Jürgen Moltmann, 'the most influential Christian theologian'

gm349 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:23:35 +0000

Jürgen Moltmann has been of his generation the most influential Christian theologian worldwide, both through his many books (translated into twenty languages) and through his tireless visiting and lecturing in many parts of the world throughout his career.

Since his first major work, Theology of Hope (1964), which was ground breaking in its time and was instantly recognized as such, his work has continued to be profoundly original and constantly creative, while also continually resourced from the theological tradition. Some key themes, such as eschatological hope, give a characteristic shape to his whole theological development, but his work has also continually moved on, and at every stage he has not only rethought major Christian doctrines, but also related them to one after another key issue that has arisen in the contemporary world (e.g. the Holocaust, advances in medical science, feminism, ecological issues, inter-faith dialogue).

Often his originality emerges from this bringing together of the theological tradition and the issues, demands and insights of the contemporary world. Some of the most creative features of his earlier work – such as his emphasis on hope, his claim that God's love entails God's suffering, his understanding of the triune God as fully interpersonal - have been so influential that they have become common, even taken-for-granted features of much subsequent theological thinking.

His work has been important not only for fellow theologians and theological students, but also for very many church leaders, clergy and interested lay people worldwide. This is not only because his work relates the central theological themes of Christian faith to the contemporary world and its concerns, but also because, alongside his major works, he has written many shorter and more accessible books that communicate his best thinking without technicalities and in a readable style.

Often in these shorter works for a wider readership he expands on the practical implications - spiritual and socio-political - of his ideas more than he does in the major works themselves. He has also progressively expanded his dialogue with Christians outside his own tradition: his trinitarian explorations brought him alongside Orthodox theologians, his strong affirmation of the Spirit in all life and experience brought him into dialogue with Pentecostals. He is a Reformed theologian who has become a genuinely ecumenical one.

̽��ֱ��widespread recognition of the importance of his work can be seen in the fact that more than 150 doctoral theses have been written on him!

Professor Richard Bauckham, Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, discusses the theologian Jürgen Moltmann. Prof Moltmann will be giving a public talk on Tuesday, 14 February at 5.30pm, Queens Lecture Theatre, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, as part of ̽��ֱ��Faraday Institute lecture series. (Free entry, no need to book, but come early if you want a seat.)

Some of the most creative features of his earlier work – such as his emphasis on hope, his claim that God's love entails God's suffering, his understanding of the triune God as fully interpersonal - have been so influential that they have become common, even taken-for-granted features of much subsequent theological thinking.

Professor Richard Bauckham Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge

Professor Richard Bauckham

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Where God meets physics

amb206 — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 06:22:41 +0000

Science and religion are two of the most powerful influences in contemporary society. Some see them as competing alternatives but, as someone who is both a former Cambridge science professor and an Anglican priest, I want to take them with equal seriousness. I am proud that Cambridge was the first university in the UK to endow a post in theology and science: the Starbridge Lectureship is held by Dr Fraser Watts.

̽��ֱ��possibility of fruitful interaction between science and religion arises from the fact that both are concerned with the search for truthful understanding, to be attained through motivated beliefs. Of course, this is a philosophically contested claim, but my scientific experience encourages me to adopt the stance of ‘critical realism’ in relation for the insights of both science and religion. ̽��ֱ��term ‘realism’ signifies the belief that we can gain actual insight into the nature of reality, while the description ‘critical’ signals that this knowledge is never complete or absolutely certain, though sufficiently well supported by evidence to make commitment to it a rational act.

Science and religion look at different domains of encounter with reality. Sciences deals with an objective dimension, in which things can be manipulated and events repeated, thereby affording it access to the great weapon of experimental verifiability. Yet we all know that there are many levels of encounter with reality – both personal and, I would say, the transpersonal encounter with divine reality – in which neither manipulation nor repetition are possible without doing violence to the reality encountered. We never hear a Beethoven quartet the same way twice, even if we replay the same recording. In this personal realm, testing has to give way to something like trusting.

̽��ֱ��difference in domains means that science and religion ask different questions of reality: in the former case how things happen; in the latter whether there is meaning, purpose and value in what is happening – issues that science tends to rule out of its discourse. Science and religion, therefore, complement each other, rather than being rivals on the same turf. For full understanding, we need both sets of insights. To take a homely example, the kettle is boiling because gas heats the water (process) and because I want to make a cup of tea (purpose). Some people have argued that these differences are so completely separate that they have nothing to say to each other, but I believe that this view is mistaken. Their questions are different but the answers given must be mutually compatible. Returning to the homely example, putting the kettle in the refrigerator would cast doubt on my intention to make a cup of tea.

̽��ֱ��common quest for truth makes science and religion friends and not foes, with gifts to offer each other. Science can tell religion what the nature and history of the universe is actually like, a gift to be received with gratitude as theology seeks to understand the cosmos as a divine creation. It makes me sad to see some religious people refusing to take seriously the truth that science has to offer. ̽��ֱ��gift that religion has to offer to science is not to answer its questions - for we have every reason to expect that scientific questions will receive scientific answers – but to take science’s insights and set them within a broader and deeper context of intelligibility.

̽��ֱ��metaquestions that arise from the experience of doing science take us beyond science’s ability to answer. One example must suffice: ‘Why is science possible at all in the deep way that ir has proved to be?’ Of course, evolutionary process must have shaped human brains so that we can understand the everyday world in which our ancestors had to survive. But why are we also able to understand the cloudy and fitful world of quantum physics, which appears so far removed from the everyday world? Why is it that mathematics – the most abstract of disciplines – which furnishes the key to unlock the deep secrets of the physical world?

It is an actual technique of discovery in fundamental phyics to seek theories which are expressed in terms of what mathematicians can recognise and agree to be beautiful equations. This strategy is no act of aesthetic indulgence, for time and again it has proved to be the case that it is just such theories that provide the long-term fruitfulness of explanation which persuades us that they describe the way the physical world is. ̽��ֱ��universe has proved to be astonishingly rationally transparent and rationally beautiful. Is this just a random piece of luck or is it a fact of great significance? Science exploits this fact, but is unable to explain it,

I have been describing a world which in its deep intelligibility could fittingly be described as shot through with signs of mind. I believe that it is wholly reasonable to believe that it is the divine Mind of the Creator that lies behind the wonderful order of the cosmos. I like to say that I am ‘two-eyed’, viewing the world through the view of science and religion, a binocular vision that enables me to see further and deeper than I would with just a single eye. I need to take science and religion with an equal seriousness.

̽��ֱ��talk A Destiny Beyond Death takes place at 1pm tomorrow in ̽��ֱ��Garden Room, St Edmund's College, Cambridge (sandwiches from 12.30pm). Free and open to all.

Eminent thinker and commentator Revd Dr John Polkinghorne, Fellow of the Royal Society, will be giving a public talk – titled A Destiny Beyond Death - tomorrow lunchtime at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. It is part of a series organised by the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. Here he gives an overview of his understanding of the relationship between what are generally considered to be two opposing schools of thought.

̽��ֱ��gift that religion has to offer to science is not to answer its questions but to take science’s insights and set them within a broader and deeper context of intelligibility.

Revd Dr John Polkinghorne

Faraday Institute for Science and Religion

John Polkinghorne

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̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Faraday Institute for Science and Religion

Jürgen Moltmann, 'the most influential Christian theologian'

Where God meets physics