1.2.

Moltmann’s Contrastive Paradigm

From his theological beginnings to his most recent contributions, Moltmann has shown
continued interest in the distinctness of biblical concerns over and against those found in
Greek philosophy and thought in particular, and the Christian tradition in general. This was
already perceived by Christopher Morse some decades ago, who wrote of Moltmann’s
theology, “Accompanying each positive statement we find a polemic directed against some
alternative position which is rejected as a prevailing misconception in Christian thinking.” 1
The negative exemplar, along with its major faults, is typically presented first, opening up
space for Moltmann to develop his own position. I have named this feature Moltmann’s
“contrastive paradigm,” a term which I will use throughout this dissertation. Among other
aspects of the role that Scripture plays in his theology, applications of this paradigm are to
be found at key points in Moltmann’s career, lending support to his argumentation with the
claim that his conclusions derive from biblical concerns, against other positions which
circumvent Scripture with philosophical logic. As Moltmann writes as recently as 2014, he
seeks “to understand what the Bible means by the ‘living God’ and to free the God of Israel
and Jesus Christ from the imprisonment of metaphysical definitions, which are due to
Greek philosophy and the religious Enlightenment.”2

In the sharp contrast he draws between Greek and Christian thought, Moltmann is not alone
in Christian history. Indeed, the contrast seems to go back to the NT itself. As Paul writes,
“Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles [Hellēnes], 3 but to those who are the
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor
1:22-24). In another place, Luke contrasts the philosophical curiosity and scepticism of the
Athenians with the call of the gospel (Acts 17:19-21, 32). And while some patristic authors
tended to adopt a more generous view of certain insights explicitly derived from Greek
philosophy, others made plain their antagonism. For example, Tertullian famously
proclaimed, “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the
Christian with the heretic? Our principles come from the Porch of Solomon, who had
himself taught that the Lord is to be sought in simplicity of heart…. After Jesus Christ we
have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research.”4
1
Christopher Morse, The Logic of Promise in Moltmann's Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 27. Jerry
Irish had earlier called this “Moltmann’s theology of contradiction,” though he did not differentiate between
the two forms of contradiction he identified. The first is that between two theological commitments Moltmann
wants to uphold, namely the crucifixion and resurrection. The second is that between Moltmann’s own
position and the position he rejects—the form of contradiction that Morse also points out. Jerry A. Irish,
“Moltmann’s Theology of Contradiction,” Theology Today 32:1 (1975): 21-31. Others have observed a
slightly more sophisticated structure: “We frequently encounter in his [Moltmann’s] literature a form of
argument along the lines of : ‘Neither A nor B’ (standard theological alternatives) ‘but C’ (which either
negates both or incorporates elements of truth in them into a higher synthesis).” Williams, “Moltmann on
Jesus Christ,” 112-13. While Williams does not provide a source, this same observation was made decades
earlier by Dorothee Sölle in DGG, 112-13. Remarkably, the pagination is identical!
2
Moltmann, The Living God and the Fullness of Life, trans. by Margaret Kohl (Louisville, KY: Westminster
John Knox, 2015), xi, emphasis mine.
3
Or “Greeks.”
4
Tertullian, The Prescriptions against the Heretics, 7.9-10, 12, in Early Latin Theology: Selections from
Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose and Jerome, ed. and trans. by S. L. Greenslade, full work on pp. 25-77 (London:
SCM, 1956). Tertullian’s famous statement does not, however, entail a rejection of reason altogether, but only
It is not difficult to find similar sentiments expressed in the Reformation era. In his 1518
Heidelberg Disputation, Luther warns against the undisciplined use of Greek philosophy in
theology, echoing Paul’s terminology in 1 Corinthians. “He who wishes to philosophize by
using Aristotle without danger to his soul must first become thoroughly foolish in Christ.
Just as a person does not use the evil of passion well unless he is a married man, so no
person philosophizes well unless he is a fool, that is, a Christian.”5 Melanchthon, too, takes
up a similar position in the first edition of his Loci Communes, making the distinction
between Scripture and Aristotelian thought a central feature of the work. “In this book the
principal topics of Christian teaching are pointed out so that youth may arrive at a twofold
understanding: 1. What one must chiefly look for in Scripture. 2. How corrupt are all the
theological hallucinations of those who have offered us the subtleties of Aristotle instead of
the teachings of Christ.”6

