CONTENTS (XLIX, 2007) Nr. 2 139 . PETR SLÁMA Notes from the Coast of Bohemia III. or On the Gospel of Creation and Resurrection 141 . JÜRGEN MOLTMANN The Resurrection of Christ and the New Earth 150 . PETR MACEK The Doctrine of Creation in the Messianic Theology of Jürgen Moltmann 185 . IVANA NOBLE Doctrine of Creation within the Theological Project of Dumitru Stăniloae 210 . RODNEY D. HOLDER Creation and the Sciences in the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg 254 . BEAT ZUBER Bibel und Gnosis oder ein Vorschlag, den Gaul vom Kopf her aufzuzäumen BOOK REVIEWS 266 . Wie mit dem Teufel zu pflügen ist (Ondřej Macek) 269 . Ein Weg durch die Felsen mit Jan Heller (Petr Turecký) 272 . Synagogue and Ecclesia (Igor Kišš) ADDRESSES OF THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE Rodney D. Holder [email protected] The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion St Edmund's College, Cambridge CB3 0BN, United Kingdom Igor Kišš [email protected] Evanjelická bohoslovecká fakulta Univerzity Komenského v Bratislave Bartókova 8 SK-811 02 Bratislava, Slovakia Ondřej Macek [email protected] Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University Černá 9 CZ-115 55 Praha 1, Czech Republic Petr Macek [email protected] Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University Černá 9 CZ-115 55 Praha 1, Czech Republic Jürgen Moltmann Biesinger Strasse 25 D-72070 Tübingen, Germany Ivana Noble [email protected] Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University Černá 9 CZ-115 55 Praha 1, Czech Republic Petr Turecký [email protected] CZ-256 01 Soběhrdy 21 Beat Zuber [email protected] Berg Sion, CH-6048 Horn, Switzerland The authors of the articles herein published are responsible for their contents, and while the editors have presented their ideas for discussion, they need not agree with them. Communio viatorum is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Association, 250 S. Wacker Dr., 16th Flr., Chicago, IL 60606, E-mail: [email protected], WWW: http://www.atla.com. EDITORIAL NOTES FROM THE COAST OF BOHEMIA III. OR ON THE GOSPEL OF CREATION AND RESURRECTION In his Theology of the Old Testament Gerhard von Rad follows the common conviction of his days, that it was Exodus that played pivotal role in the Old Testament.1 The story on how the Lord delivered his people from Egypt would be understood as a paradigmatic plot, ex- pressing ingeniously the “politics of God” towards Israel. Throughout modern history the power of this story was immense, be it for the Af- rican Americans in US, or the followers of liberation theology Latin America, or for Christians in – then – the communist part of the world. However, it was in those very sixties of the last century, that a shift occurred in the Old Testament theology towards more general anthro- pology. Wisdom literature, the accumulated experience of Mankind, became more frequented. The story about Creation, up to those days pushed behind as a mythological relic, was rediscovered. Does this shift represent a pendulum effect within the discipline, is it just a part of a broader tendency striving to balance the vigorous launch of the Dialectical theology? Diverse as the answers may be, it is clear that among the reasons for the theological shift the changing climate – not just in society (which then would be labeled Post-Modernism) but also literally throughout the globe (which then would be labeled global warming) – has its prominent place. Due to the capacities mankind has acquired it became capable to destroy the Earth. A new kind of global responsibility – and new love to God’s creation – is needed to challenge this threat. There is, however, quite a different voice on global warming, that can be heard form an unexpected edge. Czech Republic seems to be the only state in the world whose leading figure spends a consider- able amount of time denying the human responsibility for global warming. Twice in the year 2007 president Václav Klaus visited the US and repeated his warning against “unjustified alarmism of global warming activists.” If it reminds You of the false prophets in the days 1 Gerhard von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testament, München 19634, p. 135ff. 139 EDITORIAL of Jeremiah, who “have healed the wound of my people lightly, say- ing: Peace, peace,” then the resemblance may not be just accidental. The good thing about Biblical canon is, that it does not confront us with an exclusive alternative Gensis or Exodus. As the Midrash Gen- esis Rabba I,10 puts it: For twenty-six generations the letter alef complained before the Holy One, blessed be He, pleading before Him: ‘Sovereign of the Universe! I am the first of the letters, yet Thou didst not create Thy world with me (but with the letter bet in the word be-resheet)!’ God answered: ‘The world and its fullness were created for the sake of the Torah alone. Tomorrow, when I come to reveal My Torah at Sinai, I will commence with none but thee: I (anoki) am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’ (Ex. XX, 2) Creation, Liberation and Covenant cannot be put one against the other – at least not in the Bible. In this edition the theme of creation and its function in theology will be discussed from different points of view. An essay on the concept of Creation and its inseparable con- nection to Resurrection in the Bible written by Jürgen Moltmann opens the issue. Retrospective and comprehensive studies written by Prague theologians Petr Macek and Ivana Noble contextualize Molt- mann within the debate of late 20th century (Macek) and introduce an Eastern Orthodox counterpart of him – the person and teaching of Dumitru Stăniloae (Noble). Rodney Holder, while winding his dou- ble expertise in both astrophysics and theology, introduces, interprets and defends the merits Wolfhard Pannenberg has for the new recog- nition of creation, history – and natural theology. Finally, Beat Zuber presents his daring hypothesis: if the main cantus of the Creation story in the Bible approves the earthliness of the Creation (repeated “good” after each day of it culminating in the “very good” on the sixth day), then the most intelligible context of this assertion – the position that the Bible argues against – is gnosis. According to Zuber, the era of gnosis of the late Greco-Roman period represents the ter- minus a quo of the Creations story. Much later dating of the text of Gensis is the consequence – a thrilling reading, indeed! Petr Sláma, Prague 140 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST AND THE NEW EARTH THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST AND THE NEW EARTH Jürgen Moltmann, Tübingen 1. Creation is resurrection In the catholic liturgy for Easter night the reading of the first creation story in Genesis 1 is prescribed. This is a wonderful sign of a cosmic Christology: The world began with the resurrection out of the dark- ness of chaos to the light of a beautiful cosmos. “Already on the first day of creation the work of the new creation is flashing up: – in the midst of the old creation. With this the creation has from beginning on an eschatological character. We can perceive the creation as a great and real promise of God.”1 With the creation “in the beginning” its future in God’s kingdom is already inbuilt. All the creatures are real promises of their coming completion. Creation out of chaos is like a resurrection, and the resurrection of the dead out of the realm of death is like a new creation. God who awakens the dead is the same God, who “calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom 4, 17). God who raised Jesus from the dead is the creator of the new being of all creatures. Resurrection and creation belong together, because the resurrection of the dead and the annihilation of death are not only the overcoming of sin and its evil consequences but also the completion of the original creation. They are nothing less than the negation of the negative and the perfection of the positive. 1 Medard Kehl’s introduction to Pablo Carlos Sicouly, Schöpfung und Neuschöp- tung: “Neuschöptung” als theologische Kategorie im Werk Jürgen Moltmann, Pader- born 2007, p. 14. 141 JÜRGEN MOLTMANN 2. The Light of Easter From the beginning on Christians saw in the light of Christ’s Easter appearances the light of the morning of the first day of the new crea- tion. They called the dayspring of the resurrection of Christ on Sun- day the “eighth day,” the day after the Sabbath and the “first day” of the new week. In this light of the new creation Christ appears as the firstborn of creation (Col 1:15), reconciling with God “all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Col 1:20). This is the starting point of the cosmic Christology, because in these dimensions we under- stand the resurrection of Christ not only as an “eschatological act of history” (“eine eschatologische Geschichtstal Gottes”), but also as the first act of the recreation of this transient world to its lasting and true form: the eternal creation, “world without end.”2 Resurrection is not only the meaning of history but also the meaning of nature. 3. Easter narratives of the disciples and the women To understand the cosmic aspect of Chriss resurrection from the dead more proficiently, we must pause for a moment to reconsider the New Testament Easter narratives:3 Jesus’ disciples were frightened and fled when Jesus, in whom they had placed their entire messianic hope, died on the cross power- less and abandoned by the God he had called abba, “dear father” in Gethsemane.