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Crux probat Omnia: Eberhard Jüngel and the Theology of the Crucified One
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
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Eberhard Jüngel is by turns one of the most stimulating and one of the most exasperating writers in modern theology. His style can be both diffuse and tightlypacked, both dryly technical and rhetorically impassioned, combining the scholarly rigours of a formidable intellect and the effusiveness of a highly popular lecturer and preacher. His translators routinely complain of the difficulties of rendering his involved German into lucid English, while it is rumoured that Jüngel celebrates on hearing of their problems. He shows very little interest in English-language theology, but remains firmly within the milieu of the German tradition. He inherits from Barth the conviction that theology deals with profound realities which require no apology and which can never bereduced to simplistic verbal schemata. From his Doktorvater, Ernst Fuchs, he has gained a hermeneutical perspective whose concern with issues of temporality and language goes back to the later Heidegger. This dual legacy lends obvious intellectual weight to Jungel's creative theology, but it also ensures that his work does not make for easy reading.
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References
1 For analysis, see esp. Webster, J. B., Eberhard Jüngel: An Introduction to his Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 1986, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, hereaftercited as Webster, Introduction; id., ‘Eberhard Jūngel’, in Ford, D. F. (ed.), TheModern Theologians 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 92–106Google Scholar; Webster, J. B. (ed.), The Possibilities of Theology: Studies in the Theology of Eberhard Jūngel in his Sixtieth Year (EdinburghT& T Clark, 1994)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Possibilities; Zimany, R. D., The Metaphorical Theology of Eberhard Jungel (Macon, GA: Mercer UP, 1994)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Zimany. A comprehensive bibliography of secondary literature can be found in Aerts, L., Gottesherrschaft als Gleichnis? Eine Untersuchung zur Auslegung der Gleichnisse Jesu nach Eberhard Jūngel (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 1990), 309–324Google Scholar; for a list of reviews, see Zimany, 164–70. A complete bibliography of Jūngel's work is provided by Neufelt-Fast, A. in Possibilities, 206–241.Google Scholar
2 E.g., Harrisville, R. A. in The Freedom of a Christian: Luther's Significance for Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988Google Scholar, hereafter cited as FQ, 11; Webster, J. B. in Eberhard Jüngel: Theological Essays (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1989Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Essays), vii; Hamill, D. B. and Torrance, A. J. in Christ, Justice and Peace: Toward a Theology of the State, in Dialogue with the Barmen Declaration (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1992, hereafter cited as CJP), viiGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Guder, D. L. in God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1983, hereafter cited as GMW), xvGoogle Scholar; Paul, G. E. in Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986, hereafter cited as KBTL)Google Scholar. In this paper I cite Jūngel in English from translations where available or in my own rendering of the German.
3 Fuchs' hermeneutic is written large on the pages of Jūngel's justly famous doctoral dissertation, Paulus und Jesus. Eine Untersuchung zur Präzisierung der Frage nach dem Ursprung der Christologie (Tūbingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1962, hereafter cited as PJ)Google Scholar. See further Webster, Introduction0, 6–15; Zimany, 65–75.
4 J¨ngel confesses the influence of his teachers' reading of Luther: FC, 18.
5 some reviewersof Webster's Introduction criticize Webster for not making enough of this side of Jūngel's thought: e.g., A. E. Lewis in SJT 40 (1987), 135–7; Wainwright, G. in MTheo 15 (1988), 75–76Google Scholar. Webster is more explicit in his introduction to Jūngel, Essays, 3–4; in his essay ‘Eberhard Jūngel’, in D. F. Ford, The Modern Theologians 1 (cf. n. 1); and in Possibilities, 106–42. Cf. also Gunton, C. E. in ExpT 102 (1990–1991), 57.Google Scholar
6 See his brilliant study, ‘The World as Possibility and Actuality: The Ontology of the Doctrine of Justification’, Essays, 95–123; also ‘On Becoming Truly Human: The Significance of the Reformation Distinction between Person and Works for the Self-Understanding of Modern Humanity’, inj. Webster, B. (ed.), Eberhard Jüngel: Theological Essays II (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995, hereafter cited as Essays II), 216–240, esp. 228–32Google Scholar.
7 For an acute assessment of the tensions between Lutheran and Barthian influences here, see Webster in Possibilities, 106–42.
