The Crucified God Review - Assignment Example

Student Name: Instructor’s Name: Title: Moltmann, The Crucified God: Book Review Course: Institution: Moltmann, The Crucified God: Book Review Introduction The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann brings out theological, psychological and political aspects associated with Jesus’ crucifixion. The crucifixion of Jesus is the foundation of Christian faith and therefore the opinion of people towards God and humanity should be reinterpreted and according to Moltmann changing the opinion will revitalize Christology (Moltmann 1974 Pg 5). Basically, in the book The crucified God, Moltmann has developed the themes he established in his book Theology of Hope to unravel the complexity in theology. The books provides a clear picture of suffering of God and of Christ as well because Jesus’ sufferings while on earth indicates the God is always with individuals who suffer. The book exemplifies the significance of the cross of Christ and its implication in Christian faith and Moltmann does this through the Trinity doctrine; while on the cross, Jesus suffered in feeling like he did not have a father while God suffered in losing the son (Moltmann, 1974). However, according to Moltmann, the Bible is a divine book regardless of the flaws it might have. In addition, his perception regarding political field is mystifying because according to him socialism can conquer economic injustices while democracy can conquer political injustices; this develops democratic socialism which Moltmann did not present as a solution to problems that people face. According to Moltmann, the cross signifies the death of God and through His resurrection God ratified the eschaton in history. For human beings to comprehend the death of God, they should be wary of replicating the disintegration of the teachings as well as Jesus’ life from His death since this Jesuology-lite that is completely detached from Christology creates unsustainable mythical salvation of anxious religion. Instead, human beings are supposed to view the death of God as having resulted from a Jesus who politically threatened the regal establishment and not just for sacrilege or love. God’s resurrection was an endorsement for establishing the world the way it is supposed to be and specifically God enacted exoneration on political dissidents who took care of the poor. This is the identity model for human beings as he argues that “Christian identity can be understood only as an act of identifying with the crucified Christ” (Moltmann 1974). Accordingly, a church that uses the cross theology should be an eschatological collective, that liberates the world through sacrificial ratification. Moltmann conceptualizes God; a God who suffers in solidarity with his creation and a God of pathos. He argues that the doctrine of Trinity managed to kill the Greek theism and political religions that were there during the early Patristic era God who seemingly had great influence from Aristotelian and neoplatonic gods. Suffering in God is the people’s revivification from protest atheism. Protest atheism refers to the atheism that human being experience when they are in desperate situations. It is the atheism a theist experience when a child dies, which is a feeling that God does not have any power in someone’s life. Jesus, the son of God went through such protest atheism when he was on cross and cried in despair, “my God, why have you forsaken me”. Even during this desperate situation, Jesus did not cognitively doubt that God exists but instead experienced the hopelessness of the psalmist, with trust that God will redeem God-self through redemption of those who follow God (Moltmann 1974 Pg, 37). Accordingly, inter-Trinitarian relationship that occurred during the crucifixion of Jesus indicates that God identifies with the suffering of human beings (Zimany 1977 Pg, 53-54). This is illustrated where Moltmann emphasizes that when God (the Father) delivered Jesus (Son), from suffering and death as well, God acted in himself. God acted in both suffering and dying to manifest life in himself and to free the sinners (Moltmann 1974, Pg, 151). Jesus was in despair and thus even if the Spirit was not present when Jesus experienced fatherlessness, there was a profound accord between the God’s will and Jesus’ will during the cross event. Nonetheless, the Spirit that gives life was there within the unifying separation that took place between God (Father) and Jesus (Son) in the cross, even though just as an contrasting will: specifically, bring life to the dead and make life (Zimany 1977, Pg, 53-54). Therefore, according to Moltmann, the suffering love of the God the Trinity forms the foundation of the power of human love to persevere and endure even during resistance, to remain open and to persist with hope even when facing the ultimate negation, which is death. This implies that the crucifixion of God brought the real hope that embraces and conquers the world and its allied suffering and the act of crucifixion also forms the basis for a love that is more powerful than death and that is able to sustain