This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Wisdom or Foolishness? A critical examination of Eberhard Jüngel’s theology of the cross Deborah L. Casewell Ph.D Thesis University of Edinburgh School of Divinity March 2015 1 Abstract The theology of Eberhard Jüngel endeavours to rethink the being of God and how humanity comes by knowledge of God from the crucifixion of Christ. By focusing on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, Jüngel proposes that a theology of the cross should be the basis of human knowledge of God as all can be said about the Trinity and christology must be said from the cross. As Jüngel holds that the humanity of Christ is the example and basis for humanity, the cross is also the source of information for Jüngel’s theological anthropology. This thesis seeks to determine whether Jüngel’s focus on the cross as the source of all theological knowledge results in a limited view of God, of Christ, and of humanity. In order to do this, the thesis looks at the history and context of Jüngel himself and why he is interested in basing a theology on the cross. The thesis also looks at the history of critical engagement with Jüngel, and the conclusions that those works have come to. The history of the theology of the cross is explored, from its provenance in Luther through to its rise during and after the Second World War. After detailing the history of the cross Jüngel’s own particular formulation is explicated, alongside Moltmann and Sölle who were the main exponents of a theology of the cross in Germany. Having done so, the effects of Jüngel’s theology of the cross on christology, the doctrine of God, and on anthropology are detailed, and it is argued that Jüngel’s theology of the cross restricts the activity of the person of Christ and that this restriction contradicts his emphasis on the perichoretic union of the Trinity, as well as restricting human action to a creative passivity. However, the thesis also explores the positive sides of Jüngel’s theology of the cross. Jüngel’s theology of the cross is the most theologically and philosophically rigorous of his time, and a theology of the cross is still needed as a normative control in theological thought. Furthermore, the thesis examines how Jüngel’s account of love can be used to advance his theology and repair some of the damage that the limits of his theology of the cross cause. 2 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and that it has not been submitted for another degree or professional qualification. This thesis is approximately 97,000 words long. Deborah L. Casewell 27th March 2015 3 Contents Acknowledgements 5 Reference Notes 6 Introduction 8 Chapter One: Origins and Influences for Jüngel’s Theology of the Cross 16 Chapter Two: Jüngel’s Theology of the Cross 69 Chapter Three: Jüngel’s Christology 97 Chapter Four: Jüngel’s Doctrine of God 120 Chapter Five: Jüngel’s Understanding of Anthropology 150 Conclusion 186 Bibliography 191 4 Acknowledgements On this long, hard, yet rewarding journey, I owe many thanks. I owe David Fergusson and Paul Nimmo immense thanks for their supervision, guidance, understanding, and patience. For my work on Luther, I thank Christoph Schwöbel for patiently advising and viewing the work of a strange exchange student. For alerting me of the beauty of Jüngel’s thought in the first place I am deeply grateful to Paul Fiddes, & I thank George Pattison for his guidance in the thought of Hegel and Heidegger. For friendship, encouragement, occasional distractions, and relief from the Ph.D, I owe thanks to my friends in New College, Edinburgh, Oriel College, Oxford, Sacred Heart, Lauriston Place, and Paris. For supporting and understanding me for longer than I can remember, I thank my parents. I thank the Art and Humanities Research Council for their sponsorship, and the Fondation Eccossaise sponsoring for a memorable fourth year. 5 Reference Notes: Abbreviations and Translation B&T: Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time (London: SCM Press, 1962). Becoming: Jüngel, Eberhard, God’s Being is in Becoming, trans J. Webster, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001). CD: Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, 4 volumes in 13 parts, edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956-1975). LW: Luther’s Works, American Edition, 55 volumes, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia/Concordia/St. Louis: Muehlenberg and Fortress, 1955-86). Mystery: Jüngel, Eberhard, God as the Mystery of the World (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988). LPR III: Hegel, G.W.F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Volume III: The Consummate Religion, ed. P. Hodgson, (Berkeley/LA/London: University of California Press, 1985). If a quotation is followed by a German title, then the translation is always mine. If the title is in English, then the quotation is from that edition. 6 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (NRSV) 7 8 Introduction Eberhard Jüngel’s theology is often characterised as complex and hard to access, especially in how the aim of his theology is to rethink the being of God in detailing how one comes to knowledge of God. Jüngel’s theology endeavours to detach God from metaphysics in line with the anti-metaphysical turn in German theology in the sixties, but to do so it must first come to terms with how the greatest metaphysical thinkers have shaped Christian thought. Jüngel wishes to achieve this through use of the death of God and a theology of the cross, through identifying a theology of glory and rethinking the being of God from the cross. The aim of this dissertation is first to investigate Jüngel’s wisdom in using the cross as the Grundprinzip of an entire theological system: to see whether an understanding of revelation based solely in the cross can support an entire theology; whether one can learn from the cross enough about the Trinity; about christology; and about anthropology; without sacrificing and inhibiting other parts of one’s theology. In short, whether a balanced theology can be achieved. 1 I regard Eberhard Jüngel as one of the greatest proponents of a theology of the cross in the twentieth century, and thus the task of this dissertation is to examine whether Jüngel’s theology of the cross can support his theological endeavours, or whether there is a need for a more expansionist theology of creation, love, the life of Jesus, and the indwelling of the Spirit. I shall argue that what Jüngel endeavours to do theologically is undermined by the narrow nature of his doctrine of revelation. Jüngel sees that God is only revealed and fully known in the event of the cross. However, what is revealed on the cross often undermines or stands in conflict with what he wants to say about God as Trinity, about Christ’s role and nature, and about how humanity can act; especially considering Jüngel’s original dynamic writing about love. Moreover, Jüngel’s understanding of the cross and the death of God was formulated in a specific theological environment in 1 To contextualise the need for balance, I shall note for example that in David Kelsey’s Eccentric Existence he sees that a systematic theology is formed of a triple helix, and must give equal stress to each strand: to create, to draw to eschatological consummation, and to reconcile. Kelsey sees that these are ‘the three inseparable but irreducibly distinct ways in which God relates to all else, which come together in the narrative logic of canonical stories that describe the content’. (David Kelsey, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 914). Whilst Jüngel’s theology does give an account of each of these three strands, it shall become clear throughout this thesis that due to how Jüngel places the full revelation of God in the event of the cross that there is undue stress on one strand of this helix, which to the detriment of the others.