8 See, e.g., ‘Zukunft und Hoffnung. Zur politischen Funktion christlicher Theologie’, in Teichert, W. (ed.), Müssen Christen Sozialisten sein? Zwischen Glaube und Politih (Hamburg: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1976), 11–30Google Scholar; Reden Für die Stadt. Zum Verhältnis von Christengemeinde und Bürgngemeinde (Munich: Kaiser, 1979)Google Scholar. In CJP, esp. 37fF., Jūngel boldly argues that the fifth thesis of the Barmen Declaration is in fact a highly original development of the Lutheran theory of the two kingdoms; see also ‘Einleitung: Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung als Bekenntnis der Kirche’, in Rohkramer, M. (ed.), Barth, Karl, Texte zur Barmer Theologisrhen Erklarung (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1984), IX–XXIIGoogle Scholar. He proposes a shift from political theology to ‘theological polities’, in which praxis must follow theoretical reflection, not usurp its place, and he attempts to mediate between Barth's emphasis on the human agent as acting in correspondence to God's ordering of human affairs and Luther's insistence that human activity is confined to a temporal sphere which is somehow removed from God's dealings with creation.
9 FC, 47–92; cf. Essays II, 216–40. Needless to say. his defence of Luther against the criticisms of Marcuse. Scheler, et al. still does not persuade all: see, e.g. Gustafson, J. M., ‘The Significance of Luther for Contemporary Theology: Response’, in Crane, L. and Lohse, B. (eds.), Luther und die Theologie der Gegenwart (Gōttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprechl, 1980), 80–86Google Scholar; Gunton, C. E., The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 122–127Google Scholar.
10 ‘The Church as Sacrament?’, Essays, 189–213Google Scholar; also ‘Das Sakrament—was ist das? Versuch einer Antwort‘ in Jūngel, E. and Rahner, K., Was ist ein Sakrament? Vorstdssezur Verständigung (Freiburg: Herder, 1971), 9–61Google Scholar; ‘The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ as Sacrament and Example,’ Essays II, 163–190Google Scholar, esp. 168–71; for analysis, see Wainwright, G. in Possibilities, 90–105.Google Scholar
11 In particular, see ‘Metaphorical Truth. Reflections on Theological Metaphor as a Contribution to a Hermeneutics of Narrative Theology,’ Essays, 16–71Google Scholar (note 50–1 n. 86, 22 n. 7, 23 on Luther): FC, 38–44. For discussion of Jūngel's work on language, see J. B. Webster, ‘Eberhard Jūngel on the Language of Faith’, MTheo l 1 (1985), 253–76; id., Introduction, 39–51; G. Rémy, ‘L'Analogie selon E. Jūngel: Remarques critiques. L'Enseu d'un debat’, RHPhR 66 (1986), 147–77; Zimany, 49–64.
12 Jüngel's arguments about the cross are presented at length in his magnum opus, GMW, and in two important articles: ‘Vom Tod des lebendigen Gottes. Ein Plakat,’ ZThK65 (1968), 93–116 (also in Unterwegs zur Sache. Theolopsche Bemerkungen. Theologische Erörterungen I (Munich: Kaiser, 1972), hereafter cited as US, 105–25; ‘Dasdunkle Wort vom TodeGottes“,’ EK2 (1969), 133–8, 198–202 (alsoin Von Zeit zu Zeit. Betrachtungen zu den Festzeiten im Kirchenjahr (Munich: Kaiser, 1976), 15–62. A good deal of relevant material can also be gleaned from his articles on Christology, the doctrine of God, anthropology, and his more popular book, Death: The Riddle and the Mystery (Edinburgh: St Andrews Press, 1975, hereafter cited as Death). Only a careful study of the broad sweep of jūngel's work can reveal how pervasive is his conviction that Christology, and Christology as determined by the cross, is the key to all doctrinal formulation. The outlines of his argument that God identifies himself with the crucified Jesus are sketched by McGrath, A. E., The Making of Modern German Christology, from the Enlightenment to Pannenberg (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 193–203.Google Scholar
13 Gottes sein ist im Werden. Verantwortliche Rede vom Sein Gottes bet Karl Barth. Eine Paraphrase (Tūbingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1964)Google Scholar; ET: The Doctrine of the Trinity: God's Being is in Becoming (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1976)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as GBB. Jūngel's expertise as an editor and interpreter of Barth was acknowledged by Barth himself: Letters: 1961–1968 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981)Google Scholar, 203 no. 208; Barth's early suspicions that the young Jūngel was a Bultmannian spy sent to Basel (!) quickly gave way to close friendship and due recognition: see Jūngel, ‘Toward the Heart of the Matter’, ChrCent 108 (1991), 228–33. For other examples of his ability, see esp. his Barth-Studien (Gulersloh: Mohn, 1982)Google Scholar, partly translated in KBTL; Zur Theologie Karl Barths. Beiträge aus Anlass seines 100. Geburstag (ZTAKBeiheft 6, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986), esp. 76–135. Sec in particular Thompson, J. in Possibilities, 143–189Google Scholar.
