An Eschatological Ontology?
One of the foremost 'new' theological categories that has seen a (re)surgence as of late is the concept of an 'eschatological ontology.' That Christianity is itself inherently eschatological has, much like the parallel (and often intermeshed) Trinitarianism of the last Century, become axiological; not in and of itself, as an isolated doctrine, but as a basic framework within which Christianity itself is understood. Jurgen Moltmann (one of the vanguards of the eschatological re-surgance) can stand as a typified extrapolation of the new understanding: "The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day' (Theology of Hope, p.16).
Yet, like most theological categories, there is within the agreement much variance on what exactly is entailed in an 'eschatological ontology,' and what its specific structure is. That eschatology is a structure to understand Christianity, most (aside from some notables like the Jesus Seminar-ian Marcus Borg) agree; but as to the particular material and formal elements, there is hardly anything resembling a consensus, be it methodological or theological. These variations are indeed in tension with one another, and when overall theological projects are considered via an attempt to critically understand the variations in eschatological thinking, it makes for startling differences in statements that seemed, prima facie, to be somewhat similar.
In order to avoid my tendency towards lengthy posts, I shall hit upon only one of the differences (though it is a large one). The question to clarify the difference might be thus: is reality itself eschatologically oriented, that is, is existence's basic relation to God future-oriented, or is eschatological ontology something that is specific to the act of salvation, and hence primarily (and perhaps solely) a soteriological concept? To the latter we might name John Zizioulas and Jurgen Moltmann, and the later thinking of Colin Gunton, and to the former we might name Wolfhart Pannenberg, F. LeRon Shults, and Robert Jenson. Obviously this 'categorization' of thinkers is a brutal summary of their thinking, and should not be taken as an exhaustive, or even an entirely 'accurate' device. I am merely using it as a loose heuristic to make a point regarding the tension. For example, the basic ontology of reality for Jenson cannot be seperated from the concrete history of the man Jesus and His relation to the Father in the Spirit. As such the eschatological structure of reality is both a concept that pervades the basic ontology of existence as the 'onrushing' of the Spirit's futurity, but it is also specifically a soteriological concept because 'reality' and the specific 'history' of the soteriological motion of the Son cannot be seperated (this is differently true with Shults and Pannenberg as well).
On the other hand, with Moltmann and Zizioulas, it is clear that 'history' per se, while valued, is intrinsically 'ateleological.' Moltmann's basic indebtedness to Barth and the Kerygmatic 'Word of God' concept makes the eschatological thrust of history arise only in relation to the interjection of the promise of God, while for Zizioulas the 'biological' reality of the perons hypostasis is subjugated to necessity and isolation, and must be 'hypostasized' in the eucharist as a future oriented, communion saturated, non-necessary freedom.
Moltmann elaborates his concept by saying God declares himself and is faithful to himself via the declaration and fulfillment of the promise. Hence the 'eschatological' orientation of the world is inherently missiological and Christological; the promise 'penetrates' and drives forward those for whom the promise comes, because they are led to become aware of the discontinuity between what is promised, and the currently fallen and painful state of reality.
An ambiguity arises here in Moltmann's Theology of Hope, however (due, in no small part, to his lack of systematization). Moltmann on the one hand seems to say that the eschatological orientation of reality is in antithesis to history as it stands; yet Moltmann also uses the rhetoric of the promise 'posing' and 'creating' history, which becomes confusing when one asks the basic question of what is history? Is history an inherently non-eschatological, linear concept (even if this 'nature' is somehow a result of the fall) contradicted by the free promises of God that permiate those addressed by the promise with an eschatological hope? Or is history actually eschatological as the creation of history is itslef a burden of the promise? Moltmann often appears to want to have it both ways. He seems to want to say the first, while unfortunately maintaining the word 'history' for his concept of the eschatological orientation 'spreading' through missiological activity spurned on by the promise of Christ's death and resurrection.
To make matters worse, Moltmann later on in Theology of Hope, says that the 'historifying' of the world' in Christian mission implies that the world itself is not immutable; that is to say the concept of promise indicates a weltanschauung where the world is 'not here seen as a self-dependent cosmos of nature, but as the goal of a world history which can be understood only in dynamic terms' (ToH p.289) Yet the ambiguity is thickened because Moltmann then appears to be differentiating between the 'eye of mission's' (ibid) ability to view the world as such an open process because of its understanding of the ontological constitution of the promise, and the otherwise causal and linear nature of the world. Yet at the same time Moltmann says that if the world were immutable, the call to obedient molding of the world via promise would have no point (288) and that if the future is the basic category of the meaning of history, then history is not a tumble of necessities or meaningless caprice (260). This leaves a lacuna regarding the actual relationship between history and promise. If the world is 'open' because it is ontologically constituted from the promise then Moltmann's rhetoric of the promise 'contradicting' present reality is too strong at best, and just plain inconsistent at worst. The very nature of reality would be promise-constituted in this instance; the promise could not then 'contradict' present reality because it is present reality's very structure. If we maintain, on the other hand, Moltmann's terminology of "interruption" and the leading and opening character of the promise itself, then this leaves us with the nagging suspicion that history is an otherwised closed concept ontologically 'otherwise' than the interior structure evoked by promise.
