Questions of the Future: Moltmann, Rahner, and De La Torre on Eschatology, Freedom, and Hope

Following Jürgen Moltmann, who emphasized the centrality of eschatology in Christian understandings of freedom and hope, this paper holds that eschatological thinking is crucial for expanding our imaginations beyond present realities of suffering and injustice and orienting ourselves towards new possibilities for transformation. The consideration of the works of theologians contemporaneous with Moltmann such as Karl Rahner, and the critiques of Moltmann’s eschatology by decolonial theologians such as Miguel De La Torre, however, surface questions regarding the imagination of freedom and hope in Christian eschatological discourses. To what extent must Christian theologians emphasize the openness of the future in an effort to maintain human freedom, and to what extent should eschatological hopes for “freedom” be concretized in terms of the assurance of liberation for marginalized communities? This paper draws the works of Moltmann, Rahner, and De La Torre into conversation, considering the ways that their unique problem-spaces* shape their theological questions and responses. The paper then argues constructively for an eschatological imagination that balances the freedom of the future with the need for concretizing hopes against injustice.

As Protestant German theologian Moltmann discussed in his influential Theology of Hope, eschatological thinking brings to light the “questionableness” (that is, the non-ultimacy and openness to transformation) of reality as it presently exists because Christian statements of promise and hope always respond to and “contradict” present experiences of evil, suffering, and death. Christian hope is thus oriented towards the eschatological future; it involves both assurance in the promise of God and a commitment to participating in present acts of transformation that reshape the world in light of God’s promise. Critics of Moltmann, however, such as contemporary decolonial theologian Miguel De La Torre, have expressed concerns over the potentially-pacifying function of “hope” and the undefined nature of Moltmann’s anticipated “future” in Theology of Hope.

In Embracing Hopelessness, De La Torre critiques Moltmann’s eschatology for both placing a theological accent on futurity in a way that detracts from marginalized communities’ efforts towards present-day liberation, and for leaving his understanding of “transformation” too vague (and thus open to oppressive and potentially-colonialist visions of futurity). De La Torre approaches questions of freedom and hope from a different problem-space than Moltmann; Moltmann responds to twentieth-century fascism and authoritarianism and the traumas of World War II, whereas De La Torre grounds his theological reflections in the praxis of anti-colonial and anti-oppressive liberation movements in the Global South. De La Torre thus expands the bounds of the theological conversation initially engaged by Moltmann, raising important questions surrounding the potential risks and limitations of his thought. At the same time, a sustained attention to Moltmann’s own context of writing is useful for understanding how his emphases on promise and imagination posed a specific challenge to German fascism.

Here, German Catholic theologian Karl Rahner – who wrote from within a similar problem-space as Moltmann – represents a valuable additional conversation partner. In his essays “The Question of the Future” and “The Hermeneutics of Eschatological Assertions,” Rahner wrote that theologians must ground eschatology in the present while maintaining the “open question” of both the this-worldly future (the immediate future shaped by human decisions and actions) and the absolute (eschatological) future. Rahner’s insistence on the openness of the future stemmed from his resistance to German fascist visions of futurity, his humility regarding the ability of human beings to consciously shape and control the future, and his suspicion towards any anticipated (oppressive) futures which would attempt to assert themselves on the present. De La Torre’s critiques of Moltmann’s eschatology, however, raise the question of whether it is enough to maintain the “open question” of the future in resistance to oppressive futurities and the exaltation of human power, or whether theologians must define their imaginations of the future in specifically anti-colonial and anti-oppressive terms by writing concretely about liberation.

This paper draws Moltmann, De La Torre, and Rahner into a comparative and constructive conversation in order to grapple with this question in light of present-day concerns related to liberation and longstanding theological debates regarding the relationship between freedom and hope. The paper opens this question for further discussion by arguing for the need for an eschatological imagination that balances the openness and freedom of the future (against impositions of oppressive futurities) with the concretization of hopes in response to the specific histories of suffering and injustice to which theology responds.

*Jamaican anthropologist David Scott develops the term “problem-space” as a conceptual analytic that recognizes the ways that context and historical circumstances affect “not only the particular problems that get posed as problems … but the particular questions that seem worth asking and the kinds of answers that seem worth having.” David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 4.