Trinity and Eschatology: The Historical being of God in Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg

Extract

Whether or not one may wish to call it a renaissance in the doctrine of the Trinity, there has been a notable resurgence of interest in trinitarian thinking in recent theology. Some of the most suggestive contributions have been made by two theologians whose works are generally regarded as ‘eschatologically’ oriented. In a volume recently published in English as The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, Jürgen Moltmann attempts to develop a comprehensive doctrine of the trinitarian being of God taking up and expanding themes already set forth in such earlier works as The Crucified God, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, and several journal articles dealing with the ‘trinitarian history of God’. Throughout these works Moltmann was concerned to demonstrate the openness of the being of God for man and history and toward the future. The trinitarian differentiation and unity of God, he argued in various ways, is to be closely identified with the events of salvation history, especially the cross of Jesus. In his most recent book, he attempts to systematise this approach to the doctrine of God through a ‘salvation historical’ and ‘social’ doctrine of the Trinity. This work represents a major contribution to trinitarian thought and is both complex and wide-ranging in its treatment of the subject. It will be our concern here simply to investigate some of the major themes related to the problem of God's relationship to history, that is, God's ‘historicality’.