Cover Image: The Living God and the Fullness of Life

The Living God and the Fullness of Life

Pub Date:   |   Archive Date:

Member Reviews

256 pages, Published in 2015; theological anthropology

Moltmann’s writing is dense, not for the faint of heart. But that doesn't mean it's not worth reading, (You just might need to be a bit of a theology nerd). In this book, he elaborates on earlier works on the doctrine of God and Spirit. But this means he assumes you've already read his earlier work and are familiar with his theology.

Here is the chapter breakdown and outline:

PART ONE: The Living God

Chapter 1. The Living God
- How Can God Be Both Living and Eternal?
- The Eternal God
- The Living God

Chapter 2. God’s Attributes: The Living God and Attributes of Divinity
- Is God Immovable?
- Is God Impassible?
- Is God Almighty?
- Is God Omnipresent?
- The Prohibition of Images: The Living God

Chapter 3. The Living God in the History of Christ
- The One God: What Unity?
- The Living Space of the Triune God
- The History of God in Christ

PART TWO: The Fullness of Life

Chapter 4: This Eternal Life
- In the Fellowship of the Divine Life
- In the Fellowship of the Living and the Dead
- In the Fellowship of the Earth

Chapter 5: Life in the Wide Space of God`s Joy
- God’s Joy
- The Birth of Religion Out of the Festival of Life
- Christianity: Religion of Joy
- The Joy of the God Who Seeks and Finds
- Human Joy: Joy and Fun
- Joy and Human Pain: Schiller and Dostoevsky
- Nietzsche’s “Deep, Deep Eternity”

Chapter 6: Freedom Lived in Solidarity
- Freedom or God? Michael Bakunin and Carl Schmitt
- The God of the Exodus and the Resurrection
- God’s Freedom
- Human Freedom in God

Chapter 7: Freedom Experienced in Open Friendship
- What Is Friendship?
- In the Friendship of Jesus
- God’s Friends
- Open Friendship for a Friendlier World

Chapter 8. The Loved and Loving life
- The Doctrine of Suffering (Buddha) and the Doctrine of Love (Paul)
- God’s Love and Human Love for God
- Love for Life
- Maximus Confessor and the Erotic Universe

Chapter 9: A Spirituality of the Senses
- The Spirituality of the Soul—The Spirituality of the Senses
- The Human Senses
- The Diminution and Attrition of the Senses
- The Waking and Awakening of the Senses
- Praying and Watching

Chapter 10: Hoping and Thinking
- Thinking Means Transcending
- Hoping and Perceiving: Hegel and “Minerva´s Owl” and Aurora’s Lark
- Hoping and Thinking: The Productive Power of the Imagination

Chapter 11. Life: A Never-Ending Festival
- The Risen Christ Makes of Human Life a Never-Ending Festival
- The Festive Life
- Truth as Prayer

Moltmann's focus here seems to be on the Unity or unifying activity of God/God's spirit in bringing creation into union with God.

Was this review helpful?