Opposed to this is the thinking of Pannenberg, Jenson, and Shults. They all (roughly) see the basic orientation of the world (even if fallen) as eschatologically oriented. Pannenberg even makes an epistemological and ontological system out of it. The basic point of these thinkers is that if Christianity is consitutive of showing what authentic man, and by extension authentic creation are via salvation in Christ through the Spirit, then the eschatological orientation cannot be wholly absent from the world even 'unsaved' as it were. God is still the one God of all via creation, and if a proper relationship to God is always future-open and future-oriented, as the Christian relation suggests, increasingly abundent and prosperous through relation to Christ in the Church, then a creation is as such itself eschatologically oriented. God does not create a 'cosmos' that then has a history, but he creates a history itself. If the world itself bears an 'non-eschatological' existence that is then penetrated by the eschatologizing promise, which is the true ontological constitution because it is the very structuring of God's Triune life, then the world would (somehow) be existing as an independent ontological principle not dependent upon God (even if in a fallen, broken way). But, if the world is still dependent on God, then it still manifests an eschatological orientation; history itself is eschatological.
Hence the basic heuristic that needs to be asked when dealing with thinkers blazing the new paths of eschatological thinking: Are history and creation themselves eschatologically oriented, even if the specific structure of this cannot be fully elaborated or given its coherent structure without reference to the specific history of Christ and God? Or is history, because it is fallen, or just in itself, non-eschatological, and so the eschatological thrust of Christianity only in the event of those addressed by Promise (Moltmann-?) or only to those who have been properly 'hypostasized' via the presence of the eschatological communion in the moment of the Eucharist (Zizioulas)?
What do you think is the proper approach?
Yet, like most theological categories, there is within the agreement much variance on what exactly is entailed in an 'eschatological ontology,' and what its specific structure is. That eschatology is a structure to understand Christianity, most (aside from some notables like the Jesus Seminar-ian Marcus Borg) agree; but as to the particular material and formal elements, there is hardly anything resembling a consensus, be it methodological or theological. These variations are indeed in tension with one another, and when overall theological projects are considered via an attempt to critically understand the variations in eschatological thinking, it makes for startling differences in statements that seemed, prima facie, to be somewhat similar.
In order to avoid my tendency towards lengthy posts, I shall hit upon only one of the differences (though it is a large one). The question to clarify the difference might be thus: is reality itself eschatologically oriented, that is, is existence's basic relation to God future-oriented, or is eschatological ontology something that is specific to the act of salvation, and hence primarily (and perhaps solely) a soteriological concept? To the latter we might name John Zizioulas and Jurgen Moltmann, and the later thinking of Colin Gunton, and to the former we might name Wolfhart Pannenberg, F. LeRon Shults, and Robert Jenson. Obviously this 'categorization' of thinkers is a brutal summary of their thinking, and should not be taken as an exhaustive, or even an entirely 'accurate' device. I am merely using it as a loose heuristic to make a point regarding the tension. For example, the basic ontology of reality for Jenson cannot be seperated from the concrete history of the man Jesus and His relation to the Father in the Spirit. As such the eschatological structure of reality is both a concept that pervades the basic ontology of existence as the 'onrushing' of the Spirit's futurity, but it is also specifically a soteriological concept because 'reality' and the specific 'history' of the soteriological motion of the Son cannot be seperated (this is differently true with Shults and Pannenberg as well).
On the other hand, with Moltmann and Zizioulas, it is clear that 'history' per se, while valued, is intrinsically 'ateleological.' Moltmann's basic indebtedness to Barth and the Kerygmatic 'Word of God' concept makes the eschatological thrust of history arise only in relation to the interjection of the promise of God, while for Zizioulas the 'biological' reality of the perons hypostasis is subjugated to necessity and isolation, and must be 'hypostasized' in the eucharist as a future oriented, communion saturated, non-necessary freedom.
Moltmann elaborates his concept by saying God declares himself and is faithful to himself via the declaration and fulfillment of the promise. Hence the 'eschatological' orientation of the world is inherently missiological and Christological; the promise 'penetrates' and drives forward those for whom the promise comes, because they are led to become aware of the discontinuity between what is promised, and the currently fallen and painful state of reality.
An ambiguity arises here in Moltmann's Theology of Hope, however (due, in no small part, to his lack of systematization). Moltmann on the one hand seems to say that the eschatological orientation of reality is in antithesis to history as it stands; yet Moltmann also uses the rhetoric of the promise 'posing' and 'creating' history, which becomes confusing when one asks the basic question of what is history? Is history an inherently non-eschatological, linear concept (even if this 'nature' is somehow a result of the fall) contradicted by the free promises of God that permiate those addressed by the promise with an eschatological hope? Or is history actually eschatological as the creation of history is itslef a burden of the promise? Moltmann often appears to want to have it both ways. He seems to want to say the first, while unfortunately maintaining the word 'history' for his concept of the eschatological orientation 'spreading' through missiological activity spurned on by the promise of Christ's death and resurrection.
