Moltmann

(from the Introduction)
Retiring as professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen, Germany, The Coming of God is Jürgen Moltmann’s final installment to his five-volume “Contributions to Theology” series. Divided into five main sections, the book seeks to answer four primary questions: how does hope relate to eternal life? What is hope in relation to God’s kingdom? How does hope relate to the new heaven and new earth? Finally, what is glory’s hope for God? The author ultimately aims to integrate individual, universal, historical, and natural eschatology into a unified whole.  In the end, Moltmann’s eclectic eschatology provides wonderful insights and offers a much-needed reminder about the ecological and cosmic dimensions of eschatology. While not always defensible, his eschatological schema is an important corrective for those eschatologies that ignore social justice or focus entirely on future dispensations.

This article concentrates on Jürgen Moltmann’s elaboration of time and space, which constitute a  hermeneutical  key  when  talking  about  the  new  creation.  It  presents  a  general  survey  of Moltmann’s  concept  of  time  and  space,  and  critically  evaluates  the  doctrine  of  zimzum,  the dialectic of time and eternity, and the view on limited and omnipresent space which influences Moltmann’s view on the new creation. In my approach I argue extensively that the time and space of creation will not change into the infinite free time and space of God, but they will border on it, and thereby be connected and separated by it.

Dieser Artikel konzentriert sich auf Jürgen Moltmanns Auseinandersetzung von Zeit und Raum, die einen hermeneutischen Schlüssel bilden im Gespräch über die neue Schöpfung. Es präsentiert einen allgemeinen Überblick über Moltmanns Konzeption von Zeit und Raum, und bewertet kritisch die Lehre vom Zimzum, die Dialektik von Zeit und Ewigkeit, und die Sicht auf den allgegenwärtigen und begrenzten Raum, die Moltmanns Sicht auf die neue Schöpfung beeinflussen. In meinem Ansatz argumentiere Ich, dass die begrenzten Zeit und Raum der Schöpfung sich nicht in die unendliche freie Zeit und Raum Gottes verändern. Sie werden aneinander Grenzen, aber damit sowohl mit einander verbunden wie voneinander getrennt sein.

Resumo: O teólogo Jürgen Moltmann tem uma extensa contribuição para o diálogo ecumênico. Com os pentecostais, Moltmann se ocupa em um dos seus mais importantes livro, " O Espírito da vida: uma pneumatologia integral ". Nesse texto, o teólogo abre um profícuo diálogo com a teologia pentecostal focando o aspecto ecumênico, bem como a perspectiva aberta da tradição pentecostal enquanto liturgia e dinâmica eclesial. Essa comunicação pretende abordar alguns aspectos dessa aproximação, procurando salientar caminhos de convergências entre a tradição teológica do autor e a teologia pentecostal. Palavras-chave: J. Moltmann. Teologia Pentecostal. Pneumatologia.

Het feitelijk zijn van de mens is in hoge mate afhankelijk van zijn zelfkennis en uitdrukkelijke zelfinterpretatie. De idee die hij zich heeft gevormd over het mens-zijn of die hij overgeleverd heeft gekregen, zijn mensbeeld, raakt hemzelf. Maar daarmee is niet alles gezegd. Want die idee gaat de mens ook te buiten. Ze is namelijk een belangrijke factor bij het tot stand komen van de concrete omgang met anderen en van de concrete belichaming van die omgang in bovenpersoonlijke verbanden en gemeenschappen. Een mensbeeld is zowel feitelijk als normatief. Het betreft dat wat de mens is en wat hij geacht wordt te moeten zijn. We beoordelen onszelf en anderen vanuit ons mensbeeld. Een protestantse visie op de rechten van het kind wordt sterk gekleurd door bij protestanten dominante mensbeelden. Deze zijn ontleend aan de Bijbel en aan diverse theologen en filosofen uit verleden en heden. (opgenomen in: Coby de Graaf, red., Kind en recht in filosofie, levensbeschouwing en verhalen, Antwerpen/Apeldoorn: Uitgeverij Garant, 2019, 213-265).

This is the PDF-PowerPoint I used for my contribution as discussant during the International Webinar organised by the Vishwaneedam Center for Asian Blossoming, Puducherry and Chennai, 7th April 2022 from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM IST. Topic: Hope in Sikh Religion.

This is the PDF-PowerPoint which I used for my lecture at the Webinar 'Cultivating Transformative Faith and a New Ecology of Hope' , organised by the MIDS - Madras Institute of Development Studies, on Saturday, December 11 2021. The title of my lecture was: 'Aspects of Hope'.

Moltmann’s influence on twentieth century theology is near-unprecedented.  The scope of his theological explorations is vast.  Greater still is the quantity of secondary literature written about his theology.  Even so, there is an absence of literature regarding his theology of animals.  Here, the author examines Moltmann’s theological framework in order to establish his potential contribution to animal theology.  He further critically delineates and constructively develops the ethics Moltmann derives from his theological explorations.  Ultimately, the author suggests that Moltmann’s contribution to animal theology is highly impactful, providing a solid theological ground for the superiority of the practice of vegetarianism and laws against unnecessary hunting.