14 GBB vii, 83–8, countering Braun's objections to talking about God's being in and for himself, and Gollwitzer's reactionary division between the essence and the will of God. Cf. Barth, CD IV/1, par. 59, 61.
15 On the background, see Bauer, K., ‘Die Heidelberger Disputation Luthers’, ZKG 21 (1900), 233–268. 299–329Google Scholar. The text is in D. M. Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Hermann Bōhlau, 1883ff., hereafter cited as WA) 1, 353–74; Junghans, H., Martin Luther: Studienausgabe, ed. Delius, H. U. (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 1Google Scholar. 186–218; O. Clemens's edition of Luther's works, 5, 377–404; ET in Atkinson, J. (ed.), Luther:Early Theological Works (I.CC 16: London: SCM, 1962), 274–307Google Scholar; Grimm, H.J. (ed.), Luther's Works31 (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957), 35–70.Google Scholar
16 WA 1, 354, 19–20; 362, 11–13.
17 For expositions of Luther's argument and its evolution, see von Loewenich, W., Luther's Theology of the Cross (Belfast: Christian Journals Ltd., 1976), 17–24, 28–31Google Scholar; McGrath, A. E., Luther's Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 148–175Google Scholar (more reliable than von Loewenich); also Watson, P. S., Let God be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther (London: Epworth Press, 1947), 76ff.Google Scholar; Rupp, G., The Righteousness of God. Luther Studies (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1953), 217ff.Google Scholar; Ebeling, G., Luther: An Introduction to his Thought (London: Collins, 1970), 226ff.Google Scholar; Prenter, R., Luther's Theology of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976)Google Scholar; Althaus, P., The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress,', 1975), 25ff.Google Scholar; Steinmetz, D. C., Luther in Context (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986), 23ffGoogle Scholar. Moltmann, J., The Crucified God: The Crucified God as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theobgy (London: SCM, 1974, hereafter cited as Moltmann, CG), 207–214Google Scholar, is an outstanding, classic account. There are obvious similarities in Luther's thought with the mysticism of men like Tauler, whom he read, but it is most improbable that the theologia crucis was directly influenced by the medieval mystical tradition; rather, Luther appropriates ideas from mysticism and reshapes them to suit his own theological arguments: see von Loewenich, op. at., 147ff.; McGrath, op. at., 171 and nn. 68–9.
18 Death, 97; cf. GMW, 310. Contrast Jūngel's confidence with the claim of Goulder, M. in Hick, J. (ed.), The Myth of God Incarnate (London: SCM, 1977), 82Google Scholar, that although Paul preached the cross he did not have a clear theology of it. On Jūngel's side, see, e.g., Käsemann, E., ‘The Pauline Theology of the Cross,’ Interp. 24 (1970), 151–177CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘The Saving Significance of the Death of Jesus in Paul’, in Perspectives on Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 32–59Google Scholar; Luz, U., ‘Theologia crucis als Mitte der Theologie im Neuen Testament’, EvTh 34 (1974), 116–141Google Scholar; Cousar, C. B., A Theology of the Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990)Google Scholar.
19 GMW, 37.
20 For full details, see Josefson, R., Der naturliga teobgins problem hos Luther (Uppsala, 1943)Google Scholar; in brief, P. S. Watson, Let God be God! (cf. n. 17), 76ff.
21 On Luther's conception of failh, see Allhaus, P., ‘Theologie des Glaubens’, ZSTh 2 (1924), 281–322Google Scholar; von Loewenich, W., Luther's Theology of the Cross (cf. n. 17), 50–111Google Scholar.
