Two Theologians of the Cross: Karl Barth and Jurgen Moltmann

TWO THEOLOGIANS OF THE CROSS: KARL BARTH AND JURGEN MOLTMANN ((AODWITHOUT WRATH brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations 0£ a Christ without a cross." 1 H. Richard Niebuhr's aphoristic judgment on liberal theology has become classical, and even those who would still recognize the goal 0£ the nineteenth century experiment as their own can agree that Niebuhr exposed a fatal weakness. Because they£ailed to appreciate the positive £unction 0£ symbol and myth, theologians from Schleiermacher through Harnack tended to lose the transformative power exercised by many central motifs 0£ the traditional Christian imagination. There followed the neo-orthodox reaction, initially with the modesty 0£ a " marginal note " or " pinch 0£ spice," 2 eventually monumental in scope and significance. Amidst the apocalyptic cultural upheaval wrought by World War I, men like Barth, Brunner, that "dreadnought" Gogarten,8 and the rest rediscovered the illuminative force 0£ precisely those symbols which had embarrassed liberalism. Barth and his con£reres styled themselves theologians "between the times"; today, while their sel£-nomer may have proved correct in an ironic sense, their work 0£ retrieval remains a permanent contribution. The present article rests on two assumptions. I share Bernard Lonergan's understanding 0£ theology as the enterprise which seeks to mediate the Christian religion and contemporary cul1 H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), 193. •So Barth characterized his own theology in The Word of God and The Word of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), 98. •This is Barth's appellation, cited by Heinz Zahrnt in The Question of God (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967), 45. 510 THE CROSS: BARTH AND MOLTMANN 511 ture,4 and I would accept also David Tracy's insistence that such mediation involve a stringently critical correlation of its two poles.5 I am furthermore convinced that the symbol of the cross of Christ not only stands at the heart of the Christian religion but also possesses a unique illuminative and transformative potentiality, one which renders it relevant and perhaps in some sense necessary to the common human task of achieving, or better, opening to authentic self-transcendence. Hence it would seem worthwhile to pursue an investigation which will follow the neo-orthodox retrieval of that central symbol through more recent attempts at its mediation. :For the present I have chosen to focus on two theologians, Karl Barth and Jurgen Moltmann. The reasons for that selection are, perhaps , obvious. Barth's influence simply pervades twentieth century Western Christianity. His works still occupy a privileged place in many Protestant seminary curricula, and in Roman Catholic circles, I would submit, his spirit perdures especially in the prolific contributions of Hans Kung.6 By the end of World War II it seemed to many that Barth had said all there was to say in systematic theology, and among those who held this opinion was Jurgen Moltmann.7 Moltmann's own widely read works now attest, however, that he has reconsidered . The present study will proceed by seeking to extricate Barth's theology of the cross from his Church Dogmatics 8 in order to compare and contrast it with Moltmann's Crucified God.9 The • B. Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), ix. 5 D. Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 45-46. 6 Emilien Lamirande offers a general survey of " The Impact of Karl Barth on the Catholic Church in the last half century" in Footnotes to a Theology: The Karl Barth Colloquium of 1972, edited by Martin Rumscheidt (SR Supplements, 1974), 112-141. • J. Moltmann, "Politics and the Practice of Hope," The Christian Century 87 (1970), 289. M. Douglas Meeks offers a thorough study of Moltmann's background and development in Origins of the Theology of Hope (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974) . •Henceforth CD. All references will be to the English translation published 1936-1969 by T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh. •Henceforth CG. All references will be to the English translation by R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (New York: Harper and Row, 1974). WILLIAM P. LOEWE major interest will lie beyond the contents of these theologies...