Moltmann, Session Ib, Day 2

Theological Method: the Creative Spirit of Play, Life, and Death:
moderated by Tony Jones & Tripp Fuller

• Time to talk about Moltmann's methods "or lack thereof, as Moltmann said in the car."
• why it's important he broke away from writing a 3 part systematic theology, etc:
  
• truth is found in unhindered dialogue. fellowship is of mutual participation and unifinying sympathy
  
• how is that different from barth or theo predecessors? Thomas Aquinas is single great theological thought, whether there is a god or not and found 5 ways for proving god, natural theology. then comes in church and talk about relation of God and Christ and HS, etc. "Then he died." and said
  
• "I count this all straw"- Aquinas
  
• All theo systems of medieval times, must have an open end b/c power of Christ they expect to come. similar to great
  
• barth- writing 19th cent. theology while living in 20th century.
• Barth begins with self revelation of God- dogmatic insight of church...that there is a church, so it is a thought for those in the inside. Barth was strong for developing Christian doctrines, predestination for example.
  
• Barth was good at developing his own theology, but not working with others. over 8k pg's from Barth. "the truth can't be so long."
• resist- temptation to write system, b/c not systematic person.
• holds an idea, and sees how this ideas relates to everything: ie. Trinity. How does this fit with kingdom, church, etc. Before that...aware of ecological crisis...lectured on creation.
  
• books are founded not in system, but a single idea or perspective. Trinity, ecology, resurrection, cross, etc.
• truth is found like "headlights"- in nature are only reflection of light of Christ...they dont illuminate in themselves, but a reflection of Christ. like headlights reveal the road and trees, it is the light of the car, not of trees that reveal them.
• spent a long time talking about the necessity of a theology of creation and nature, it is a Christian endeavor. Struggle between Yale (Barth, no nature & theo only for Xns.) and Chicago (for everyone who can listen or there can be no mission)
• Starting point- JC and experience of HS and universal horizon which we can discover in NT.
  
• God reconciles wholes cosmos to himself, and we are messengers to this reconcile. the gospel is universal b/c of the universal horizon of reconciliation
  
• Barth- "hidden universalism"- reconcile, not the universe, but every person. that's trhe difference between Barth and JM- reconciliation for whole cosmos or just humans.
• don't become narrow minded to only defend your own denom, christ is more than one's own denom.
• TF- read JM in light of holocaust, in light of Amer. 9/11
• Elie Wiesel- "night" JM was moved by it and his experiences in conc. camps.
• God is not punishing New york homosexuals, as someone said at that time. God that uses terrorists is a monster, not a god.
• rethink omnipotence- not in control, but caring and bearing everything. his Almighty power revealed when he destroyed pharaoh's army, but 3 or 4 phrases in that "you carry us, you are bearing us through the desert"- we are carried on eagle's wings.
  
• patience, carrying of God...gives his word time and a chance and future. this is for me the omnipotence of God. his patience
• Divine impassibility- inherited from Hellenistic phlio. God won't change b/c against nature of God. TJ- is there an epiphany moment when you rethought this, that this is not God...a god who is impassible. God must suffer for Moltmann, for only a God who can suffer can love.
• Aristotle metaphysics, book 12- "the divine is apathetic" impassible? this comes against the many stories of greek mythologies who are angry and cheating, etc. So created idea that God must be apathetic.
• learned form Abraham Heschel, that this God has pathos, not apathetic. God has sympathy, b/c if God is apathetic, then his image in us must be apathetic too. Apathy is in illness in the world.
• passibilty of God- first idea- got in Scotland about the impassibility and passibility of God. written in 1926, listed the whole debate. completely bypassed German theology, this 60 yr old debate in Anglican church.
  
