Theology Today - Vol 27, No. 4 - January 1971 - BOOK REVIEW - Man On His Own: Essays In the Philosophy of Religion

477 - Man On His Own: Essays In the Philosophy of Religion

Man On His Own: Essays In the Philosophy of Religion
By Ernst Bloch
Edited by Jürgen Moltmann and Reiner Strunk, translated by E. B. Ashton
240 pp. New York, Herder and Herder, 1970. $5.50.

Ernst Bloch has been a most important factor in the dominant position enjoyed by eschatology-by themes of futurity, hope, indeed, also of revolution-in recent German theology. For the sake of understanding this theology better, if not also for materially enriching current American discussions, the appearance in English translation of a somewhat more substantial selection from Bloch's writings is most welcome.

The present volume, originally published in German in 1967, is a translation of selections dealing with explicitly religious materials and themes. The selections are misleadingly termed essays in the English translation. In fact, they are integral parts of larger works and in some cases presuppose a fuller exposition of certain key images and concepts in the complete works. Still, Bloch's writing style does permit one to treat the individual sections of his books as relatively independent and self-contained studies. Over half of the material comes from the monumental Das Prinzip Hoffnung (written 1938-1947, published 1959), followed by a fairly substantial selection from Geist der Utopie (1918). The remainder consists of brief portions taken from more recent works.

Moltmann's introduction is reproduced in the English translation with the exception of the opening paragraphs, which refer directly to the original German title of the collection, Religion in Erbe. (Why was the title changed? My personal preference is for the German title.) The introductory remarks to the individual selections by Reiner Strunk have been omitted. In my judgment the English translation would have been more helpful had these materials or perhaps equivalent remarks designed especially for an English speaking readership been included, for these selections can be more adequately interpreted if their place in Bloch's total work and in the intellectual and social climate of European developments is understood.

The selections highlight those features of Bloch's thought which have been most fruitful for recent German theology--the Exodus theology and the Exodus God, death as the final problem for hope, the distinctiveness of the biblical perspective vis-á-vis "nature" religions or the religious valorization of fate, Jesus' radical commitment to the coming kingdom to the point of death, the importance of the heretical tradition in Chris-

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tian history (Montanus, Marcion, Joachim di Fiore, the Hussites, Thomas Münzer, the Diggers, in short, chiliasm in its various forms). These themes gain their unity in the central place they give to eschatology - the expectation of that which is "not yet" as the fulfillment and perfection of man and of the natural and social worlds of which man is a part.

These themes have become known to American readers through the writings of Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Not so well known is Bloch's sensitive handling of the "death of God" motif, which has many interesting parallels with Thomas Altizer's work. Bloch stresses the "death" or disappearance of the God who is the world creator and ruler, the ens realissimum. This God is the enemy of freedom and of creative movement toward the new. In contrast to the Exodus God or the God of hope, he legitimates a static and authoritarian social order. This God has been decisively challenged and overcome by the "serpent - savior," Jesus, who embodies the promise, "You will be like God," in his mediation of the coming kingdom to men. Through his "self-injection" into Yahweh, Christ reclaims the transcending power of the "not yet" for the human, making possible the explosive, creative, transforming operation in history of a kingdom of God without God. Though the hypostatization of man's hope for the eschatological perfection in a transcendent divine being has disappeared, the "wish-contents" expressed in this hypostatization remain and continue to impel the human spirit toward the qualitatively new, the end-space of freedom and fulfillment.

The most notable difference between Bloch's "theological atheism" and Altizer's is that Bloch explicitly orients his understanding to the hope and expectation of a transformed social order whose concrete content and broad outlines are significantly informed by the Marxist vision of a classless society. Altizer's accent on the epiphany of the sacred in the moment of radical and total immersion in the profane present is much more susceptible to an individualistic and mystical interpretation.

Moltmann, Pannenberg, Metz, and others, it might be recalled, have taken Bloch's notion of the temporal transcendence of the kingdom not as the key to an atheistic theology, but as a model for a constructive reinterpretation of the meaning of God. God is not the most perfect and most real being, the all-powerful creator and governor of the world, but the absolute future, who, strictly speaking, does not yet exist, who can fully exist only in unity with the actualized kingdom.

The integral connection Bloch sees between "scientific socialism" and an atheistic appropriation of chiliastic religious themes is obscured by this particular selection from his writings, since for the most part we get only Bloch's treatment of religious themes in terms of the principle of hope. We do not get his emphasis on the importance of linking the

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"wish-content" of man's religious life with the hard-headed, critical analysis of the real possibilities of newness provided by tendencies operating dialectically in the social process itself. Bloch's concern with this connection is of highest importance for contemporary theology. It also marks his advance beyond classic Marxist thought. Still, even Bloch is more successful in giving a formal statement of this connection and its importance than in unfolding it materially in relation to contemporary developments. His social-critical analysis is usually little more than a repetition of traditional Marxist ideas. His creativity lies basically in his philosophical appropriation of eschatological religious expressions in an ontology of "not-yet Being."

The translators have done a good job. Bloch's rich vocabulary, together with his love of archaisms, colloquialisms, and concrete images, is by no means easily transmitted in another language. The translators have not only accurately conveyed Bloch's ideas; they have also managed to capture some of his remarkable feel for language.

Thomas W. Ogletree
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee