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THE VISION OF THE WORLD IN GODBy Jurgen Moltmann


trans. Marc Batko & printed here with permission[These excerpts from Jurgen Moltmann's writings are translated fromthe German on the World Wide Web. Jurgen Moltmann, emeritus professorsystematic theology at the University of Tubingen, is the author of"Theology of Hope," "The Crucified God," "The Church in the Power ofthe Spirit" and "God in Creation."]Mysticism has been reproached again and again for contempt of theworld and hostility to the body. Ideas of neo-Platonic idealism andGnostic dualism can be easily found in the writings of mysticaltheologians. Surprisingly a pantheistic vision of the world in Godand God in the world is emphasized in many of these theologians. "Allis one and one is all," says the "Theologia Deutsch." For thepoet-monk Ernesto Cardenal, all nature is nothing but "God's tangiblematerialized love," a "reflection of God's beauty" that is full of"love letters to us."Mystical theologians certainly acknowledge the Old Testament doctrine of creation as in Barth's "Church Dogmatics." But they prefer the terms "pouring" and "flowing", "fountain" and "well," "sun" and "shining" for their vision of the world from God. For their vision of the world in God, they use the terms "homecoming, " "meditation, " "immersion," and "dissolution. "In the history of thought, this is the neo-Platonic language of the emanation of all things from the all-one and their re-emanation in the all-one. Understood theologically, this is the language ofpneumatology. Unlike creation and God's historical works," the HolySpirit is "poured out" on all flesh (Joel 2,28ff; Acts 2,16ff) and inour hearts (Rom 5,5). One is "born" again from the spirit (Joh 3,3).The gifts of the spirit are not created ex nihilo but originate fromthe Holy Spirit. They are divine powers. The spirit making alive"fills" creation with eternal life in that the spirit "comes" to allthings and "indwells" all things. In the history of the Holy Spirit,another presence of God is revealed than in the creation at thebeginning. People in their corporeality (1 Cor 6,13-20) and then thenew heaven and the new earth (Rev 21) become the "temple" indwelt byGod. That is the eternal Sabbath, the rest of God and the rest inGod. Therefore the history of the spirit aims at that perfectiondescribed by Paul with the pantheistic- sounding formula "God will beall in all" (1 Cor 15,28). With their neo-Platonic sounding doctrineof creation and redemption, the mystical theologians emphasized thishistory of the spirit poured out on all flesh and this new worldglorified in God.A new specifically Christian vision of reality is hidden in mystical theology that is marked by the believed incarnation of the Son and the experienced indwelling of God's spirit. The ecclesiastical repetition of the Yahwist and priestly doctrine of creation can not be seen as a creative achievement of Christian theology. This doctrine of creation can be Christian and non-Christian. In it, a distance of the Creator and the creature occurs that does not reflect the Christian experience of God. If the Israelite doctrine of creation is a reflection of Israel's exodus experience, the Christian doctrine of creation must be a reflection of Christendom' s experience of Christ and the spirit. Seen theologically, mystical "pantheism" is an unsuccessful step inthis direction. Gregor Palamas' doctrine of the energy of the HolySpirit leads here: "The world overflows with divine power, working andshining init."We come back to the substantiation of this pantheistic vision of the world in God.In the death on the cross, God takes evil, sin and rejection onhimself and transforms them to good, grace and election in thesacrifice of his infinite love. All evil, sin, suffering anddamnation are "in God." These dislocations are endured by him,annulled in him and transformed by him "to our benefit." Hissuffering is "the miracle of miracles of divine love" (Paul of theCross). Nothing can be excluded from that divine love. Thereforeeverything lives from the omnipotence of his suffering andinexhaustible love. There is no nothingness threatening creation anymore. The nothingness destroyed in God; intransitory life appears.On account of the divine cross, the creation lives from God and istransformed in God.Paul first sees this dissolved contradiction in the abolition of the opposition of life and death in Christ's rule: "If we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" (Rom 14,7ff). According to 1 Cor 15,28, the future of Christ's presence – embracing the living and the dead is the presence of God himself filling all things.Without Christ's cross, this vision of God in the world would be pure illusion. The suffering of a single child would prove it an illusion. Without the knowledge of the suffering of God's inexhaustible love, no "pantheism" in this world of death could be endured. Pantheism would immediately become pan-nihilism.The knowledge of the crucified God gives foundation and duration to this vision of the world in God. In the rule of the crucified, theliving and dead come to eternal community. The sins and suffering ofthe whole world sink in the cross of the Resurrected. Therefore thevision of God in all things and all things in God arises under thecross. Whoever believes God in the God-abandonment of the crucifiedsees him everywhere and in all things as life is experienced moreintensively after an experience of death.This vision of God's world is alive in the experiences of thepersecuted and martyrs who feel God's presence in prison. This visionis alive with the mystics who find God's presence in the dark night ofthe soul. It shines in the piety of simple existence. God is presentin the darkness of the lived moment. "In him we live, move and haveour being" (Acts 17,28) because "from him, through him and to him areall things" (Rom 11,36). from: Jurgen Moltmann, Gotteserfahrungen: Hoffnung, Angst, Mystik, 1979GOD IS THE CRITIQUE OF THE PERSONThis thesis stands in opposition to the foundation of the modernanthropocentric view of the world where the person is God's criterion.The age of anthropology, the anthropocentric age, began with theRenaissance and the Enlightenment. Anthropology in the modernempathic sense presupposes theology at the mercy of anthropology asits heir. One of the central myths of the modern age is the myth:"God is dead! We have killed him!" (Nietzsche). The mystery oftheology was revealed as anthropology. The person is not God'slikeness. Persons are not God's creatures. The gods are thecreatures of human fear and longing. Ludwig Feuerbach underscoredthis suspicion of the modern person in his religion criticism.Feuerbach reversed subject and predicate and reduced all thepredicates of God to the human subject. Consciousness of the infiniteis nothing but the infinity of consciousness. The consciousness ofGod is nothing but the self-assurance of the person. God is a wishprojection of the person who breaks down with himself. God is thebetter self of the person, so to speak, who then worships himself.How can the person come to himself? Only in this way can heunderstand his religious ideals as his own projections, appropriatethem and withdraw in himself. Then he is no longer the divided personwho transports his better self into heaven. He is a person unitedwith himself who realizes his better self on earth. In his negation,Feuerbach criticized the religious pictures of human fear of oneself.In his criticism, he followed the Old Testament prohibition of images."You shall not make yourself a graven image or any likeness… youshall not bow down to them or serve them" (Ex 20,4). He took up theold tradition of negative theology: "We do not know what God is"(Thomas Aquinas). But in his perspective, he was religious again."With inclusion of nature, the new philosophy makes the person… thesole universal and highest theme of philosophy. Anthropology becomesthe universal science. "Person with person, the unity of I and you,is God." Thus Feuerbach believed in all God's predicates and onlytransferred them to the person. According to Feuerbach, the mysteryof theology is anthropology. The mystery of his anthropology isanthropo-theism (deification of the person). Therefore he concluded:"politics must become our religion. However that is only possiblewhen we have a Most High in our contemplation. " But what is themeaning of religion criticism when politics is made religion? If thede-divinization of the heaven of religion leads to the deification ofthe person on earth, what does anthropology mean?If God's dethronement makes the person into the god of himself, there is no sense speaking of anthropology. God is dead and should beburied. But if the heir takes God's place, the heir is god and not aperson any more, "a god in becoming" (R. Garaudy). The misery ofmodern anthropology on the ground of an inherited theology lies in itstheological and religious inheritance. The person must do what hecannot do as a total person, an ideal person, a possibility person ordecision-making person. Deification of the person makes the personmore inhuman, not more human. An anthropology inherited in the modernpost-Christian sense of theology loses sight of the real person andthe real God. Since this anthropology equates God and the person, itcannot speak clearly any more.The modern age makes the person into the iconoclastic word against God. An iconoclastic movement against religious pictures of God starts from human self-knowledge. However this is only sensible when the real God becomes the iconoclastic word against the person. An iconoclastic movement against images of man starts from the knowledge of God, in which the person looks at himself in a mirror, justifies, idolizes and worships himself. Knowledge of God and self-knowledge are connected. No knowledge of God is possible without self-knowledge (and without religion criticism) and no self-knowledge is possible without knowledge of God (and without self-criticism) . Anunderstanding of transcendence that humanizes without estranging oridolizing and an understanding of immanence making possible finitefreedom without resigning or tyrannizing only arise in the mutualiconoclasm of criticism.Anthropology in the empathic sense of the murder of God is no longer possible today. Anthropology must abandon its claimed anthropo-theism to speak more humanly about the person and not strainthe person with absolute demands that he can only disappoint.Auschwitz and Hiroshima must be forgotten to hold the person as adivine being. The person becomes more human when transposed in thesituation of leaving his self-deification, idolatry, profits andachievements. But what really transposes him into this situation?The critical task of theology is to withdraw the absolutetotalitarianism and legalism of salvation from anthropology. Theologyfirst comes to itself when it takes pleasure in anthropologicalreligion criticism and takes seriously the image prohibition.Conversely, anthropology first comes to the ground of reality when ittakes pleasure in critical theology and respects the wholly other inwhom all human self-knowledge becomes a finite fragment. Without thiswholly other, moral happiness and imperfect justice are unacceptable.Without the longing for the wholly other, the person loses thedignity of his dubiousness. Without trust in God, the protest againstinjustice and the struggle for justice grow weary.From: Jurgen Moltmann, Mensch: Christliche Anthropologie in