In grateful memory of Jürgen Moltmann (1926-2024)

I would like to pay a humble tribute of gratitude to Jürgen Moltmann, who passed away on 3 June. He is among the theologians who have encouraged my personal journey and reflection since the late 1980s.

I honour his theology, which was guided by the world’s wounds, dangers and dramas, and entirely by his commitment to the victims of history, by his political vocation, by the liberating flame. His primacy of awakened and active, inspired and resilient, persevering and transforming hope.

I celebrate the following: his reflection underpinned by scientific knowledge and his universal mystical wisdom, Jewish and Christian in particular; h{0>Su escritura marcada por la hondura del pensamiento –no siempre fácil de seguir–, por una entrañable sensibilidad humana y por una sugestiva imaginación poética.<}0{>is writings marked by depth of thought –not always easy to follow–, by endearing human sensitivity and by thought-provoking, poetic imagination; {0>Su fidelidad a la Tierra, viviente comunidad de vivientes.<}0{>his devotion to the Earth, the living community of the living;<0} and his deep political and ecological spirituality, a spirituality of the earth, of the body, of the eros.

I fully endorse his admiring, holistic vision of the universe –in the infinitely large and the infinitely small– with respect to an open, interrelated, evolving, unfinished reality, in a permanent process of creation, a reality endlessly created and creative, full of inexhaustible potentiality.

However, I can no longer subscribe to  some of the ideas he developed over the years and which no longer make sense to me. For example: his use of the category “atonement”, or his long and repeated disquisitions on the suffering God, on the Trinitarian relationships between Father, Son and Holy Spirit from the cross onwards, on the history of abandonment and suffering within God. Yet I hold on to what that evokes in me, beyond what it says in its literal sense. Inevitably, the same thing happened to him, too, regarding many of his own or other people’s theological ideas. It is part of our language and thought, always historical, fragmentary, provisional and open, just like universal reality.

Regarding his image of the Mystery or the fountain-like and founding Presence –a fundamentally theistic image, far removed from Bonhoeffer, Tillich and others, whom he did not follow– I hold on to his metaphor of God as Shekhinah, the divine presence that accompanies his exiled people, the figure of all exiled, wandering and suffering peoples. I hold on to his acknowledgement of Jesus as “Messiah on the way”, as cosmic and spiritual Christ still unfinished in history, an acknowledgement that constitutes a call to “christopraxis”. I hold on to his inspired and inspiring love of the Ruah, the Spirit or vital Breath, the energy, verdure and vitality of all living things. I hold on to his panentheistic horizon (indwelling of all beings in God), although I would call it theoenpantistic (indwelling of God or the Breath in all beings). I understand the “Trinity” as a metaphor for the dynamic and creative interrelation of everything with everything.

That is why, of all his numerous works, some of which are voluminous, I hold on to three very slim volumes in which everything is included but in which nothing is redundant: Cristo para nosotros hoy [Jesus Christ for Today’s World](Trotta, 1997, German original 1994), El Espíritu Santo y la teología de la vida [The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life] (Sígueme, 2000, German original 1997), Pasión por Dios [Passion for God] (Sal Terrae, 2007, English original 2003, written jointly by Jürgen Moltmann and his wife and feminist theologian Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel: three short chapters by him and three by her, in a harmony not without revealing differences).

I find no better way to honour J. Moltmann than to let him speak, but also his wife Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel. It is a great pleasure.

“Theology must be prepared to get involved in the different, new conditions of the world so that for its part it can transform it, in support of peace, justice and life in creation as a whole”[i] (¿Qué es teología hoy? [What is theology today?], p. 139).

“The kingdom of God is the large space in which there is no longer a siege. (…). The kingdom of God is time fulfilled, the moment at which it can be said: ‘Stop, you are so beautiful’, for indeed it does stop and has no end. The kingdom of God is God who has arrived at his resting place, who dwells in his creation and makes it his dwelling place” (Cristo para nosotros hoy [Jesus Christ for Today’s World], pp. 24-25).

“Social laws and the organisation of the healthcare system should be measured in accordance with the burden borne by the poor, and the relief provided to the sick. Anyone who wants to recognise the degree of humanity in a society should also visit its prisons. Through the eyes of the crucified Christ, society is seen, so to speak, ‘from below’” (Cristo para nosotros hoy [Jesus Christ for Today’s World], p. 26).

“In the life-giving breath and through the Word that gives it shape, the Creator sings to His creatures in the sounds and rhythms in which He has His joy and His satisfaction. That is why there is such a thing as a cosmic liturgy and a music of the spheres” (Cristo para nosotros hoy [Jesus Christ for Today’s World], p. 81).

“Sanctification has to do with health, and health with being happy. (…). Life is holy when it succeeds in becoming healthy and whole” (El Espíritu Santo y la teología de la vida [The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life], p. 68).

“A living space around us is needed. This is an experience of the Holy Spirit, too; our hearts expand because we experience a wide space around us. (…). People, too, give each other living space if they open up to each other in love, and allow each other to participate in their own lives. To love also means to give one’s own time, to recognise the other’s place, to exercise mutual patience, because one is truly interested in the other” (El Espíritu Santo y la teología de la vida, [The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life], p. 108).

“The whole of creation, which I call here the ‘community of creation’, is sustained by the breath of God’s Spirit. (…). A cosmic veneration of God and a veneration of God in all things derive from this vision of the Spirit of God in all things and the preparation of all things for the indwelling of God (El Espíritu Santo y la teología de la vida [The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life], pp. 143-144).

“In love we experience the vitality of life and the mortality of death” (La venida de Dios. Escatología cristiana [The coming of God. Christian Eschatology], p. 86).

“The rediscovery of the character of Mary Magdalene, unburdened by dreams and visions of motherhood, like that of Mary, the mother of Jesus, could provide a model for a new leadership in Christianity: an independent woman, free of family and marital responsibilities, characterised less by age than by friendship and the ability to create a new style of relationship. Today, women are rediscovering that love of God and that love for God. That love, depicted in images and narratives as the power of the eros, as erotic power, is more than the power of agape, that static, satisfied and controllable mode of relationship that Christianity settled on. Instead, the eros displays the overflowing fullness of God” (Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, Pasión por Dios [Passion for God], pp. 56-57).

Aizarna (Basque Country). 20 June, 2024

[i] Quotations originally taken from the Spanish editions of Moltmann’s works.