364 - Hope and Planning

Hope and Planning
By Jurgen Moltmann
translated by Margaret Clarkson
228 pp. New York, Harper & Row, 1971. $6 50

When a theologian becomes well known through a pacesetting contribution, then it is only a matter of time before his other works receive theological canonization. Moltmann's Theology of Hope, which appeared in English four years ago (1967), was a sharp bend in the road for theology. Then followed a collection of essays on Religion, Revolution and the Future, which laid out clearly the direction which the Tübingen professor had taken. Hope and Planning, also a collection of essays, follows quickly in the path of the first two works printed in English.

From the early years of World War II to the present, theology has been under the sway of existentialist-leaning Rudolph Bultmann. The attraction of his theology was also its weakness-it so stressed the present that history, past and future, really had little or no importance. Bultmann, faced with the results of his own critical study of the New Testament, rescued God by securing him safely in the preached "Word." Theology could be maintained separate from history, or at least so it was thought. Moltmann rescued God by placing the theological question in the future, where he becomes more or less a subcategory. Thus, in the first essay, "The Revelation of God and the Question of Truth," the God-seeker is directed to subordinate the theological quest to the anticipation of what God will reveal in the future on this earth. The issues of natural and historical theologies receive meaning only as they anticipate the future. Whether or not God exists is not answered from the past, reason, or nature but by looking for God's coming to all men in the future.

As the "theology of hope" is apocalyptic in its terminology, "resurrection" is generally used. But it is right that Moltmann disappoints those who are looking for a more serious attitude to history. The historical question is sidestepped and we are left only with the answer that the resurrection is the explanation of the Easter visions. Somewhat in the style of Tillich, it becomes the positive side of Godforsakenness. Like

365 - Hope and Planning

so many nineteenth century theologians before him, he has slipped into the realm of faith and experience to avoid answering the hard historical question of resurrection.

"The Understanding of History in Christian Social Ethics" lays down an anthropology and a guideline for ethics. First of all, the nature of man is decided not by what man is now but rather by his anticipation of the future. The question "What is man?" is replaced by "What will man become?" All concerns about a law within man or nature are erased. Mandates for ethical decision are not based on what has been previously decided, "but rather are historical functions of God's active lordship." Ethical decisions become as relative as the course of history itself. As Moltmann lists a range of theologians from Luther to Barth who held to some type of ethical absolutes, he seemingly has made this launch into the deep by himself. If the question of God is to be answered from the future, then the ethical ones must receive like treatment. Moltmann is undoubtedly more consistent and predictable than history.

In the essay, "Hope and Planning," he defines hope as "the human attitude in the face of the uncontrollable in the controllable, the unplannable in planning." The reader will recognize that is hardly the New Testament concept of hope, which holds out before the Christian definite promises, though they are still unformed to faith. For Moltmann, hope is a novum, a totally new accident in history. Man prepares for the future but always living with the uncertainty of the future. Any concept of providence is totally missing.

Not a few theologians have seen similarities between Moltmann's approach and Marx's. The matter is briefly touched upon in "Theology in the World of Modern Science." Certainly Moltmann is not a Marxist, but both do share Hegel as a common ancestor, and both place the truth question in the future. Marx is even criticized by Moltmann for operating with a "fixed determination." For Marx, there is a final plateau, a utopia, not unlike traditional Christianity. With Moltmann, the end is never in sight, for each future has its own future. Time has become eternalized. Marx is the conservative, and Moltmann the radical.

In the same essay, Moltmann sets out a few concrete plans for realizing the future. One would be teaching a type of lay theology in the secular departments of the university. As he calls this "an institutionalizing of this theology," one questions whether institutionalizing the theology of hope will spell its own doom. In closing, he notes, "Only in company with sciences can eschatological faith arrive at a historical self-consciousness." As science is blamed rightfully or wrongfully for many of our current woes, for example, the ecological crisis, there might be many

366 - Hope and Planning

Christian theologians who would joyfully part company with the sciences. Here again Moltmann expresses an unwarranted hope in the abilities of man.

Moltmann is the intellectual impetus for the current upheaval in theology, and these essays will help those who are still engaged in the anatomy of the theology of hope.

David P. Scaer
Concordia Seminary
Springfield, Illinois