22 WA 1, 354, 19–20.
23 Entsprechungen: Golt — Wahrheit— Mensch. Theologische Eröterungen II (Munich: Kaiser, 1980, hereafter cited as Entsprechungen), 278Google Scholar (thesis 2.5). We need not make too much of the fact that Jūngel speaks of the ‘theology of the Crucified One’ more than of‘the theology of the cross’, given the extent to which he also talks of‘the word of the cross’. He himself does not draw attention to the distinction. His concern is Christological consistently: to highlight the person with whom God identifies himself in the cross, the one in whom the coming kingdom of God is brought to speech.
24 Death, 113.
25 GMW, 13; cf. 184; all theological metaphors must be consistent with the cross: Entsprechungen, 151.
26 E.g., GBB, 83–8; GMW, 37. It is this model of divine aseity which preserves Jūngel's account from compromising the sovereignty of God in the cross, pace the objection of L. Oeing-Hanhoff, ‘Die Krise des Gottesdankens’, ThQ 159 (1979), 292; see also C. Theobald, ‘Dieu souverain ou Dieu crucifié?’ Etudes 362 (1985), 825–37.
27 E.g., GMW, x, 222, 299–300, 344, and generally 314–30; Enlsprechungen, 270; ‘The Truth of Life: Observations on Truth as the Interruption of the Continuity of Life’, in McKinney, R. W. A. (ed.), Creation, Christ and Culture: Studies in Honour of T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1976), 236.Google Scholar
28 E.g., GMW, 298, 300, 317ff., 358, 369, 374–5; Entsprechungm, 270; ‘What does it mean to say, “God is Love”?’ in Hart, T. and Thimell, D. (eds.), Christ in our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for The Reamciliation of the world. Essays presented to Professor James Torrance (Exeter: Paternoster/Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1989), 294–312Google Scholar. There has been a good deal of discussion of this theme in Jūngel: e.g. O'Donovan, L. J., ‘The Mystery of God as a History of Love: Eberhard Jūngel's Doctrine of God‘, TS 42 (1981), 251–271Google Scholar; N. Klimek, , DerGott-der Liebe ist. Zur trinitarischen Auslegungdes Begriffs ‘Libe’ bei Eberhand Jüngel (Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 1986)Google Scholar: Ford, D., ‘Eberhard Jūngel: God is Love’, King's TR 11 (1988), 11–18Google Scholar; Kappes, M., ‘… keine Menschenlosigkeit Gottes’: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Eberhard Jūngels Ansatz einer trinitarischen Kreuzestheologie jenseits von Theismus und Atheismus (Diss. Mūnster University, 1989)Google Scholar; Paulus, E., Liebe—das Geheimnis der Welt. Fomale und Materials Aspekte der Theologie Eberhard Jüngets (Wurzburg: Echter, 1990)Google Scholar; Newlands, G. in Possibilities, 190–205Google Scholar. See also Pannenberg, W., Systematic Theology 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 422–448.Google Scholar
29 GMW, 223–4.
30 GMW, 111–52. On Jūngel's approach to the Denkbarkeit Gottes, see Lonning, P., ‘Zur Denkbarkeit Gottes. Ein Gesprach mit Wolfhart Pannenberg und Eberhard Jūngel‘, StTh 34 (1980), 39–71Google Scholar; Richard, J., ‘Théologie évangelique et théologie philosophique. A propos d'Eberhard Jūngel’, SciEsp 38 (1986), 5–30.Google Scholar
31 WA 1, 613.23–8. Traces of such language can be found much earlier: e.g., Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 2.27.7; Athanasius, ep. ad EpicL; Gregory of Nazianzus, Oral 45.29. Jungel, GMW, 65 n. 26, is therefore right to reject Moltmann's assertion (CG, 47) that this kind of phraseology originates in the Middle Ages.
32 See Lienhard, M., Luther. Witness to Jesus Christ (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1982), 52–55, 335–46Google Scholar; Siggins, I. D. K., Martin Luther's Doctrine of Christ (New Haven: Yale UP, 1970), 191–243.Google Scholar
33 E.g., WA 26, 319.37–9: ‘If I believe that only the human nature [of Christ] has suffered for me, Christ is for me a poor Saviour; he has need himself of a Saviour’.
34 See Lienhard, 377–9, and, on Luther's Christology generally, Schwarz, R., ‘Gott ist Mensch. Zur Lehre von der Person Christi bei den Ockhamisten und bei Luther’, ZthK 63 (1966), 289–351Google Scholar. The patristic terminology has been much vilified but often misunderstood, as I hope to demonstrate in a subsequent study. For one modern assessment, see Jesus, W. Pannenberg: God and Man (London: SCM, 1968), 337–344.Google Scholar
35 See PJ, passim; ‘The Effectiveness of Christ withdrawn. On the process of historical understanding as an introduction to Christology’, Essays, 214–31; and esp. ‘The Dogmatic Significance of the Question of the Historical Jesus’, Essays II, 82–119.
