! The salvation Christ won is for everyone! Faith in Jesus is the way to freedom from sin for 4 everyone. Christ has broken down the distinction bétween human beings. § Our hearts and hands need to be open to all people! a. As Christians we are to go to the oppressed and the oppressors, the well-to-do and the indigent. b As we confess Jesus as Lord, they become acquainted with the gospel. Cc We have the command of our Lord to go to all thé world with the gospel! 160 JLIEIE "The Holy Spirit Makes Us Children of God," based on Romans 8:9-17 A. il The Spirit leads us into fellowship with Christ The Holy Spirit dwells in the believer. 2 He enables us to belong to Christ. 3. By his power we will be raised from the dead even as he raised Jesus a. Now from dead works b In the future from physical death B. The Spirit assures us that we are God's children. He removes fear and gives us the spirit of sonship. He makes us heirs with Christ. % He leads us into suffering with Christ. a We suffer '"with Christ" as we take up the burden of helping the oppressed. b. We can labor in the hope that we will be glorified with Christ in the future! IV. "Christ Will Destroy Death!" based on I Corinthians 15:20-26 A Christ is the first of those to be raised from the dead 1 Death came on the whole world through Adam's sin ad. b With it came all kinds of evil and suffering. While on earth we bear this suffering with others. Christ's resurrection signals our resurrectlon from the dead. a. This event gives promise of a glorlous future, b We will share in his resurrection glory! B L Christ will raise those who belong to him. This event is still in the future--when he comes. 2 3 He will then destroy every rule, authority, and power. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. a This hope enables us to do battle against all enemies of humanity. b In the midst of suffering we are promised the victory Christ will bring! "Faith Is Deeds Done in Hope," based on Hebrews 11:1-4 A Faith is assurance and conviction regarding our hope for the future. 1 The creation of the world by the Word of God is a matter of our faith. 2 Far greater things are promised by God for the future. a The resurrection is our surety of God's future action. b We believe that all evil will be destroyed. Faith is action undertaken at the command of God. it 2 Abel expressed his faith by offering his best to God. Our faith must be exercised by obeying the commands of God. a We are to show love to those we meet in everyday life, b We have joy in service because of our hope in God s promises. 161 VI "Patient Hope Brings Joy!" based on James 5:7-11 A We live in the certainty that the Lord is coming! lfl This is like the farmer who waits patiently for a crop. 2 We can practice patience because we have hope. a Grumbling against each other only brings God's judgment. b. We serve our oppressed neighbors with joy. C Knowing the Judge is at the door gives us patience. We know the Lord is compassionate and merciful 1 The prophets are examples of patient sufferers. a. Elijah b Jeremiah i Job's steadfastness brought him happiness. Knowing God can make all things new enables us to live out our lives with joy. WL "Christ Makes Us Truly Human," based on Ephesians 3:1-12 A. We share our humanity with everyone for whom Christ died 1L He laid down his life so that Jews and non-Jews might no longer be separated 2 Paul here calls this a great '"mystery revealed by the Holy Spirit. a. We humans raise barriers of race, economic status, culture, and language, b God knocks down such barriers. Cc At the cross of Jesus we are all equal--humans with weaknesses who need the grace of God. We discover our humanity in God's call to publish the gospel to the world. 1 Paul knew he had been called to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. a He realized his human inadequacy. b By God's grace and power he was able to carry out this task! 2, People whom God has called in the past felt inadequate a. Moses said, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" (Exodus 3; 11) b. Isaiah felt his humanness when God called him (Isaiah 6:5). 3' We sense our true humanity when we hear God's call a God calls us worthy through what Christ did at the Cross. b To each of us God is saying, ''Go, make disciples. (1) It is impossible in our own strength. (2) We discover how much we need God‘s help--how human we are. VIII "Faith in Christ Makes Us Right with God," based on Galatians 3:16-29 A Paul found that the Galatian Christians reverted to dependence on works for salvation (Galatians 3:1-5). B God's promise of salvation to Abraham was based on falth 1 The law did not come until 430 years later. 162 I1f salvation came by works of law the promise would be void! a Romans 4:14 b Galatians 2:20 3z The law was given to show us our need for grace! a Romans 3:20 b Romans 7:7-10 We are all children of God by faith in Christ It This applies to Gentiles as well as to Jews. 2 Faith in Christ makes us heirs of the promise made to Abraham! 3 In the gospel the 0ld Testament history of promise finds its fulfillment. IX "Following Jesus Today,'" based on Mark 8:31-38 A Jesus assumed the cross because he loves us. il It was a shock for the disciples to hear what would happen to him! 2 Peter rebukes Jesus for talking this way! 3. There is still resistance to associating suffering with Jesus 4 It is important that we know what kind of Savior we have. B. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves and take up a Ccross 1 His hearers were to understand the close. relationship between his suffering and the way we are to live. 2 Losing one's life for the sake of Christ and the gospel saves one's life. 3 One aspect of following Jesus today is our attitude toward him and his words now! Hope Affects Everyday Life," based on Romans 12:1-8 A Christ's love calls us to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. Paul has laid the foundation of our hope in Romans, Chapters 1-11. We are called to live ' 'transformed" lives. This will be living proof of God's goodness. Our gifts are to be used for the benefit of our neighbor. e We are one body in Christ. The exercise of our gifts is an expression of our faith and hope Our everyday life is the sphere of our true service to God XI "For Christ's Sake I Am an Atheist," based on Matthew 22:15-22 A Devotion to religious and political idols is atheism. B The religious authorities rejected Jesus. 