Moltmann, Session I, Day 3

Tony Jones & Jurgen Moltmann: mano y mano

• TJ begins with a bill board- "Unless you confess, you won't be blessed." TJ uncomfortable with this idea, b/c it seems God is a non-contigent being. whether or not god forgives me, god isnt sitting around waiting to forgive me.
  
• JM responds- "you cannot make conditions to god, for this makes god an object, an idol. God will bless whoever he will bless whether we confess or not. initiative is God's. Once God forgives you, then you feel free to cnfess.
• God is god not a bargain partner for a human and your religion. This is completely heathen.
• Religions based on the idea of doing to receive blessing- but this isnt Xn at all, this is denial of godhead of god. i'm oppsing completely with this bargaining of destiny with God. this is pure capitalism!!!
• TJ- "if go's activity is non contingent, yet JC teaching on prayer is almost unequivocally that if you're persistent, God'' give you what you want. keep bothering god and you'll get what you want.
• JM- These aren't the only saying about prayer. When you pray, God already knows what you need. hearing of God precedes your prayer.
• TJ- what does that mean for God's relationship to time as we experience it. can we pray for something that has already happened in past, since ogd is lord of time.
• JM- "what do you want to pray for?" ....there is a long tradition of prayer for the dead. Luther said pray 3 or 4 times for the dead, then head over to god, b/c they are included in prayer of X. "I think i'm praying for ht dead. b.c the dead are not dead. they died, but we cannot say they are dead not. they are sleeping until day of resurrection. they are watching and with us in own way. truth of ancestor cult in asia, dead are not dead in modern sense. not annihilate, but present. Rom 13, X is lord of living and dead.
• TJ- Zimzum, borrowed from kabbalah Judaism- propr to creation, all there was was God. in order to create something, God withdrew self to make space, a self limiting, to make space for a relation for object to have relationship with. two ?'s: how does that lead or what relationship relate to panentheism. Is part of god's self limitation, god volunatirily bound himself to time.
• JM- I'm not first one to take up idea of Kabbalistic thinking. It can in 300 yrs.
• points- Before god created world, he decided to become creator. inside, not outside action...decide to become creator. contracted himself from all other possibilities to this one, to be creator of world
• 2nd- created world in time and space, so before he created heaven and earth there must be room and place for heaven and earth to be placed. this is place of creation, due to contraction of God.
  
• This is why there is freedom for all beings, there is room. example of a child, you must first take care of all things for them. then you must give space for them to develop themselves. this is very creative to retreat into yourself and let another being be. other side of creation. not just acts, but to let another being flourish is creative.
  
• Zimzum- father son and HS are kenotic beings. they give and receive one another. they are a being of self giving: zimzum before zimzum? this is true essence of being. Kenosis is not just actin go fGod, but inward state of god giving self in inner trinitarian love.
• TJ- in nature if god is timeless, but part of limitation, in this period of creation god has bound himself to time. is he experiencing time?
• JM- yes, or he cannot he called living God. God has living relationships iwth abe, etc, Jesus, etc...these are all living relationship otherwise you have a dead God.
  
• TJ- is this too hegelian, God is ismply unfolding of history? but you talk abotu cruc and res as an event in god and god as subject having relationship with reation, which is very diff from hegel.
  
• JM- easy to accuse german theo hegelian. b/c all are lutheran and related to hegel
• Hegel didnt have understanding of trinity, ut of history as autobio of god. this is not good theology. developed dialectical understanding of world history as history of god, out of self consciousness of divine subject. this has nothign to do with Jesus, father, adn HS. anotehr system. different from pannenburg on that point. Hegel had not eschatology.
  
• Is this panentheistic- this terrible term brought into hegelian. means- everything, pan, is in God. but this is one sided of biblical understanding of God. for God is IN everything.
• Shekinah- indwelling of God. God dwells in Israel, in terms of the cloud, Shekinah. Behind Covenant of God with israel, is intetnion to dweel among the Israelites. this is one sided. In NT, there is mutual indwelling. John and letters and gospel of JOhn reveal this...perichorisis: mutual indwelling. whoever remains in love remains in god and god in him...mutual indwelling, so much more than panentheism.
  