It is in later German liberal theology, however, that this theme finds full and programmatic
expression. Adolf von Harnack is its most famous exponent. In the beginning of his History
of Dogma, Harnack claims, “Dogma in its conception and development is a work of the
Greek spirit on the soil of the Gospel.” 7 That is, the logical formulation of Christian
doctrine “for scientific and apologetic purposes,” is a fundamentally Greek—and therefore
unwelcome—innovation in church history.8 For Harnack, while the historical development
of dogma may be admirable, faith and now historical criticism require that dogma no longer
have the exalted place it once held in the church. Wherever it stands opposed to faith or the
fruits of historical investigation, it must be set aside. Thus, “the Gospel since the
Reformation… is working itself out of the forms which it was once compelled to assume.” 9
For Harnack, the chief problem with dogma is that the church has taken up doctrines
developed in particular historical circumstances and understood them to be eternal truths,
making them binding for future generations. But “specifically Hellenic ideas form the
presuppositions neither for the Gospel itself, nor for the most important New Testament
the type of reason that Athens represents in opposition to Jerusalem. E.g., “’Athens’ and ‘Jerusalem’ stand
here as symbols… of the opposition between a mode of thought which believes that fact conforms to reason,
and another which believes that reason must conform to fact.” Justo L. González, “Athens and Jerusalem
Revisited: Reason and Authority in Tertullian,” Church History 43:1 (1974): 17-25, at 22.
5
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 31, Career of the Reformer I, ed. Harold J. Grimm (Philadelphia, PA:
Fortress, 1957), 41, theses 29-30, numbering removed.
6
Philip Melanchthon, Loci Communes Theologici, trans. by Lowell J. Sartre, in Melanchthon and Bucer, ed.
Wilhelm Pauck, 18-152 (London: SCM, 1969), 19. On Melanchthon’s complicated relationship to Aristotle,
of which the first edition of Loci Communes is definitely not representative, see Nicole Kuropka, “Philip
Melanchthon and Aristotle,” trans. by Timothy J. Wengert, in Irene Dingel, et al., Philip Melanchthon:
Theologian in Classroom, Confession, and Controversy, 19-28 (Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2012); Wilhelm Pauck, “Loci Communes Theologici: Editor’s Introduction,” in Melanchthon and
Bucer, ed. Pauck, 3-17.
7
Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, trans. by Neil Buchanan, 7 vols. (London: Williams & Norgate,
1894), 1:17. On Harnacks’ Hellenisation thesis, see, in English, Christoph Markschies, “Does It Make Sense
to Speak about a ‘Hellenization of Christianity’ in Antiquity?,” Church History and Religious Culture 92:1
(2012): 5-34; and various essays in Wendy E. Helleman, ed., Hellenization Revisited: Shaping a Christian
Response within the Greco-Roman World (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994). Alister E.
McGrath draws a connection between Harnack and Moltmann in The Making of Modern German
Christology: From the Enlightenment to Pannenberg (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 207.
8
Harnack, History of Dogma, 1:1.
9
Harnack, History of Dogma, 1:21.
writings.”10 Nonetheless, here I can only provide snapshots of Harnack’s Hellenisation
thesis, which is certainly much more nuanced than this brief treatment will allow.

It is difficult to situate Moltmann in this tradition—or perhaps even claim that there is a
tradition in the first place, as each of these authors wrote for different purposes in vastly
divergent historical contexts.11 Moltmann himself draws attention to a similar issue, that of
too closely identifying Reformation theology and historical criticism: “It becomes very
questionable whether there is a historical relationship between the Reformation and [the]
positivistic historical-critical method; … whether Luther’s struggle to free theology from
(scholastic) metaphysics can in any way be said to be analogous to the historical and
positivistic ‘overcoming of metaphysics’…. In any case, however, the distance of the
Reformation faith from the autonomy and subjectivity of the individual which has been set
free by the historical method and the abstract unhistoricality of society must be preserved at
all costs.”12

But this should not be a question of choosing between the broad strokes of a tradition, on
the one hand, and a historical context that makes Moltmann irreducible to any tradition, on
the other hand. Considering the amount of attention I will give to the distinctive nature of
Moltmann’s contrastive paradigm throughout this dissertation, I clearly favour reading his
theology on its own terms, ahead of hastily situating him in a particular tradition. I have
provided above a few examples of others who have in their own ways maintained explicit
distinctions between Greek philosophical claims or approaches and the content of the
gospel, however, for two reasons. First, Moltmann is not working in a historical vacuum, so
it is important to point out some significant historical precedents to his contrastive
paradigm. And, second, if Moltmann’s contrastive paradigm is to be engaged critically—a
task that remains necessary, albeit one that I can only contribute to by way of brief
comments scattered throughout my exposition—it would be unfair to dismiss it
conclusively without also attending to its potential antecedents in Scripture and the
tradition. Although the precedents I have identified are anything but exhaustive, I hope that
in future they will nonetheless provide some preliminary pointers for critics of Moltmann’s
contrastive paradigm.

