The Dynamic Death of God in Moltmann and Balthasar: Toward a Relational Anthropology of Vulnerability

In this paper, we intend to show how Jürgen Moltmann’s rejection of classical divine impassibility can be developed by Hans Urs von Balthasar. He can move Moltmann’s soteriological theodicy and social Trinitarianism further into an eternal, inter-Trinitarian kenosis which provides grounding for a transformative relational anthropology—all the while not simply subsuming God into creation.

By building Balthasar’s kenosis atop Moltmann regarding God’s relation to creation, incarnation, and death, we can perceive not only a God who is in solidarity with human suffering and bringing hope, but in whose Trinitarian life itself can be found all the contingency, suffering, and change of creation, not as stranger but as archetype. This can better resolve impassibility and establish human beings as essentially similar relational entanglements—in all our sufferings and joys. Then, we might know how vulnerability, risk, and trust makes for, and truly feels, a free and flourishing human life.