Open and Relational Theologies deem God to be persuasive, not coercive; a lure, not a puppeteer. But human freedom seems to imply our ability to resist God's love forever. It also seems to imply the potential for evil to triumph in time. If God's love precludes God's control of individual persons and our collective history, how strong is our hope for God’s liberative action in the present and for an eschatology where God will be “all in all”? Panelists will offer: an open theist argument for the doctrine of bodily resurrection as grounds for hope in cosmic redemption; a pneumatological account of freedom as the invitation to participate in God’s hope for the future; an interpretation of apokatastasis consistent with an open future; and a call for an eschatological imagination that balances the freedom of the future with the need to concretize hope against injustice.
This paper explores the intersection of Christian materialism and open theism in shaping a theological understanding of resurrection and eschatological hope. Christian materialism asserts that humans are wholly physical, with personal identity formed through experience, grounding ultimate hope in bodily resurrection where suffering is redeemed rather than erased. Open theism portrays God as relational and responsive, experiencing time dynamically and suffering genuine loss at death, which it views as the true end of existence. Together, these perspectives challenge traditional notions of an immediate, disembodied afterlife, instead emphasizing salvation as the healing and restoration of creation. The resurrection, therefore, is not merely an individual hope but a cosmic fulfillment of both human and divine longing for embodied transformation.
In his chief work on pneumatology, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, Jürgen Moltmann explores three conceptions of freedom--as subjectivity, as sociality, and as orientation towards the future--associating these with the theological virtues of faith, love, and hope, respectively. He explores each with reference to a theology of the Holy Spirit, focusing on the hope that springs from the "liberation for life" by which the Spirit makes us participants in God's ongoing creative work.
On a classical conception of the theological virtues, love is the only one of the three that belongs to God. I argue, however, that Moltmann's theology invites us to understand our hope as grounded in God's own hoping as a dream for the future of the world.
A central theme of Open and Relational Theology is the need for a theodicy that explains the confession that God is love and the presence of evil. The response generally suggests that God does not have the power to overcome evil. For some in this movement, these theodicies fall short, thus the need for an eschatological alternative in the form of the restoration of all things (apokastasis). This paper begins with the assumption that the future is largely open, but that God will in time draw all things to a close, restoring all things to their proper order such that God will be all in all. This paper draws on Scripture, early Christian theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa, and modern theologians Jurgen Moltmann and Sergius Bulgakov, to offer an alternative vision.
Following Jürgen Moltmann, this paper holds that eschatological thinking is crucial for expanding our imaginations beyond present unjust realities and orienting ourselves towards new possibilities for transformation. The consideration of other theologians writing against German fascism such as Karl Rahner, and critiques 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 grounded in the assurance of liberation for marginalized communities? This paper draws the works of Moltmann, Rahner, and De La Torre into conversation, considering the ways their unique problem-spaces shape their theological questions, and argues constructively for an eschatological imagination that balances the freedom of the future with the need for concretizing hopes against injustice.