• John Calvin- inst. bok 1- for Calvin glory of God is already reflecting self in all things. God is indwelling in all things, but we have no eyes to see him. in trinitarian terms makes sense, but in theistic terms you may end up in panentheism. avoid abstract philo theism.
• TJ- do you embrace EO, theosis. BUt you turned that God became man, not that man became God. using Athanasius.
• JM- Luther- God became human beings, so we might become truly human in the community of JC. God became human to liberate us from our god complex and hubris in playing god with god, making conditions with sovereignty of God. making bargains. that is to say, you are god, i'm not and you are okay, i'm okay.
• TJ- 3 points of biblical narrative: creation, jesus, end times that you focus on. in west we have original sin, Judaism we who adopt the story doesn't have og sin.
• JM- these ideas of Augustine, lead to a type of gnosticism. procreating is bad, ultimate sin is AIDS, we deliver from one gen to another. so we must stop procreating og sin, and this is gnosticism. this doesn't follow OT understanding of life and joy of life. we have received life and we should give life to another gen. So og sin has nothing to do with sex and procreation. idea is more collective guilt. understanding of Luther. everyone is guilty of everything in the world, b/c everything is related to everything. dosteyesky and EO believe this, there is collective destiny. everything shares in us, we share in everything. so we need collective guilt of mankind.
• we can follow Jewish understanding, guilt came into world through Cain and Abel. since that time, it has been one against the other, war, murder. this is more realistic.
  
• TJ- so much of the way we were reared in church, connected to og sin. thus connected to forensic action of Jesus on cross, the appeasing sacrifice of the innocent son transaction. Also, in NT there is alot of sacrificial language.
  
• JM- between other peopel's religion idea of gift: i give so you may give. So you sacrifice so god may give blessing. if you dont give in right way or enough then gods are angry and experience punishment. so whenever bad things happen, you look for one who didnt sacrifce and then bring right offering. Jonah and thrown out of ship, example.
  
• This is all not biblical. Scapegoat is given by god, not asking from Israel btu giving to Israel so all sins may be put on scapegoat so it can take sins away to desert. God is reconciling himself to the world, doesn't need sacrifice. himself giving own son to reconcile world to self. initiative is god's initiative.
  
• they used old temple language, but something completely diff is meant. love of god reconciles whole cosmos, which includes all humans.
• TJ- that' the reformed part of theo coming out strongly. God is always protagonist. how is god, in way of overflowing love fo trinity, protagonist
  
• JM- old saying, love takes ...
  
• he wants to communicate the joy of his love. so he craetes creatures that can resonate this joy and love of God. so he is not in need of recreation, recreation is result of overflowing joy and love.
• TJ- Eschatology- you are an esch theo. liberals and conservatives don't like this talk. overwhelming consensus is that 2nd coming will be bad part.
• JM- this will not be the end, but beginning of new creation, the eternal creation. world without end. must look forward not to the end, but the beginning, which is not behind us but before us. the best is yet to come. this is true also to certain types of dispensationalism, which is not Xn idea, but Jewish idea. God created world in 7 days, so history will follow 7 dispensations. earth will grow older and older and our time is running out.
  
• you can think about this w/o mentioning Christ, for dispensationalists X has only one part. so what is lacking is the new beginning experienced in resu. of X. so there is new beginning in world history, the res. of X in anticipation of the general resurrection.
• TJ- this ? is just for me, so you all can listen in. Heidegger and Moltmann, there is esch horizon approaching us. so there is phenomenological hermeneutic, and the eschaton is when two horizons meet.
  
• JM- they've met already. horizing of jc escaton is open already b/c of resurrection of Christ.
• TJ- do you think there will be a moment in time, a pariousia. humans will experience a moment in time of JC return
• JM- Yes. linear concept of time, future, present, past. this is time of clock. in this linear time concept, JC will not come. otherwise, we say he may come tomorrow morning at 101 5 ona train from chicago. but time keeps going on.
• other concept of time- kairos. good opportunity. our life experiences are not according to clock time, but more like kairos. this is a good time, good chance. anticipation of eschatolgoical moment. terms of fulfilled time. in fulfilled time or life, you dont care about the clock anymore. you live in the moment. so therefore, when you come into living, you take the clock away. clock time is not very good understanding of time.
• "you have the clock and we have time" form a swami in India at the end of interview and western interviewer must leave.
• Daniel goes onto stage. possibly talk about atonement theory
• TJ- cooperation with God, part of pneumatolgy adopted from JM. A truly reformed person doesn't cooperate with anything with God. but JM writes of us being cocreateors and cooperating with God, esp in ecology theology. Is there where you part with reformed theo.
• JM- Paul talked aobut his work as cooperation with god. don't see reason for putting everything on god. this is Xn understanding of gods presence world. not that god has no hands apart from ours, but god gives us chances and opportunities to work with his will, resonate to his tune. If God is all, then reformed is right. but god may not be all and all, so he wants responsibility.
  