This is the PDF-PowerPoint which I used for my exposition held on Saturday, 21st August 202 at the SOCIETAS ETHICA´S 57th ANNUAL CONFERENCE, 19-21 August 2021, Time of Crisis – Time of Hope ZEIT DER KRISE - ZEIT DER HOFFNUNG. The title of my lecture was: “Hope opens perspectives”.
Keywords: crisis, hope, transformation, plurality of meanings, subject, expectation, Moltmann, activity, Spinoza, passion, emotion, disposition, mind, New Creation, action, future

Any time or any occasion of crisis whatsoever represents a challenge for hope. In my paper, I would like to analyse some aspects of hope as a kind of antidote against the crisis and against the effects of crisis on the individual mind.
Throughout the history of thought, the concept of hope has known positive and negative judgments: Spinoza, for instance, does not give hope a positive evaluation: he states that ‘Hope is nothing else but an inconstant pleasure, arising from the image of something future or past, whereof we do not yet know the issue.’ - Ethics, III, Prop. XVIII, Note II -; he asserts that ‘Hope is an inconstant pleasure, arising from the idea of something future or past, whereof we to a certain extent doubt the issue.’ - Ethics, III, Definitions of the Emotions, XII -.
On closer inspection, we can see that the concept of hope is not a univocal one, and that hope can have, actually, many meanings. Spinoza’s criticism is directed against an interpretation of hope as an emotion, as an ephemeral condition of mind, so that his strategy corresponds to the project of mind’s emendation from the factors of instability. An alternative interpretation of hope can, on the contrary, show that hope represents a stable formation of the individual mind and, as a consequence, constitutes a factor of stable disposition of mind towards the external reality.
I shall propose an interpretation of hope as a disposition of mind which completely transforms the subject as regards his attitude towards history, events, and crisis moments. Thereto, I shall refer to Moltmann’s theology of hope: in Moltmann’s view, hope in Revelation and in God’s promise of a New Creation implies a radical modification of the subject. Hope in the New Creation entails a refusal of the present conditions of the world and promotes action in order that reality be modified in the form of the anticipation of the New Creation. The promised New Creation is the criterium of judgment in order that it can be observed what does not function in the present reality and what ought to be changed therein. Hence, hope is not an emotion, is not a passion; it is a mind disposition, an internal constitution of the subject immediately connected with a programme of transformation of the present.
Thus, for the individual, to have hope in the New Creation is to receive and possess a complete formation and a disposition of mind involving a general orientation in life.
Hope is not, therefore, for the individual, a temporary condition of mind, it is not an ephemeral state of the soul; hope is an overall outlook on life, reality, and history. Hope becomes the shape of mind itself of the individual, since it is, for the individual mind, the source of interpretation of the whole reality. The hoping subject knows that the dimension of the present is not an inescapable one. The present is only temporary: it does not represent the fullness of time. Hope is the attitude through and thanks to which life is expanded and enlarged both with the expectation of a different future and with the activity directed to the realisation of a new future. Thus, hope represents, for the individual mind, a form of liberation of the thought from the present, since hope is the awareness that the conditions of the present are not an inevitable tie for the individual; there will be an alternative reality; a new reality will be anticipated by the action of the individuals.
Through hope, the future becomes an autonomous dimension in comparison with the past and present: the future will not be the repetition of truths which have been already expressed or of orders of society which have been already established. Through the announcement of the New Creation, the believer receives an antidote against all manipulation strategies aiming to convince him that the fullness of time has already been reached and that no alternative reality is possible, to persuade him that reality is unmodifiable and that it must be accepted so as it is. Hope tells that the order of the present is not a destiny. Hope, therefore, opens and broadens perspectives.
References
Moltmann, Jürgen. Das Experiment Hoffnung. Einführungen. München, 1974
Moltmann, Jürgen. Das Kommen Gottes. Christliche Eschatologie. Gütersloh, 1995.
Moltmann, Jürgen. Ethik der Hoffnung. Gütersloh, 2010.
Moltmann, Jürgen. Gott in der Schöpfung. Ökologische Schöpfungslehre. München, 1985.
Moltmann, Jürgen. Theologie der Hoffnung. Untersuchungen zur Begründung und zu den Konsequenzen einer christlichen Eschatologie. München, 1977 [1964].
Moltmann, Jürgen. Theologie der Hoffnung, in Entwürfe der Theologie, herausgegeben von Johannes B. Bauer. Graz – Wien – Köln, 1985, pp. 235-258.
Moltmann, Jürgen. Trinität und Reich Gottes. Zur Gotteslehre. München, 1980.
Pieper, Josef. Über die Hoffnung. Olten, 1948.
Rahner, Karl. Zur Theologie der Hoffnung, in Schriften Zur Theologie. Band VIII. Einsiedeln – Zürich – Köln, 1967, pp. 561-579.
Robert Harvey Monro. The Chief Works of Benedict De Spinoza, Translated From The Latin, With An Introduction by R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. II, De Intellectus Emendatione – Ethica, Revised Edition, London 1901.