To make matters worse, Moltmann later on in Theology of Hope, says that the 'historifying' of the world' in Christian mission implies that the world itself is not immutable; that is to say the concept of promise indicates a weltanschauung where the world is 'not here seen as a self-dependent cosmos of nature, but as the goal of a world history which can be understood only in dynamic terms' (ToH p.289) Yet the ambiguity is thickened because Moltmann then appears to be differentiating between the 'eye of mission's' (ibid) ability to view the world as such an open process because of its understanding of the ontological constitution of the promise, and the otherwise causal and linear nature of the world. Yet at the same time Moltmann says that if the world were immutable, the call to obedient molding of the world via promise would have no point (288) and that if the future is the basic category of the meaning of history, then history is not a tumble of necessities or meaningless caprice (260). This leaves a lacuna regarding the actual relationship between history and promise. If the world is 'open' because it is ontologically constituted from the promise then Moltmann's rhetoric of the promise 'contradicting' present reality is too strong at best, and just plain inconsistent at worst. The very nature of reality would be promise-constituted in this instance; the promise could not then 'contradict' present reality because it is present reality's very structure. If we maintain, on the other hand, Moltmann's terminology of "interruption" and the leading and opening character of the promise itself, then this leaves us with the nagging suspicion that history is an otherwised closed concept ontologically 'otherwise' than the interior structure evoked by promise.
Opposed to this is the thinking of Pannenberg, Jenson, and Shults. They all (roughly) see the basic orientation of the world (even if fallen) as eschatologically oriented. Pannenberg even makes an epistemological and ontological system out of it. The basic point of these thinkers is that if Christianity is consitutive of showing what authentic man, and by extension authentic creation are via salvation in Christ through the Spirit, then the eschatological orientation cannot be wholly absent from the world even 'unsaved' as it were. God is still the one God of all via creation, and if a proper relationship to God is always future-open and future-oriented, as the Christian relation suggests, increasingly abundent and prosperous through relation to Christ in the Church, then a creation is as such itself eschatologically oriented. God does not create a 'cosmos' that then has a history, but he creates a history itself. If the world itself bears an 'non-eschatological' existence that is then penetrated by the eschatologizing promise, which is the true ontological constitution because it is the very structuring of God's Triune life, then the world would (somehow) be existing as an independent ontological principle not dependent upon God (even if in a fallen, broken way). But, if the world is still dependent on God, then it still manifests an eschatological orientation; history itself is eschatological.
Hence the basic heuristic that needs to be asked when dealing with thinkers blazing the new paths of eschatological thinking: Are history and creation themselves eschatologically oriented, even if the specific structure of this cannot be fully elaborated or given its coherent structure without reference to the specific history of Christ and God? Or is history, because it is fallen, or just in itself, non-eschatological, and so the eschatological thrust of Christianity only in the event of those addressed by Promise (Moltmann-?) or only to those who have been properly 'hypostasized' via the presence of the eschatological communion in the moment of the Eucharist (Zizioulas)?
What do you think is the proper approach?
Comments
Although I haven't read Schultz or Pannenberg in any depth, I don't think that Moltmann is really all that oppossed to their position.
As we all know, Moltmann's writing style appears convoluted at times, and this is on full display in TH. To risk over-clarifying, it seems to me that Moltmann is intent on affirming an eschatologically pariticipatory ontology of History as such every bit as much as Pannenberg. Nowhere does he affirm an independent existence to history. Quite the opposite, he is simply saying that we do not find the resources within history itself with which to say what history will be or how we are to make it thus. Rather, these resources come only from God's future, from whence history derives its being exstatically. But this is a one way movement, from future to present, and can never be, vice versa, an analogical projection of the present onto the future. In this sense, of course, Moltmann sees himself as carrying out what he sees as the eschatologcial implications for Barth's theological project. A Gunton quote occurs to me, and I think it might be helpful:
"God reveals himself to men through the humanity of Christ (Barth, CD i/1, p. 323). For Barth, theology is rooted in faith, and therefore works from above [Moltmann: the future]. But faith derives from immanent [Moltmann: historical], worldly events, which are indeed susceptible to investigation by historical research, even though they do not give up their theological treasures simply by such means." (Yesterday and Today, p. 47).
Cheers
I know that from certain perspectives (namely that of enlightenment optimism concerning human freedom!) "determinism" can be a pretty off-putting notion, and I would cede that. What most people think of by determinism is some scary stuff. But that kind of approach always assumes a competitive relationship between God's work and ours (I.e. if God is sovereign that means I'm not free), and that is something that no reasonable Christian should give into after Augustine. For a good source on this, check Jenson's chapter "Thinking Freedom" in his book On Thinking the human."