Divine Eschatology and the God Who May Be: A Dialogue between Jürgen Moltman and Richard Kearney

In The Coming of God (1996), Jürgen Moltmann outlines his mature theology of hope in which he defines eschatology as personal, social, cosmic, and divine. Personal eschatology is rooted in the primary metaphor of “eternal life” and asks the question, “What happens after I die”? Social eschatology is rooted in the primary metaphor of “kingdom of God” and probes the end of history and the transformation of the social-political realm into the divine kingdom. Cosmic eschatology is rooted in the primary metaphor of the “new creation” and explores the transfiguration of the orders of creation. Divine eschatology is rooted in the primary metaphor of God being “all in all” and probes the significance of divine glorification in the dynamic Trinitarian perichoresis. Although the first three categories are delineated in depth, Moltmann’s discussion of divine eschatology is provocative but would benefit from further exploration. Moltmann has expressed surprise over the lack of theological engagement on divine eschatology in which “silence reigns.”

A recent development in the philosophy of religion is the inquiry into the question of the possibility of God. Boston College philosophy professor Richard Kearney (The God Who May Be 2001) responds to the modernist dualism that contrasts theism and atheism to propose a third way that argues for the possibility of God. His stance is predominantly postmodern, phenomenological, and existential to challenge the burden of traditional metaphysical ontology. Instead of starting with the notion of God as “being,” Kearney begins from the perspective of “God without being,” “God as the possibility of the impossible,” “the God who may be,” “the possibility of God again,” or the “God who is not yet, but is now.” This stance is eschatological rather than teleological in that the world is made possible by the future possibility of God, rather than an already accomplished kingdom from the beginning that imposes itself on the present. Given his existential concerns, this approach allows Kearney to make space for the indeterminacy of human freedom as opposed to a God who holds absolute control over existence.

Kearney’s philosophy of the eschatologically possibility of God buttresses Moltmann’s proposal for divine eschatology. Both Moltmann and Kearney are critical of the influence of Greek metaphysics on theology and attempt to re-appropriate Christian theology’s Jewish origins. For Moltmann, this criticism looks to the image of an impassible God and argues that impassibility is deficient because it lacks the full breadth of divine love. Kearney is critical of a metaphysics of a divine monarch who predestines all that occurs and points to the indeterminacy of God that opens a space for freedom. Both Moltmann and Kearney have a deep appreciation for divine kenosis. For Moltmann, kenosis is constitutive of divine love, so cannot simply be relegated to the economic activity of salvation wrought by the enfleshment of the incarnation, but it is the very core of the triune God. The implication for divine eschatology is that the eschatological glory of God is not a self-glorifying majesty, but an extravagant communication of the fulness of life so that the eschatological glory of God is remarkably greater than the primordial God. For Kearney, kenosis not only refers to the incarnate Christ and preferences the hospitality of the “other,” but kenosis is descriptive of the self-giving God. God is co-participant in creation rather than its protological emperor. God chooses powerlessness over power which is fully expressed in the crucifixion. Powerlessness is the true reflection of the divine who self-empties of omnipotence, immutability, and self-sufficiency thereby rejecting categories of First Cause, Highest Being, Sovereign Self, or Grand Master. Kearney describes the triune God as perichoretic persons circling around an empty center that is unfathomable, an indescribable and mysterious darkness that cannot be penetrated by finite reason. Ironically, a deep awareness of the kenotic problem means that all images and theological claims are idolatrous.

Moltmann has argued throughout his career that hope in God’s future kingdom is found in the promises of possibilities to come. New eschatological possibilities burst forth from God’s coming advent to draw history and humanity into God’s history, thereby transforming the present. Moltmann resists ontological and teleological interpretations of God and history because they support the position that all things are already established in the latencies of history that assumes that God has preordained from the beginning of time. If God is indeed love and kenotically self-giving then the world is free to grasp hold of the promise and humanity is invited to be co-laborers in the possibilities of God’s activities. Kearney, for his part, argues that the unnamed Name of the burning bush, the incarnation, and the resurrection are impossibilities that God has made possible, not because they are teleologically predisposed, but because the unnamed God makes them possible. Privileging eschatology over onto-theology means that the promise is God will be God at the eschaton, not before. God divests of deity to receive it back as something greater through the odyssey of “unforeseen temporal existence.” This forfeiture of deity for the sake of becoming means that there is no foreknowledge other than pure possibilities. 

This paper will explore the theological argument for divine eschatology by comparing Moltmann and Kearney’s positions. The goal is to construct further a theology of divine eschatology. It will also provide insights into the kenotic problem and its implications for ontology and divine openness. Methodologically, the paper is comparative and interdisciplinary. Although preference is afforded systematic theology, the insights of the philosophy of religion will be integrated.