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{"id":18966,"date":"2017-07-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=689"},"modified":"2017-07-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T00:00:00","slug":"misrepresenting-moltmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/07\/misrepresenting-moltmann\/","title":{"rendered":"Misrepresenting Moltmann?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I<\/span>n his opening essay in\u00a0Christian\u00a0Dogmatics<\/a><\/em>, co-editor Mike Allen quotes George Hunsinger\u2019s claim that Jurgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Eberhard Jungel are all guilty of historicizing eternity and subjecting it to eschatology. They all start from what Allen calls a \u201chard\u201d or \u201contological\u201d interpretation of Rahner\u2019s Rule that \u201cThe economic Trinity is<\/em> the immanent Trinity and the immanent Trinity is<\/em> the economic Trinity.\u201d In the view of these theologians, Allen says, \u201cthe eternal Trinity is constituted by and coterminous with the Trinity in its external works\u201d (19).<\/p>\n

Allen and Hunsinger aren\u2019t alone in this assessment of Moltmann.<\/p>\n

But then I remember Moltmann\u2019s Barthian accent on God\u2019s freedom, and read this from his Theology and Joy<\/a><\/em>: \u201cIf creation is necessary for God himself, then God is not its \u2018free creator.\u2019 If on the other hand creation is merely an accident or misadventure from eternity, then the free creator is not God but a capricious demon. . . . The world as free creation cannot be a necessary unfolding of God nor an emanation of his being from his divine fullness. . . . But he doesn\u2019t act capriciously. When he creates something that is not God but also not nothing, then this must have its ground not in itself but in God\u2019s good will or pleasure<\/em>. Hence creation is God\u2019s play. . . . It is the realm in which God displays his glory\u201d (40\u20131).<\/p>\n

Perhaps Moltmann means to say this: God freely creates, and in freely creating He also freely determines His own Triune character. That is an odd thing to say: Who is this pre-Triune being that wills to be Father, Son, and Spirit? And if there is such a pre-Triune God, isn\u2019t that being really God? There are theologians who say such odd things, but at least here Moltmann isn\u2019t one of them.\u00a0Creation isn\u2019t the realm where God becomes glorious, but where He \u201cdisplays<\/em> his glory.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is by no means a complete defense of Moltmann, who may after all be self-contradictory or wrong. But it does give one pause before accepting some of the standard readings of his theology.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"