• he wants us to come of age, not as little children where he oes everything.
  
• Daniel- been at every Emergent church conversation since beginning. Herold- park street church in boston. nature's witness: how evolution can inspire faith.
• DH- question and interest- testimony of science. brings understanding of God. talk about trintiy in creation, since nature / science portrays for us is nature is ripe with death, disease, etc. Who is God, Trinity, in creation given what science portrays?
• JM- fundamental question of natural sciences- do you understand what you know?
• our knowledge is duplicating everything, but do we understand what we know. we need a hermeneutic of nature with the sciences, so we can interpret signs of nature, explained by natural sciences. sciences explains, but we need understanding and interpreting what we know.
  
• DH- so go ahead-
• JM- specific example- a doctor measures your blood pressure and temp ad takes all the data he can get from body if you don't feel well. So first takes all data, then takes data as symptoms, then understands symptoms as a certain illness, then therapy can begin. similar with natural science. we must understand the symptoms and interpret the data given. for example to understand the data we get from climate research, and economic research, to put together with data we must interpret as coming natural catastrophe, then we can react. hermeneutics of nature.
• DH- what is moltmannian herm of nature? trinity interp of nature...
• JM-fist of all- we put what we know of nature in transcendent dimension. evolution of life, we see all belong to same family. transcendence dimension, there is no progress.
• second- we can see the working of the HS as the immanence of transcendence in everyting complicated being forming their ...transcendence. more complex life forms are open systems, transcending themselves. there can be no self organization or...but they need transcendence. like riding a bike w.o a bike.
• DH- Darwinian evol through theo grid. problem of decay and death, deformity. how is that manifestation of HS, is that fall out from freedom?
• JM- you must understand the HS and energies of HS. there are many gifts of HS.
  
• DH- would you say necessary organic death of evolution epic, is that redemption which makes death a bad thing; or is it a positive energy of spirit?
• JM- start from the final end. if death will be no more, there will be creation w.o organic death. it is not just death of sinner, but all death will disappear.
  
• DH- so how does creation, how we experience it, if it is radically different
• JM- difference is found in indwelling of God. we only have anticipatory of end time, the new everlasting creation where god is in all.
• DH- kairos time and new expeirence; it must something so radically different we cant have an experience in current life that would approximate it. it seems to me that there is dramatic change
• JM- is this different from "everything in X is a new creation."
• TJ- is this a radical discontinuity.
• JM- you cannot talk about discontinuity without presupposition continuity. but we have so many anticipatory changes form the old to new, that we can understand this quite easily. for Paul it was change of name, a new identity. now, it is not me who lives, it is X who lives in me. this is true for all Xns, whether conscious of it or not.
• DH- so for scientists, such a discontinuity would defy everything for the created reality. how would you speak of the unfathomably.
  
• JM- in biological terms. either have evolution cosmos, everything
  
• somethign new will emerge within infinite possibilities of this. the whole is more than sum of parts. we cannot understand the whole from the parts. parts do no lead understanding of whole.
• DH- given that this earth as we experience, it will certainly end if physics is correct. what do you anticipate regarding existence on other side of that.
• JM- believe in theosis idea- that in end, God will be all in all. end is not annihilation of world, but deification of the world. we have diff concepts: Luther- annihilation of world, only god, angels, and saved souls will survive in heaven. reformed: not annihilation, but transformation of world, into new creation. EO: theosis, deification of world, indwelling of God in world.
  
• so expect transform of everything and indwelling of God in all.
  
• "This is how much I can see it.."
• DH- don't see science embracing theology, but theo does give to science.
• JM- the struggle is better than mutual science.
• DH- biologos community