36 Whereas Barth, although he later makes much of the dynamic of humiliation and exultation, continues to work with a two-natures framework. Barth derives anhypostasis and enhypostasis from Protestant scholasticism, as he reads it in the compilations of Heppe and Schmid during his early teaching at Gōttingen. He retains it in CD 1/2, 163–4; 3/2, 70; 4/2, 49–50, 91–2 (cf. Jūngel, CBB, 81–2; US, 139 n. 34); cf. Torrance, T. F., Karl Barth, Biblical and Evangelical Theologian (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990), 198–201Google Scholar, for a defence. It can be argued that Barth's articulation of the enhypostatic humanity of Jesus, like the effort of Relton, H. M., A Study in Christology (London: SPCK, 1917)Google Scholar to translate the concept into modern psychological terms, is flawed by a misreading of the sense of enhypostatos in Leontius of Byzantium.
37 US, 283–4; cf. Essays II, 101–12, 116.
38 US, 140, and generally 134–44.
39 GMW, 363; cf. US, 120, 123–4.
40 Especially US, 111–6; cf. GMW, 96, 288, 367 n. 54; Essays II, 112–19. It is worth noting that Jūngel can also criticize Lutheran Christology at certain points: see, e.g., US, 277–8.
41 US, 283.
42 GMW, 362–4; Death, 108–9.
43 GMW, 40; cf. 373 n. 19; 63, 94; on Hegel, see 63–100; on Bonhoeffer, see 57–63. On Hegel, see further Link, C., Hegels Wort ‘Cott selbst ist tot’, ThSt 114 (Zurich, 1974), esp. 27ff.Google Scholar; Kūng, H., The Incarnation of God. An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought as Prolegomena to a Future Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987), esp. 162–174Google Scholar; Thielicke, H., The Evangelical Faith 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1974), 259–264Google Scholar; Schulz, W., ‘Die Transformierung der theologia crucis bei Hegel und Schleiermacher’, NZSTh 6 (1964), 290–317Google Scholar; Ahlers, R., ‘Hegel's Theological Atheism’, HeyJ 35 (1984), 158–177Google Scholar; Yerkes, J., The Christology of Hegel (Albany, NY: State University of NYPress, 1983).Google Scholar
44 GMW, 13 n. 22; 65 n. 26; 220 n. 65; 351 n. 20.
45 Moltmann, CG, 207; cf. 217, 243. Moltmann criticizes Jūngel for not specifying this distinction: CG, 203–4 (cf. Jūngel's surprise in GMW, 220 n. 65), but the distinction is not consistently maintained by Moltmann himself: see, e.g., The Trinity and the Kingdom of God. The Doctrine of God (London: SCM, 1981), 80Google Scholar, where he speaks simply of ‘the death of God’. Jūngel appeals specifically to Luther: GMW, 55.
46 W4, 1, 362.14. A different, and much more controversial, notion emerges later in Luther, particularly in De servo arbitrio (1525), where he contends against Erasmus that God is hidden behind his revelation: the character and purposes of the God who predestines must remain beyond human grasp. Much of the literature on the subject is cited in the study of B. A. Gerrish, “‘ To the Unknown God”: Luther and Calvin on the Hiddenness of God’, JR53 (1973), 263–92. To Jūngel, the possibility of God's having a different character from that which is disclosed in Christ is abhorrent; only God's opus alienum, not God himself, might be said to be hidden: GMW, 316, 345–6; esp. Essays II, 120–44.
47 GMW, 182.
48 GMW, 63, 103, 166, 182, 300, 349; see also Essays, 214–31.
49 See in general GMW, 184–225.
50 US, 120, 123–4; GMW, 364.
51 GMW, 373. There are clear similarities here with Moltmann, CG, 267 ff.
52 GMW, 193, 198, and his study of the saying in US, 202–51 (cf. Essays II, 131–7). Luther upholds the principle, though in the context of his much-criticized argument about God being hidden behind his revelation.
