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‘Before Bloch there was Blumhardt’: a thesis on the origins of the theology of hope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2009

Christian T. Collins Winn  and
Peter Goodwin Heltzel
Christian T. Collins Winn
Affiliation:
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive, St Paul, MN 55112ctcollin@bethel.edu
Peter Goodwin Heltzel
Affiliation:
New York Theological Seminary, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115pheltzel@nyts.edu
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Abstract

When Jürgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope first appeared in 1965, it was seen as ushering in a new era of theological thinking. Karl Barth, however, sharply criticised the work as too heavily dominated by a ‘principle of hope’ that he believed Moltmann had inherited from the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch. This interpretation has largely been taken as fact among interpreters of Moltmann's theology of hope. This has caused most interpreters to see his turn to panentheism and ecotheology in God in Creation (1983) as being less of a shift of emphasis than a total change of trajectory or even break. There is evidence, however, that a different source contributed to the overall orientation of Moltmann's theology – an orientation that has remained throughout his life. This other source is the life and thought of the radical Schwäbean Pietists, Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–80) and his son Christoph Blumhardt (1842–1919). In this article the authors flesh out the thesis that the Blumhardts are the prior, deeper and more long-lasting influence on Moltmann by focusing on three key theological motifs that permeate his theology: 1) Christianity as eschatology; 2) the ‘theology of the earth’; and 3) the ethics of hope. Furthermore, they argue that when the ‘hidden’ influence of the Blumhardts is acknowledged, Moltmann's later ‘shift’ can be understood as essentially in continuity, rather than discontinuity, with his earlier thought.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 26 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2008

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References

1 Moltmann, Jürgen, Theology of Hope, trans. Leitch, James W. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

2 Karl Barth, ‘To Prof. Jürgen Moltmann, Bonn’, #172; written from Basel, Bethesda Hospital, 17 Nov. 1964, in Letters 1961–1968, ed. J. Fangemeier and H. Stoevesandt, trans. and ed. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 174–6.

3 Meeks, M. Douglas, Origins of the Theology of Hope (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Daniel J. Louw, ‘Toekoms tussen hoop en angs. ‘n Ondersoek na die funksie van die “ontologie van die nog-nie-syn” in die hedendaagse filiosofie en teologie van die hoop, mit besondere verwysing na die denke van Ernst Bloch en Jürgen Moltmann’, Ph.D. dissertation, Stellenbosch, 1972; Richard Leroy Spencer, ‘Marx, Bloch, and Moltmann: Dialectical Models of History and the Question of Ends and Means’, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1973.

4 God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993).

5 Link, Christian, ‘Kritisches Forum, Schöpfung in messianischen Licht’, Evangelische Theologie 47 (1987), pp. 83–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Niewiadomski, Józef, Die Zweideutigkeit von Gott und Welt in J. Moltmanns Theologien (Innsbrucker theologische Studien 9; Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1982)Google Scholar.

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7 Karl Barth, ‘To Prof. Jürgen Moltmann, Bonn’, #172, Letters, pp. 174–6; Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope, pp. 15–19, 80–8, 108–17.

8 Bloch, Ernst, The Principle of Hope, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

9 In the mid-twentieth century there was a renewed interest in the eschatological character of the biblical narratives. W. G. Kümmel, Promise and Fulfilment: The Eschatological Message of Jesus (Studies in Biblical Theology, 23; London: SCM Press, 1957); Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic (Studies in Biblical Theology, 2nd ser. 22 (Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1970). Moltmann was introduced to eschatological theology through his Göttingen professors: Otto Weber, Hans Joachim Iwand and Ernst Wolf. See Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope, pp. 15–53.

10 Moltmann, Jürgen, ‘Lived Theology: An Intellectual Bibliography’, The Promise of God's Future: Essays on the Thought of Jürgen Moltmann, The Asbury Theological Journal 55/1 (Spring 2000), p. 11Google Scholar.

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12 See Moltmann, ‘Hope for the Kingdom of God’, pp. 4–16.

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14 ‘Hope for the Kingdom of God’, p. 5.

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16 Blumhardt, Christoph, Action in Waiting (Farmington, PA: The Plough Publishing House, 1998), p. 3Google Scholar.

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18 Christoph Blumhardt, ‘Antwortschreiben von Christoph Blumhardt an seine Freunde!’, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 449, 452 (unpubl. English trans. by the Brüderhof and Plough Publishing).

19 See Lundström, Gösta, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus: A History of Interpretation from the Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1963), pp. 18–20Google Scholar.

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21 6th edn, trans. E. Hoskyns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 314.

22 For a discussion of this see Gollwitzer, Helmut, ‘Kingdom of God and Socialism in the Theology of Karl Barth’, in Hunsinger, G. (ed.), Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), pp. 79–80Google Scholar, 93–4; see also McDowell, John C., Hope in Barth's Eschatology: Interrogations and Transformations Beyond Tragedy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 80–4Google Scholar. Moltmann has also recently written that, ‘His [Barth's] first commentary on the Römerbrief of 1919 breathed the spirit of hope of Blumhardt and the chiliasm of Johann Tobias Beck, whose commentary on the Römerbrief Barth used extensively. It is the dynamic past-future-dialectic of history and eschatology, that predominates in this first commentary’. (unpubl. letter, 2003).

23 Blumhardt, Christoph, Thy Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader, ed. Eller, Vernard (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 3Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 3.

25 See Moltmann, Jürgen, ‘Ernst Blochs Christologie’, Evangelische Theologie 64/1, pp. 5–19Google Scholar. Dutch Apostolate Theology also mediated the ‘kingdom of God’ motif to Moltmann, particularly the work of Arnold A. van Ruler and J.C. Hoekendijk. See Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope, pp. 24–30.

26 Christoph Blumhardt, Action in Waiting, p. 38.

27 Christoph Blumhardt, Thy Kingdom Come, p. 4.

28 Jürgen Moltmann, History and the Triune God, trans. John Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 75.

29 Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 281.

30 Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 21.

31 Christoph Blumhardt, Eine Auswahl aus seinen Predigten, Andachten, und Schriften, vol. 1, p. 257; as quoted in Moltmann, ‘The Hope for the Kingdom of God’, p. 11.

32 ‘But resurrection belongs to the earth, not to Heaven – certainly a new earth, although how is the earth to become new unless the Risen One reveals Himself?’ Christoph Blumhardt, Eine Auswahl aus seinen Predigten, Andachten und Schriften, vol. 2, p. 112 (unpubl. English trans. by the Brüderhof and Plough Publishing).

33 See Gorringe, Timothy J., ‘Eschatology and Political Radicalism: The Example of Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann’, in Bauckham, R. (ed.), God Will Be All in All: The Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999), pp. 87–114Google Scholar.

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35 Barth, ‘Past and Future’, in Beginnings of Dialectical Theology, vol. 1, pp. 41–2.

36 See his Spirituality and Social Liberation: The Message of the Blumhardts in the Light of Württemberg Pietism (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1993).

37 ‘Nature is the womb of God. From the earth God will come forth’. Blumhardt, Christoph, Ansprachen, Predigten, Reden, Briefe: 1865–1917, ed. Harder, J., 3 vols (Neukirchen-Vluyn, Germany: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978–82), vol. 2, p. 29Google Scholar. As quoted in Jürgen Moltmann, ‘Christoph Blumhardt – ein Theologe der Hoffnung’, p. 64.

38 Blumhardt, Christoph, Vom Reichs Gottes, ed. Jäckh, E. (Berlin: Erschienen im Furche-Verlag, 1923), p. 38Google Scholar (unpubl. English trans. by the Brüderhof and Plough Publishing).