1 Hermeneutics of Hope : A Dialogical Study of Paul

Introduction In his early article on the philosophy of hope, Paul Ricoeur admiringly spoke of Moltmann’s eschatological theology: “For my part I have been very much taken with – I should say, won over by – the eschatological interpretation that Jurgen Moltmann gives to the Christian kerygma in his work The Theology of Hope.” It is quite uncommon for a contemporary European philosopher to so explicitly admit his indebtedness to theological insight. Yet, this is reminiscent of the intriguing history of how Karl Barth’s Romansbrief once inspired Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. Although the title of this paper is comparative, my intention is to appropriate some of Ricoeur’s philosophical insights into my understanding of Moltmann’s thought. The paper is an attempt to put theology and philosophy in proximity in order to anticipate a cross-fertilization of ideas. Moltmann is the one thinker that has most inspired Ricoeur, and many others, in the postWWII era. His theology of hope was a breakthrough at the time. It was a validation of the Zeitgeist, of the world rebuilding from the ruins, but soon plunging into the turbulence of the sixties. After almost forty years, the theology of hope inaugurated in 1964 sees its consummation in The Coming of God, with a series of methodological and topical epilogues still to come. It is a time to celebrate the theological legacy of Moltmann, as well as a time to think with and after Moltmann. Moltmann’s theology of hope was an interruption at that time; does it not also contain an interruption of itself which will keep opening our horizon as we move onward? This is the question at stake.