53 GMW, 14–35, 217ff.
54 See ‘Das dunkle Wort vom Tode Gottes’; on similar lines, cf. Geyer, H.-G., ‘Atheismus und Christentum’, EvTh 30 (1970), 255–274Google Scholar; Moltmann, CG, 207–27. Cf. Moltmann's description (CC, 221) of protest-atheism as an equally deluded ‘brother’ to classical theism with Jūngel's plea for rejection of both ‘unchristian theism’ and ‘unchristian atheism’ (art. cit., 40). On Jūngel's long-standing fascination with atheism, see ChrCent 108 (1991), 228–233Google Scholar.
55 On his hostility to Aristotle, see A. E. McGrath, Luther's Theology of the Cross (cf. n. 17), 136–41.
56 PJ, 17ff.; cf. Barth, CD II/2, 733–81; IV/1, 514–642, esp. 520–8.
57 On faith, see GMW, 110, 159, 164–7, 199–200, 228.
58 GMW, 389fT.; Entsprechungen, 199–201, 290–317; for his insistence, against Lévinas, that the divine interruption must be the predicate of God's revelation, not vice versa, see Essays 11, 91–9, and cf. D. F. Ford in Possibilities, 23–59.
59 Death, 109ff.
60 Death, 117ff.; cf. generally Entsprechungen, 355–61, 371–7; US, 121–2; ‘The Last Judgment as an Act of Grace’, LouStud 15 (1990), 389–405Google Scholar; ‘Life after Death? A Response to Theology's Silence about Eternal Life’, WW 11 (1991), 5–8.Google Scholar
61 See, e.g., Dunn, J. D. G., Unity and Divmity in the New Testament (London: SCM, 1977)Google Scholar; id. Christology in the Making (London: SCM, 1980)Google Scholar; Tuckett, C., ‘Christology and the New Testament’, SJT 33 (1980), 401–416CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
62 See Webster, Introduction, 133; cf. 14–15.
63 Pace even Käsemann, whose determination to exalt Paul's theology of the cross involves unnecessarily driving a wedge between the apostle and the tradition which he inherits (and this despite Kāsemann's own pioneering role in the ‘new quest’ for the historical Jesus).
64 This has been pointed out by Webster, Introduction, 145 n. 54, followed by A. E. McGrath, The Making of Modem German Christology (cf. n. 12), 195.
65 Death, 108; cf. also CBB, 87: ‘And so Cod as God [Jüngel's emphasis] has declared himself identical with the crucified Jesus.’ Many examples of such ambiguity could be cited.
66 He is remarkably vague on what the fact of the resurrection consists of, in that it is not, for him, a reversal of the death of Jesus, yet there is continuity between the man Jesus and the exalted Christ of post-Easter faith. His connection of death and resurrection is reminiscent of Pannenberg's, though he does avoid Pannenberg's tendency to make the cross look like simply the prerequisite for the all-important revelatory event of the resurrection. But he specifically repudiates Pannenberg's assumption that belief in the historical fact of the resurrection must be the ground of faith:‘Womitsteht und fallt heute der christliche Glaube? Elementare Verantwortung gegenwārtigen Glaubens’, in Spricht Golt in der Geschichte? (Freiburg: Herder, 1972), 169. Nevertheless, while he of course contends for the inter-penetration of fact and interpretation in the NT, he clearly regards this fact of the resurrection as so fundamental that we deserve to be told what it was or even might have been in history.
67 See Fries, H., ‘Gott als Geheimnis der Welt. Zum neuesten Werk von Eberhard Jūngel,’ HKorr 31 (1977), 528–529Google Scholar; Webster, Introduction, 68.
