Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Moltmann: Resurrection and life now

The resurrection hope makes people ready to live their lives in love wholly, and to say a full and entire Yes to a life that leads to death. It does not withdraw the human soul from bodily, sensory life; it ensouls this life with unending joy. In expectation of the resurrection of the dead, the person who hopes casts away the soul's protective cloak in which the wounded heart has wrapped itself, so as not to let anything more come near it. We throw ourselves into this life and empty ourselves into the deadly realm of non-identity by virtue of the hope that God will find us in death, and will raise us and gather us.

- Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God, 66

Ten points for which Sydney suburb this pic was taken in.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

WARNING: This comment is not meant to contribute anything theological.

Pyrmont?

byron smith said...

Bingo!
Ten points. :-)

Anonymous said...

"the deadly realm of non identity".
Is that life or death? Or am I (likely) missing the point?

byron smith said...

No, I don't think you're missing the point Steve. It's a bit of both: the ways in which life is like death. I think in context, he's speaking of about the dangerous possibility of self-giving, of avoiding fearful self-protection and venturing out, vulnerable, into the world of what is not the same as me (non identity). This kind of life, this way of relating, is deadly, because unless we protect ourselves, we'll get used and abused and killed. But because of the resurrection we can dare to "cast away the soul's protective cloak" and "throw ourselves into this life" confident that God will still find us, even though we die, and "will raise us and gather us".