1 Here they try to develop an accusation against him a They plotted to.get him to say something wrong b They speak deceptively--with a compliment. Later these religious leaders bring about Jesus cruci- fixion Even religious men can be against God 163 4, Christ alone is to be worshipped, even though false religious authorities would call us "atheists." C. Political authorities are limited in what' they can do. i They are to maintain order and supply physical needs of people. Jesus acknowledgés the need to pay taxes. ; Political authorities can exercise power and authority that seem stronger than God's in this world. 4. The state joined the church in crucifying Jesus. D. Only Christ deserves our worship. l' All lesser authorities are idols. 2. We worship him alone even though political authorities may consider that "atheism." KILILA A. "The Church Must Declare Its Hope," based in I Peter 3:13-17 Christians hold Christ as Lord in their hearts. 1- They need to be prepared to defend the hope which they hold, e Testimony to Christ is to be given with gentleness and reverence, e Suffering may follow, but let it be for doing right, not wrong. B. Christians are under commission to proclaim Christ to the world. l. They wait for his future in patient hope.. 23 3. They conduct themselves in a Christlike way. They are under obligation to publish their hope in Christ to all nations (Mark 13:10). 4, They show confidence in Christ's future by the service they render to others. XETE, A. "Baptism Unites Us with Christ," based on Romans 6:1-11 Baptism identifies us with Christ who died for us. 1 His death frees us from sin. 2 His death to sin was "once for all." B. Baptism identifies us with Christ who was raised from the dead. A We will participate in the resurrection resurrection promises us. whicfi his own 20 Baptism is "ahead of itself" in that it seals us for the future of the kingdom of Christ. S Only a church that believes in Christ's coming kingdom has the right to baptize. XIV. "Holy Communion Is a Foretaste of the Future,”" based on Matthew 26:26-29 A. Jesus gave his supper to the disciples beforé his cruci- fixion and resurrection. . it He related the bread to the breaking of his body. 24 He related the cup to the shedding of his blood. 3 What he would do for them would provide the forgiveness of sins, 164 B He spoke at his supper of the "new" banquet in his Father's kingdom. 1 2 Holy Communion points to the future Jesus has promised. A congregation at Communion is a community waiting for the coming of its Lord. 3 The life we live is determined by the ‘expectation which Communion inspires. XV. "Christ Gives Us Victory over -Death!" based on I Corin- thians 15:51-58 A Death for Jews of 0l1d Testament times meant bein from communion with God. g cut off 1 2 They thought the dead could no longer praise God. Death for the Jews cut one off from God's promises. 3 Ezekiel's picture pointed forward to a creative act of B God giving promise of life after death (Ezekiel 37:1-14). Jesus' resurrection assures us of victory over death. 1 Death is the consequence of sin. 2 We will be raised to a new quality of life--not a restor- ation to this life ("imperishable," "immortal) e 3 . Death will be completely overcome! 4 We can give steadfast labor in Christ's service now because of our hope for the future! > Chapter 9 CONCLUSION The study of Moltmann's theoiogy of hope for Fhis dissertation has been a much more difficult task that.I surmised! At the outset, the possibility of a study of hope in these times of anxiety was indeed an exciting prospect. The preparatory reading proved to be very interesting. The greatest difficulty came in trying to understand and prepare a digest of Theology of Hope and The Crucified God. This may be due to several factors: (1) Moltmann is exceedingly well read and covers many different fields of study inldeveloping his theology (pgilosophy, metaphysics, mythology, anthropology, etc.); (2) his arguments are often based on European sources that were not available to me in English; (3) the sentence structure is often involved and lengthy,. fequiring 0 frequent reading to grasp; and, (4) having to work from a translation of the German made it somewhat more difficult. There was frequently material in Moltmann's theology to get me excited and keep me going. Then again there were those instances when the argument was hafd to follow and the way through became exceedingly difficult. One of the really delightful aspects of my acquaintance with Jurgen Moltmann's writings stems from a study of his sermons. Even though he is very thorough and complex in his expression of the theology of hope, his sermons are beautifully adapted to the average hearer or 165 166 reader. He communicates in a charmingly simple and warm style. His messages are firmly based on Scripture, and the progress of thought is easy to follow. It has become a firm conviction thgt my reading and study of this theology cannot be limited to several months. It will require years for me to reach a full understanding of the thought of Moltmann. A good beginqing has been made, and I now have the motivation to g0 on in my study of the theology of hope and other theologies as well. It is my firm intention to keep abreést of further developménts in hope theology. I am sure that this emphasis will be a regular part of my preaching. In fact, it has already become a new Qimension in my sermon work. Tgroughout this whole project I have been aware' of the quiet nudging of the Holy Spirit toward its completion! He has given me the courage and wisdom to continue. I fondly hope that he will touch the mind and heart of any possible reader of this dissertation and convey to him abundant hope for the ffiture that God has promised! BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Aaland, Kurt, Matthew Black, Carlo M; Martini, Bruce M. Metzger and Allen Wikgren, eds. The Greek New Testament. 2d ‘ed. Stuttgart, Germany: Wurttemberg Bible Society, 1968. Alves, Ruben A. A Theology of Human Hope. New York: Corpus Books, BT Anderson, Sir Robert. The Gospel and It g Ministry. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1965. Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Yictor. New York: Macmillan, 1969. Barth, Karl., The Epistle to the Romans. E. C. Hoskyns, tranms. New York: Oxford University Press, 1933. . Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. . The Word of éod and the Word of Man. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1928. Beardslee, William A. A House for Hope: A Study in Process and Biblical Thought. 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