• how was this perceived- "best sense of the word, I became controversial" "i like to be controversial"
• TF- mystical experience and exercising doubt-
• liked to bring life and death questions to theological questions. theological not related to life and death is an abstract theology, is a nice game but only for play.
• book of his best theo student- Volf- reflected on his own experiences in Exclusion and Embrace- full of his own existential experiences.
• life and death experiences are a source, of course, or its just a game of play
• fav line- "theologians needs to read forward and backward in Scripture" (from TF)
• talk about it: "i'm old enough not to be being called an heretic"
• read bible with new supposition: meet divine word in human words. and whenever i meet divine word, which became incarnate in JC, his suffering death and res...then I feel truth.
  
• Gal 3:28- christ is not male or female, etc- all are one. This is a phrase justified baptism of all equally. but then read Paul saying women should shut up in congregation. that closes to Christ. if women is all the time silent, we'd have no knowledge of resurrection of Christ.
• co-missionary of Paul was female. So Xnty is full of women and they speak out to fulfill prophecy of Joel- your daughters will prophecy.
  
• Criteria- incarnate word of God in Christ.
  
• other point for reading Bible- we read "Jews crucified Christ"- this is wrong, tehy werent allowed to crucufy people. this was a roman affair. Jews aren't enemies of God. Rom 9-11: Paul writes about Israel. This is closer to teh truth, I think, JM says.
  
• advocating biblical hermeneutic- reading closest to Christ- so how do you or by what do you determine what's closest to Christ? (good ? from TJ)
• "The Reformed church is my origin. The ecumenical church is my future.
• doesn't discount experience in truth
• question to fundies: "do you really read the Bible" and do you "really understand what you read"
• homosexuality in the Bible and fundies:
• Shouldn't leave interp of Bible to fundies only
• shaping of theology b/c of marriage: wife is most influential on his theo. she convinced him to sentences, that "I think this is the case..not this IS the case." not make objective statements for all to buy. If i say it this way, it provokes the subjectivity in others to make up their own mind, and not just quote me. (hey, that's what my wife says to me all the time)
  
• "there is no theo dialogue in our house before breakfast."
• poltical theo- insights into complicity in American foreign policy.
• johannes baptist metz and JM developed political theol- to overcome Luther's 2 kingdoms, where you msutnt mix theo with politics. so leave politics to Nazi.
  
• RC said better the Nazi's then the communists, so tehy supported them at first.
• To overcome this hesitation of Xns to stand up against violence and injustice in country, they developed pol.theo.
• reason for this- dead of Auschwitz was pressing on their conscience.
• free market has a different definition of freedom.
• lightning round: (one person, one sentence summary)-
  
• brief reflection on what you think of these people:
• john paul II- good pope
• pannenburg- very dear friend and opponent
• bonhof- died too early
• whitehead- very complicated to read
• derrida- pomo is another form of modernity. universal dangers which we can meet united, so we cannot split up and everyone go in relative direction. whether we live in big or small narratives we all live under atomic bombs, eco crisis, so extinction of all is possibility of all. so dont see why we have to give up universal questions or problems for
  
• haeurwas- NT speaks not abut peaceable kingdom, but a peace making kingdom
• luther- great german reformer, there too, ML and MLK whats difference
• abraham ? - competition between two, barthian camp,
  now retired, both friends. good friends on beer and wine
• augustine- ask his wife about him. (he left both, b/c too close to mother monica)
• freud- said you can freud only if you know austrians in viana. served in WWII, in austrian unit. only theme of austrialian soliders
  
• marx- like early marx, not capital marx. influences of romanitc philo, humanization of nature. early writings, redisvoered in 1931. communist manifest is great doc of 19th cent.
  
• nicholas cuso (?)- may have missed his classes
• volf- very dear friend, gifted theologian, came to JM at tubingen- "concept of work in karl marx"- wrote great dissertation of work and theo of work. beginning, but drafted to yugoslavian army and returned and full of sign of suffering and resistance. so JM loved him very much when he returned from yugo wounded. wrote book on community. now he is going on writing, etc. go to eastern europe- either became influential in eastern europeans or go to yale and become american pomo theologians and unfortunately decided for Yale.
• schleiermacher- both point to same future, coming of God. prob with creeds: Schle could affirm them as he dismissed the OT as foreign to Xnty as other religions are.
  
• Pelagius- Patron Saint of American Xns.