death (Moltmann 1974 Pg 277-278). Generally, people’s perceptions of God are fall into monotheism, ditheism, and tritheism and to some extend modalism. As Kant argued, Trinity doctrine is an ultimate illustration of a belief without applying it practically. Moltmann supports Kant’s argument within The Trinity and the Kingdom where he puts that if theology is not Trinitarian; in that case it is absolutely not Christian. In The Crucified God, he indicates that the cross is an incident between God and God but cautioned that human beings split up a historical Jesuology from Christology if they do not comprehend this. Cross is the cosmos defining moment where human history is stalled within this history of God; this is Moltmann’s euphemism for Trinity. The God of cross feel the sufferings of the human beings, their loss (the Father) as well as the protest atheism of our fatherlessness (the Son) (Moltmann 1974). As a result, the outcome of the cross is supposed to result into Resurrection, where by the Spirit constantly guides the eschatological incident into history at present. According to Paul Fiddes (1992), the sequence of law, sin in addition to death act jointly as the archetypical human being’s state. Accordingly, in this book Moltmann describes a system where instead of free faith functioning, religion becomes the central functioning standard for a person. Laws as well as customs can believe for human beings and hence hide the human being’s lack of faith even from themselves. At such an instant, involuntarily a human being surrounds himself with people having common believes, which indicates narcissism. Since it is not possible to achieve absolute maturity, Moltmann advises that “every man-always makes himself idols and values that for him become identical with his own self”. The man hence regards attacks on his highest values as attacks on himself and reacts with fatal aggressiveness (Moltmann 1974). However, this differs with a faith based within pathos, in loss as well as within protest atheism; this is a reactionary faith and not Resurrection faith. It is hence worth noting that the understanding of cross that the dogmatist supports is one of the penal laws which does not include sacrifice or the wishes of God. According to Moltmann, the cross is the ultimate sacrifice and hence the cross does away with the requirement of human beings to offer gods sacrifices to get rid of guilt or worry (Placher 1999). For that reason, anxious faith is caused by the failure to understand the cross appropriately. Nonetheless, revolutionary faith cannot exist in the absence of revolution within the concept of God. Theology would not be liberated too if there is no liberation of God from idols that result from anxiety and hubris as well. Human being discloses his humanity regarding divinity of his God and he experiences his humanity within relationship to what seems to him as the utmost being. Human beings direct their lives toward the greatest value since he determines who he is through his definitive concerns (Moltmann, 1974). Moltmann asserts that a God who is incapable of suffering is a God who cannot love. The fact that God is able to love opens the divinity that God also experiences suffering. “A God who cannot suffer is poorer than any man. For a God who is incapable of suffering is a being who cannot be involved; He cannot weep, for he has no tears. But the one who cannot suffer cannot love either” (Moltmann 1974 Pg, 227). Therefore, through this book, Moltmann endorses an authentic Christianity that supports the suggestion that God suffers with human beings during their suffering moments. There are many theologians that support divine suffering, for example Jung Young Lee asserted that divine suffering is the foundation of Christian faith and also that the divine suffering indicates the distinctiveness of Christianity. According to Moltmann (1974), Christian faith should perceive Christ’s suffering on the cross and God’s power and perceive Christ’s death as remarkable capability of God. Forsyth (1910 Pg, 27) had the same perception where he argued that the sacrifice that Jesus made while on the cross indicated the grace of God but not its cause. In addition, Donald (1956) also supported delivering of human beings through the suffering encountered Jesus and God encountered during crucifixion. Moltmann further argues that external confrontation of humanity occurs through crucifixion since God reveals himself through crucifixion by expressing the inner-Trinitarian love of God. Additionally, for theology to interpret the cross, it should be influenced through incarnational trinitarianism. The manifestation emphasizes that the human nature that is imperfect, feeble and infinite develops into a divine aspect. Accordingly, the divinity of Christ was divulged when he was humiliated on the cross and when his manhood was exalted after his resurrection. Hence the numerous inconsistencies represented in crucifixion greatly challenge Cartesianism since according to Curley (1978) Cartesianism suggests that a being that is absolutely perfect should have all perfections. Moltmann