When reading through Moltmann’s corpus, three applications of his contrastive paradigm
can be identified that hold a central place in his theological construction. Interestingly, all
three concern the nature of God and the Trinity. The first of these is the traditional
theological approach to the divine eternity and to its relationship to created temporality. In
his early writings, Moltmann becomes increasingly aware of the fundamental significance
of history and eschatology to the biblical witness. This culminates in one of the central
theses of Theology of Hope—that the future of creation is not already realised in God’s

10
Harnack, History of Dogma, 1:48 n. 1.
11
This “tradition” has taken on new forms in modern and contemporary theology. Paul Gavrilyuk’s term, “the
theory of theology’s fall into Hellenistic philosophy,” has gained some prominence. See Paul L. Gavrilyuk,
The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), 1. Gavrilyuk defines this trend narrowly so that it concerns only divine impassibility, though it is
surely broader than that—as I will show in the following chapters. He briefly explores some examples,
including Moltmann, in an appendix. See ibid., 176-79.
12
HP, 59-60 (1962).
eternity, a claim implicit, according to Moltmann, in the theologies of both Rudolf
Bultmann and Karl Barth, but that creation awaits a real future that does not yet correspond
to anything in God. The consequence, though only hinted at in TH, is that God’s being, like
the world’s being, remains unfinished—certainly a departure from the tradition against
which Moltmann polemicises. In subsequent writings, he contends for a notion of divine
being that is located in the future. In place of what Moltmann identifies as the eternal
present of God, then, comes the historical and futurist nature of God’s being.

The second key aspect of this tradition that Moltmann rejects is its doctrines of divine
impassibility and immutability. In impassibility the tradition claimed that God does not
suffer, and in immutability it claimed that God does not change. Indeed, Moltmann had
already begun to dismantle the latter in proposing a historical God. If this was not enough,
however, the doctrine all but topples in his audacious theological proposals concerning the
suffering of the Father and the Son in the crucifixion. Beginning development in the late
sixties, this idea found full expression in Moltmann’s The Crucified God, where Moltmann
treats divine suffering in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity. In place of the
impassibility and immutability of God, then, comes the trinitarian suffering of God.

Finally, Moltmann turns his attention to conventional theological constructions of divine

unity, focussing in particular on their modern articulation in the theologies of Barth and
Karl Rahner. While his alternative can be seen in development from at least the late sixties,
it is worked out extensively in The Trinity and the Kingdom, where Moltmann contends
that the shared community of the divine persons forms the basis for their unity, rather than
a shared substance. This coincides with the contention that the three persons constitute
three active subjects, against Barth’s and Rahner’s claims that God is a single subject. In
place of the substantial and subjective unity of God, then, comes the social unity of God.

These three applications of Moltmann’s contrastive paradigm showcase his critical retrieval
of what he perceives to be a biblical doctrine of God and the Trinity against undue, external
influence in the Christian tradition—Greek or otherwise. They are intertwined with other
assumptions about the nature of Scripture and its function in theological construction. I
have drawn attention to them here so that the overall shape of Moltmann’s contrastive
paradigm can be understood before attending to these various applications in detail in the
following chapters. In my estimation, this paradigm constitutes the central logic of the role
of Scripture in Moltmann’s theology. The value of the paradigm itself is difficult to
determine, however. I refer to it here in general terms for the sake of analysis, but
Moltmann himself never does so.

His readers will need to take into consideration how the paradigm is applied in connection
to other hermeneutical and theological commitments. Throughout this dissertation, then, I
explore this paradigm in conversation with these various commitments. Of course, this also
stems from a more basic decision, noted in the previous section, to present a general
account of the role that Scripture plays in Moltmann’s theology—not one that focusses
exclusively on his contrastive paradigm.