68 Bonhoeffer, D., Letters and Papers from Prison (London: SCM,5 1971), 360.Google Scholar
69 Torrance, T. F., God and Rationality (London: OUP, 1971), 165–192Google Scholar.
70 GMW, 281–98, esp. 285–6; see also Zimany, 60–4.
71 Cf. Pannenberg, W., Systematic Theology 1 (cf. n. 28), 236–237Google Scholar.
72 GMW, 218. See further Spjuth, R., Creation, Contingency and Divine Presence in the Theologies of Thomas F. Torrance and Eberhard Jüngel (Lund: Lund UP, 1995, hereafter cited as Spjuth), esp. 68–93Google Scholar. This is not a rare weakness among staurocentric theologians, Moltmann's work on creation and ecology notwithstanding. In an interesting article, Wigley, S. D., ‘Karl Barth on St Anselm: The Influence of Anselm's “Theological Scheme” on T. F. Torrance and Eberhard Jūngel’, SJT 46 (1993), 79–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. suggests that Jüngel finds in Anselm the very opposite impetus to that taken by Barth and Torrance: the cross, for Jüngel, spells the end of any epistemology of natural theology and its effort to prove the necessity of God, whereas Torrance takes the Barthian assessment of Anselm as establishing the basic congruence of the theological and the natural sciences as enquiries shaped by the inherent rationality of their object, in opposition to Augustinian and Enlightenment cognitive dualisms. If Wigley is right (and I think he is), it is remarkable that two such devoted students of Barth should have drawn such different conclusions from Barth's analysis of Anselm. Spjuth's study points to related differences between Jūngel's and Torrance's respective positions on the correlation of creation and redemption.
73 GMW, 39 (Jūngel's emphasis); cf. also CMW, 184.
74 As positively in Hegel and the nineteenth-century poet Jean Paul, and negatively, of course, in Feuerbach and above all Nietzsche (who in turn influenced Heidegger's conception of being-towards-death). Cf. especially the notorious and polymorphous ‘death of God’ theology of the 1960s: see, e.g., Ogletree, T. W., The ‘Death of God’ Controversy (London: SCM, 1966)Google Scholar; Murchland, B. (ed.), The Meaning of the Death of God. Protestant, Jewish and Catholic Scholars Explore Atheistic Theology (New York: Random House, 1967)Google Scholar; Kee, A., The Way of Transcendence: Christian Faith without Belief in God (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), esp. 65–112.Google Scholar
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76 Cf. e.g., Moltmann, CG, 267ff.; The Experiment Hope (London: SCM, 1975), 69–84Google Scholar; The Future of Creation (London: SCM, 1970), 67–71Google Scholar; Experiences of God (London: SCM, 1980), 37–54Google Scholar; TKG, 21ff.
77 For a modern defence, see, e.g., Helm, P., ‘The Impossibility of Divine Passibility’, in de S. Cameron, N. M. (ed.), The Power and Weakness of God: Impassibility and Orthodoxy (Edinburgh: Rutherford House Books, 1990), 119–140Google Scholar.
78 A basic survey is offered by Quick, O. C., The Doctrines of the Creed. Their Basis in Scripture and their Meaning Today (London: Nisbet, 1938), 184–187Google Scholar; for a sophisticated contemporary account, see Creel, R. E., Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 1986), 3–12Google Scholar. R.J. Bauckham, “‘Only the Suffering God can help”: Divine Passibility in Modern Theology’, 77im9.3 (1984), 6–12 documents most of the literature; to update the picture, see, e.g., Creel, op. at; Goetz, R., ‘The Suffering God: The Rise of a New Orthodoxy’, ChrCent 103 (1986), 385–389Google Scholar; Hall, D. J., God and Human Suffering (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986)Google Scholar; Fiddes, P. S., The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Torrance, A., ‘Does God Suffer? Incarnation and Impassibility,’ in Hart, T. & Thimell, D. (eds.), Christ in Our Place, 345–368 (cf. n. 28)Google Scholar; N. M. de S. Cameron, The Power and Weakness of God (cf. n. 77).
79 See C. Gunton in Possibilities, 7–22; cf. also Louth, A. in JTS 30 (1979), 392.Google Scholar
80 GMW, 218.
81 I follow the suggestion of P. S. Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God (cf. n. 78), 199–200.
82 Mūhlen, H., Die Veränderlichkeit Gottes als Horitonl einer zukünftigen Christologie. Auf dem Wege zu einer Kreuzestheologie in Auseinanderselztmg mit der allkiTchlichen Christologie (Mūnster: Aschendorff, 1969), 25ff.Google Scholar; Moltmann, CG235fT.; TKG, 80ff. On the cross as the basis of the Trinity, see Jungel, CMW, 351, citing Steffen's statement, also approved by Muhlen, op. cit., 33, and Moltmann, CC, 241 that it is here, not in the collation of scattered biblical data about God as Father, Son, and Spirit, that the doctrine is derived.