denKonflikten der Gegenwert, 1979FAITH PRESSES TO POLITICAL ACTIONThis question has at least two traps. Firstly, one would like toknow more exactly what faith is really proclaimed. As everybodyknows, there are many forms of religious faith. There are ways offaith with strong inspirations and motives for political action whileother ways of faith dismiss political action because they are notinterested in the world of politics. Both ways of faith occur inChristianity.WHAT FAITH REQUIRES POLITICAL ACTION?Secondly, some would like to know in advance what political action is crucial. Welcoming a faith when it confirms our political views is all too human. But when a faith decries our political ideas and desires, we prefer faith not to meddle in political affairs. To what politics does faith press?We begin with essential doubt in a politics from faith as among many Christians and non-Christians. "What does this mean for theologians? " Axel Springer recently asked nervously. Springer is editor-in-chief of the Hamburg Abendblattes that published a series on "Rebels in Christ's Name." People turn away from God and churches bear responsibility, Axel Springer summarized. In the last decades, the state reduced its responsibility for alleviating poverty and distress. The churches and especially theologians have been on the lookout for other worldly tasks instead of worrying more intensively about pastoral care or spiritual welfare. The result was a loss in moral authority. The religious was repressive. The churches abandoned moral authority in part because they were too concerned about politics. Thus we help the modern person so he becomes capable again of learning to see transcendence and goodness in the world, AxelSpringer says. Let us help the churches in this time of apostasy fromGod so they become connecting links between people and the Most High.If the churches do not rightly fulfill this religious function ofspiritual welfare to the people, Springer's newspaper house willassume this pastoral commission out of responsibility in the Christianspirit as it has always exercised it in a relaxing and depoliticizingway in Germany since the war.Does faith press to political action? Certainly not, according to this interpretation, at least not directly. Here faith is something emotional, religious and very personal. Faith is sense fortranscendence and therefore should be far elevated above politicalquestions. If it affects politics, it is only in the sense ofmoderation toward political and religious radicalism.For this faith, good and evil are mixed in the world. The divine and the satanic wrestle with each other. The person is just and sinful at once. Faith stands in this ambiguous world and yet at the same time is above it. In the positive and negative, this may be the current picture of faith and of the role of churches in politics. Let us first find out what is positive and what is negative about this.Faith here is faith in God, in a higher being, in a governingProvidence. Faith is religious faith and not political faith in anidea, leader or party. For this faith, salvation does not come frompolitics. Therefore politics cannot bring disaster in an ultimatesense. This faith doubts the absolute and total meaning of politicalaction. For this faith, the political is something earthly,transitory and human, in any case something non-divine. Whoeverbelieves in God does not believe in Caesar any more.The positive of this faith lies in the disillusioning of politics. We cannot be forced to political action as though everything depended on it. It liberates to sober action for what is politically necessary. On the other side, the political meaning of such faith is doubted. Whoever calms himself that God will accomplish whatever happens politically is apolitical. He can come to terms with every injustice befalling him or others. Because he believes in a God and a kindly Providence, he does not need to be very worried about political fate. He has his eternal comfort in his God and therefore can feel relieved from world responsibility. This faith enervates political action, its critics say, and leads back to a childish responsibility. That is the negative.Faith can be hope in a heaven in the world to come of this worldhistory. The political becomes the penultimate for whoever sets hishope on the world to come. Paradise cannot be realized on earth. Onearth, everything is and remains ambiguous. Suffering and trouble arepart of this earth. The positive in this view is that it relativizesevery political standpoint and opposes all totalitarian claims ofpolitical parties. The negative is that this hope in a world to comeseduces to resignation in this life. A secret disinterest in allpolitical systems and campaigns is always the result.Whether monarchy, democracy, capitalism or socialism, all earthlyforms of society are equally near and far from God and the world tocome. One can console oneself about good and bad conditions. Theyoung Karl Marx found religion was the sigh of the oppressed creation,the heart of a heartless world and the spirit of spiritlessconditions, i.e. opium of the people. If this religious faith isannulled, the person is literally "forced" to political action. Thecriticism of religion disappoints the person so he thinks and actslike a person who comes to his senses.This faith is a heart faith. Whoever believes relies on himselfalone despite dependence on tradition and the community of the church.Faith leads into isolation. The positive is seen in the infiniteworth of the individual person before God. Whoever believes this wayis no longer determined in his innermost being by political interestsor class- and ethnic affiliations. He is free and critical towardsociety. While many praise this Christian