The Perfect Hope: More Than We Can Ask or Imagine by Margaret Anne Bamforth Adam Department of Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Supervisor ___________________________ Stephen Fowl ___________________________ Stanley Hauerwas ___________________________ Kenneth Surin Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 ABSTRACT The Perfect Hope: More Than We Can Ask or Imagine by Margaret Anne Bamforth Adam Department of Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Supervisor ___________________________ Stephen E. Fowl ___________________________ Stanley Hauerwas ___________________________ Kenneth Surin An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Margaret Bamforth Adam 2011 Abstract As Christians in the United States struggle to sustain hope in the face of global economic, environmental, military, and poverty crises, the most popular source of theological hope for preachers and congregations is that of Jürgen Moltmann and the Moltmannian hope that draws on his work. Moltmannian theology eschews close connections with more-canonically established doctrines of hope, claiming instead on a future-based, this-worldly eschatology that hopes in the God who suffers. An exclusive reliance on a Moltmannian theology of hope deprives the church of crucial resources for a robust eschatological hope and its practices. Critical attention to additional streams of of theologial hope, and to applicable discourses within and without Christian theology, provides the church with strength and resilience to sustain a distinctly Christian theological hope through and beyond disaster, despair, suffering, and death. Jesus Christ, the perfect hope, embodies the life — earthly and eternal — of humanity and its eschatological end, a life in which humans can participate, through grace and discipleship. $ To make this argument, I survey characteristics of Moltmannian hope and then identify costs of a theological hope that relies exclusively on Moltmannia resources. I review a Patristic and Thomistic grammar of theological hope and its accompanying grammar of God; and I explore possible contributions to theological hope from an assortment of contemporary conversations outside conventionally- identified areas of Christian hope. I conclude with two suggestions for ecclesial formation of Christians in theological hope. iv Contents Introduction$.......................................................................................................................................1 1. Moltmann’s Hope and Moltmannian Hope$..............................................................................10 1.1 Our Only Hope?$........................................................................................................................10 1.2 Two Theological Hopes$.............................................................................................................14 1.3 Moltmann’s Experience of Godforsakenness and Hope$.........................................................17 1.4 The God of Moltmann’s Hope$.................................................................................................19 1.4.1 The Passible God$....................................................................................................................19 1.4.2 The Passible God and the One-Natured Christ$..................................................................23 1.5 Moltmann’s Theological Hope$..................................................................................................35 1.5.1 Ernst Bloch and Future Hope$.................................................................................................35 1.5.2 “Forms of Promise”$................................................................................................................40 1.5.3 The Hope of the Cross and the Resurrection$......................................................................45 1.5.4 Dialectic$...................................................................................................................................55 1.5.5 New Creation$..........................................................................................................................58 1.6 The People of Moltmann’s Hope$.............................................................................................65 1.6.1 Justice for All$..........................................................................................................................66 1.6.2 The New Creation of the Whole World, in the World$......................................................70 1.6.3 Practices of Hope$....................................................................................................................71 1.6.4 Hope for the Godforsaken in the Godforsaken God$.........................................................77 1.7 Moltmannian Hope Today$.......................................................................................................80 1.7.1 “God’s Unfinished Future: Why It Matters Now”$................................................................81 1.7.2 Moltmann: The Final Judgment$.............................................................................................87 1.7.3 Moltmann: The Present Future$.............................................................................................90 1.7.4 Barbara Rossing: Reclaiming Hope$.......................................................................................92 v 1.7.4.1 Moltmannian Objections to Rapture Hope$......................................................................96 1.7.4.2 The God of Love and Moltmannian Hope$........................................................................98 1.7.5 Marshall’s Moltmannian Responsible Hope$.......................................................................100 1.8 Conclusion$................................................................................................................................113 2. The Costs of a Moltmannian Theological Hope$.....................................................................115 2.1 The God of Hope$.....................................................................................................................118 2.1.1 Lost: Divine Impassibility$.....................................................................................................118 2.1.2 Lost: Jesus Christ the Perfect Hope$....................................................................................126 2.1.3 Lost: Coherent Hermeneutics$..............................................................................................133 2.2 Hope$.........................................................................................................................................140 2.2.1 Lost: Heaven$.........................................................................................................................140 2.2.2 Lost: Non-Modernity$...........................................................................................................147 2.2.2.1 Newness$..............................................................................................................................148 2.2.2.2 Urgency of Time$..................................................................................................................151 2.2.2.3 Expertise$..............................................................................................................................152 2.2.2.4 Experts$................................................................................................................................154 2.3 The People of Hope$.................................................................................................................156 2.3.1 Lost: Transcendent Human Flourishing$..............................................................................156 2.3.2 Lost: Discipleship$.................................................................................................................166 2.3.3 Lost: Reconciliation$...............................................................................................................173 2.4 Conclusion$...............................................................................................................................180 3. A Thomistic Grammar of Hope$................................................................................................181 3.1 The God of Hope$.....................................................................................................................186 3.1.1 The Perfectly Compassionate, Impassible God of Hope$..................................................186 3.1.2 A Grammar of God$................................................................................................................191 3.1.3 Christ, the Perfect Hope$......................................................................................................207 vi 3.2 Hope$..........................................................................................................................................212