Friday, July 31, 2015

Bauchkham on Moltmann's Eschatology

Jurgen Moltmann  is a german reformed theologian at Tubingen who in a way is carrying on the theological legacy of Barth. He is known for his "theology of hope" which centers around resurrection and eschatology. Here are some quotes by Richard Bauckham explaining Jurgen Moltmann’s Eschatology taken from Alister Mcgrath’s Christian Theology Reader (3rd ed. - pg.671-672).

“the eschatological orientation of biblical Christian faith towards the future of the world requires the church to engage with the possibilities for change in the modern world, to promote them against all tendencies to stagnation, and to give them eschatological direction towards the future of the Kingdom of God. The gospel proves relevant and credible today precisely through the eschatological faith that truth lies in the future and proves itself in changing the present int he direction of the future.” 


“Authentic Christian hope is not that purely other-worldly expectation which is resigned to the unalterability of affairs in this world. Rather, because it is hope for the future of the world, its effect is to show present reality to be not yet what it can be and will be. The world is seen as transformable in the direction of the promised future. In this way believers are liberated from accommodation to the status quo and set critically against it. They suffer the contradiction between what is and what is promised. But this critical distance also enables them to seek and activate those present possibilities of world history which lead in the direction of the eschatological future. Thus by arousing active hope the promise creates anticipations of the future kingdom within history. The transcendence of the kingdom itself beyond all its anticipations keeps believers always unreconciled to present conditions, the source of continual new impulses for change.”