subjectivism, the negativeconsequences must also be recognized. They lie in the politicalindifference of the heart. If one is unassailable in his innermostsoul through faith, all outward things become unimportant. Faithpreserves his purity of heart. Therefore he finds that politics isalways a "dirty business." As history shows, these believers leavepolitics to others, to those who promise the most peace and securityto them.Does "Christian" faith press to a certain political action? We have discussed two forms of faith that are called religious. They have nothing especially Christian in themselves apart from the fact that they are practiced by Christians. General faith in God, hope in a world to come and pious introspection do not need to be Christian.Christian faith in God is faith in the crucified Christ or as Luthersaid more sharply faith in the "crucified God."Does this faith press to political action? I think the answer isunequivocally yes. The cross is not a religious symbol but aninstrument of political execution. The cross was a politicalpunishment. If it is true that Jesus was condemned according toIsrael's law as a blasphemer, he did not endure the punishment forblasphemy at that time, namely stoning, that the Jews executed onStephen. Crucifixion was a Roman way of execution reserved to theRoman occupying power. According to Roman law, it was the punishmentfor political rebels and agitators against the Roman Empire. Jesuswas certainly not a Jewish freedom-fighter like the two zealotscrucified with him.Jesus was not an apolitical itinerant preacher, a "charmingcarpenter" who drew through the cheerful Galilean populace fromvillage to village on a gentle mule, as middle class romanticism (E.Renan) described him. He was also not a forerunner of Che Guevara asthe anti-bourgeois revolution stylized him. Nevertheless he waspolitically executed because he threatened the religious foundationsof the Roman Empire. Christians who believe God in the crucifiedshould be well aware of this since the starting point and standard fortheir political action lie in the political event of his crucifixion.We can only briefly describe the consequences. If the one desecrated by the state power with the cross is God's Christ, the lowest political idea is inverted to the highest. What the state defined as the basest degradation, the cross, has the highest dignity. God's glory rests on the suffering and dying of the humiliated, not on the crown of the powerful any more. If this crucified is the supreme authority for Christians, then all religious justification "from above" is denied political powers and principalities. Belief in political-religious authority ends for one who believes in the crucified. What results for political action? The resolute struggle against political idolatry, political cult of persons and their consequences in political tutelage, estrangement and apathy arises. No area of life is as filled with idols feared and loved above all things, alienation and underdevelopment as politics and the political religion of a people. Through Christ's cross, all justification "from above" is taken from political authorities for Christians. Political rule can only be justified "from below."A political iconoclastic movement starts from faith in the crucified. Submission under a visible image always exists in representative institutions. This is idolatry. The Puritans in England and America knew this. "Democracy has no monuments or medallions and imprints no head of a man on its coins. Iconoclasm is its true nature," declared John Quincy Adams, the fourth president of the US. However if the true nature of democracy is political iconoclasm and permanent revisionism of fortified institutions and customs, then democratic action fulfills the claim of the crucified on Christians. Liberation from the idolatry and passivity experienced by Christians in faith in the crucified God then changes into liberation from political religions and the political estrangements produced by those religions.The first effect of Christian faith on politics is exorcism,iconoclasm and the demythologization of the state. The second effectis democratization of public life. The crown rests on theconstitution of free citizens and no longer on the head of asovereign, the Puritans said. Free citizens have abolished the ruleof political castes- and classes and replaced that rule with theinternational treaty of free citizens. In their states, free citizenshave created many authorities for exercising political rule sopolitical rule is controlled by the public and set for a limited time.Democracy here does not mean a specific form of state raised to anideal. Democracy means a way and a political process of the commonwill in which as many groups and individuals as possible activelyparticipate in a society. Democracy is a society of open processesthat aims at a future of freedom and humanity involving allparticipants in its creation.God is politically present in the crucified below, according to the Christian faith, not above and a long way off. Liberation of politics from its idols and demons is a negative consequence. The democratic construction of a society from below is a positive consequence. If this freedom was won for Christians in the public event of Christ's crucifixion, this freedom must be publically responsible. This does not mean faith must accept Caesar's definition of politics that salvation comes from politics. Faith cooperates in the healing of politics, its liberation from superstition and gullibility and its activation by citizen participation in decision-making processes. Iconoclasm and democratization from below are the two most important tendencies to which faith presses in political action if it is Christian faith (p.140f).