also asserts that the cross has implications politically. He explains the model of unburdening which is the absolute separation of the political and religious areas as well as the model correspondence that seeks to develop “small hopes” founded on the “great hope” of eschaton. His argument is that a Christian political act that is appropriate should enact the eschatological incident in the temporal incident. Moltmann gives vicious concentric circles that include, “vicious circle of poverty, the vicious circle of force which includes economic, military and class, the vicious circle of racial and cultural alienation, the vicious circle of the industrial pollution nature in addition to the vicious circle of senselessness and god-forsakenness” (Moltmann 1974). He gave the solutions; “socialism for liberating poverty, democracy for liberating force, emancipation for liberating alienation, peace with nature to liberate the perception of human beings on nature and the meaning of the cross to liberate the godforsaken destitution and meaningless as well” (Moltmann 1974). However, his perception regarding political sphere is lacks validity because according to him socialism can conquer economic injustices and democracy can conquer political injustices and this develops democratic socialism which Moltmann did not present as a solution to problems that people face. Still, in order to acquire equality, distributive justice as well as redistributive justice is important. Essentially, the doctrine of Moltmann of God contains three fundamental aspects, namely, the "god-forsakenness that separates the Son from the Father” (Bauckham 1989 Pg, 301) and this can simply be illustrated through Trinitarian lingo. The cross displays the involvement of God with the humanity and it is an intimately Trinitarian factor. Consequently, God influences humanity through Trinitarian relationism (Sarot 1994). In addition, Moltmann does not analyze and ignores differences between the immanent and economic trinity. In addition, according to (Bauckham 1995), any attempt in portraying the action of God within the cross in indentifying and being in solidarity with suffering should include an incarnational as well as Trinitarian theology. However, according to Williams (1982 Pg, 37), Moltmann’s book The Crucified God, Christ’s cross is an entirely Trinitarian event. Furthermore, divine suffering at the cross disagrees with Cartesianism's perception regarding God’s perfection. This is because in this book Moltmann provides a dual challenge to this perfectionism in that he suggests that it is through the cross that God revealed himself to humankind and the imperfections of humanity are taken into God during the incarnation. Therefore, according to Moltmann, adopting the imperfection utterly perfects God and this contradicts the Cartesiansm viewpoint on God’s perfection. In Cartesian view, perfection of God results from identifying the aspects that are deemed as “perfections” (Weinandy 2000). Conclusion The book provides a clear Trinitarian theology where Moltmann argues that through the cross, God revealed his suffering with humanity and that God’s suffering on the cross forms the basis of Christian faith. Thus true Christianity is practicing faith where God abandoned God for the love of humanity. The crucifixion of Jesus took death into the Trinity where God grieved and suffered because of losing his Son and therefore God never died. Therefore, Moltmann evades the modalistic unorthodoxy of patripassianism through distinguishing the suffering that God went through and the suffering the Jesus, the son experienced. However, Moltmann’s view of divine suffering at the cross disagrees with the premise of Cartesianism regarding God’s perfection. In conclusion, The Crucified God by Moltmann represents that it is the cross that divulges the complexity of God and through crucifixion God defines himself, confronts and redeems humanity through his own suffering and God also suffers every time the humanity suffers. Bibliography Baukham, R., 1995, The Theology of Jürgen Moltmann, T&T Clark, Edinburgh. Bauckham, R., 1989, Jurgen Moltmann.' in the modem theologians: an introduction to Christian theology in the Twentieth Century, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Fiddes, P., 1992, The Creative Suffering of God, Clarendon, Oxford. Moltmann, J., 1974, The Crucified God, SCM, London. Moltmann, J., 1981, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God: the doctrine of God, SCM Press, London. Moltmann, J., 1967, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, SCM Press, London. Forsyth, P.T., 1910, The cruciality of the cross, Hodder and Stoughton, London. Placher, W., 1999, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture, JKP, Westminster. Sarot, M., 1994, God, Possibility and Corporeality, Kok Pharos. Weinandy, T., 2000, Does God Suffer? University of Notre Dame. William J., 1982, Three-personed God: Trinity as Mystery of Salvation, Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC. Zimany, D., 1977, Moltmann's crucified God.' in Dialog. Vol. 16, 49-57. Read More