83 Rahner, K., The Trinity (Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1970), 21–22Google Scholar; cf. id., Theological Investigations 4 (Baltimore: Helicon Press/London: DLT, 1966), 87ffGoogle Scholar. For Jūngel's evaluation of the terms, see Entsprechungen, 265–75, summarized in ‘The Relationship between “Economic”and “Immanent”Trinity’, ThD 24 (1976), 179–184Google Scholar. For a critical assessment, see Molnar, P. D., ‘The Function of the Immanent Trinity in the Theology of Karl Barth. Implications for Today’, SJT 42 (1989), 367–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
84 GMW. 381–9.
85 GMW, 94–7.
86 GMW, 375.
87 Interestingly, Moltmann acknowledged the weakness of his not dissimilar pneumatology in CG: see Welker, M. (ed.), Diskussion Über Jürgen Moltmanns Buck ‘Der Gekreutigle Gott’ (Munich: Kaiser, 1979), 184Google Scholar. He has sought to remedy this deficiency, especially now in The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992)Google Scholar.
88 This remains true regardless of how we characterize Luther's ‘theory’ of the atonement, whether‘classic’ (so Aulén)oracombination of ‘classic’ and Anselmic (so Althaus). The latter is, I believe, correct, but either way the cross of Christ is the scene of a real atoning transaction. For a brief overview of the debate on Luther, see Forde, G. O. in Braaten, C. E. and Jenson, R. W. (eds.), Christian Dogmatics 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 47–63.Google Scholar
89 GMW, 367; cf. 225 n. 73, 359; Essays II, 145–62.
90 Death, 113.
91 For criticisms of Moltmann on this score, see, e.g., Asendorf, U., ‘Eschatologia crucis?’ ThB 4 (1973), 161–162Google Scholar; Klappert, B., ‘Die Gottverlassenheit Jesu und der gekreuzigte Gott’, VF 20 (1975), 50–51Google Scholar; Braaten, C. E., ‘A Trinitarian Theology of the Cross’, JR. 56 (1976), 114–115Google Scholar. On Jūngel's superiority here, cf. Lewis, A. E. in SJT 40 (1987), 352 n. 33Google Scholar, pace A. Peters, , ‘Gedanken zu Eberhard Jūngel's These: Gott als Geheimnisder Welt’, in Burkhardt, H. (ed.), Werist das—Gott? Christlkhe Gotteserkenntnis in der Herausforderungen der Gegenwart (Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 1982), 187.Google Scholar
92 His references to Christ's resurrection are open to the same objection (cf. n. 66 above), as is his thought on church and sacrament(s).
93 See Webster, Introduction, 113–15.
94 Essays, 173–88.
95 Authentic humanity has abandoned the quest for self-definition through activities: Essays II, 216–40; indeed, an old person who is no longer active or productive may represent the epitome of human worth, released from the drive towards conformity to the modern homo faber stereotype: Entsprechvngm, 318–21.
96 See, e.g., G. M. Newlands in Theol 93 (1990), 309–10;J. Macquarrie in Theol 95 (1992), 292.
97 On theology as the task of the believing community, see ‘My Theology-A Short Summary’, Essays II, 1–19.
98 So W. Jeanrond in Possibilities, 70–89; see also Spjuth, 87–93, 198–215.
99 CG, 72–3. He also criticizes Jūngel (in the article ‘Vom Tod des lebendigen Cones’) and Geyer for a similar failure to translate the death of the cross into the challenges of human society and politics: CG, 217.
100 GMW, 45; cf. 253 n. 15.
101 ChrCent 108 (1991), 232.
102 E.g,, Entsprechungen, 200.
103 See Webster, Introduction, 106–9, 136–9 for some details. The different emphases which Barth supplies on gospel and law are sketched in KBTL, 105–26; see Webster in Possibilities, 106–42.
104 Cf., e.g., A. Kōnig, ‘Le Dieu crucifié (Moltmann et Jūngel)’, Hok 17 (1981), 73–95. Jūngel served on a committee of the Evangelische Kirche der Union which considered the theologia crucis and the proclamation of the church; see F. Viering (ed.), Zur Bedeutung des Todes Jesu (Gūtersloh: Mohn, 1967); id., Das Kreuz Jesu als Grund des Heils (Gūtersloh: Mohn, 1967); and the translation in Interp 24 (1970), 139–242 (and 132 n. 2 on the membership). He also participated at the October, 1972 Kreuzestheologie conference at Grafrath; see EvTh 33 (1973), esp. the survey of H.-G. Link, 337–45.
105 FC, 15–27; the paper was first delivered at the Fifth International Congress of Luther Research at Lund in August, 1977; see L. Crane and B. Lohse (eds.), Lutherund die Theologie der Gegemaart (cf. n. 9).
106 FC, 25.