Jürgen Moltmann

In the Spring 2004 Pneuma, Moltmann cites Johann and Christoph Blumhardt as being major contributors to his thought.

The early Moltmann can be seen in his trilogy, Theology of Hope (1964), The Crucified God (1972), and The Church in the Power of the Spirit (1975):

For Moltmann's second major work, The Crucified God, the philosophical inspiration comes from a different tendency within Marxist philosophy. In "Explanation of the Theme", his introduction to the book, Moltmann acknowledges that the direction of his questioning has shifted to that of existentialist philosophy and the Marxism of the Frankfurt School, particularly Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer – close associates of Paul Tillich. An unacknowledged influence, and certainly an important parallel, is probably the Death of God theology that was winning notice in the mid-1960s, particularly the essay collection under that title, edited by William Hamilton and Thomas J. J. Altizer in memory of Paul Tillich.

He received his doctorate from the University of Göttingen, under the direction of Otto Weber in 1952. From 1952 to 1957 Moltmann was the pastor of the Evangelical Church of Bremen-Wasserhorst. In 1958 Moltmann became a theology teacher at an academy in Wuppertal that was operated by the Confessing Church and in 1963 he joined the theological faculty at the University of Bonn. He was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen in 1967 and remained there until his retirement in 1994. From 1963 to 1983, Moltmann was a member of the Faith and Order Committee of the World Council of Churches. From 1983 to 1993, Moltmann was the Robert W. Woodruff Distinguished Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1984–1985. Moltmann won the 2000 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his book The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology. In April 2017, Moltmann was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Theology degree (Doctor Divinitatis Honoris Causa) by the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Upon his return to Germany in 1948, Moltmann began his course of study at Göttingen University, where he was strongly influenced by Karl Barth's dialectical theology. Moltmann grew critical of Barth's neglect of the historical nature of reality, and began to study Bonhoeffer. He developed a greater concern for social ethics, and the relationship between church and society. Moltmann also developed an interest in Luther and Hegel, the former of whose doctrine of justification and theology of the cross interested him greatly. His doctoral supervisor, Otto Weber helped him to develop his eschatological perspective of the church's universal mission.

In 1947, he and four others were invited to attend the first postwar Student Christian Movement in Swanwick, a conference center near Derby, England. What happened there affected him very deeply. Moltmann returned to Germany to study at the University of Göttingen, an institution whose professors were followers of Karl Barth and theologians who were engaged with the confessing [non-state] church in Germany.

After Belgium, he was transferred to a POW camp in Kilmarnock, Scotland, where he worked with other Germans to rebuild areas damaged in the bombing. The hospitality of the Scottish residents toward the prisoners left a great impression upon him. In July 1946, he was transferred for the last time to Norton Camp, a British prison located in the village of Cuckney near Nottingham, UK. The camp was operated by the YMCA and here Moltmann met many students of theology. At Norton Camp, he discovered Reinhold Niebuhr's The Nature and Destiny of Man—it was the first book of theology he had ever read, and Moltmann claimed it had a huge impact on his life. His experience as a POW gave him a great understanding of how suffering and hope reinforce each other, leaving a lasting impression on his theology.

The title of Moltmann's crucial work, however, is derived not from Nietzsche but from Martin Luther, and its use marked a renewed engagement with a specifically Lutheran strain in Protestant theology, as opposed to the more Calvinist tenor of his earlier work. Moltmann's widening interest in theological perspectives from a broad cultural arena is evident in his use of the 1946 book by Kazoh Kitamori, Theology of the Pain of God, which he relates to Bonhoeffer's prison reflections. However, he footnotes Kitamori's very conservative, individualist conclusions, which he does not share. Moltmann continued to see Christ as dying in solidarity with movements of liberation, God choosing to die with the oppressed. This work and its footnotes are full of references, direct and implied, to the New Left and the uprisings of 1968, the Prague Spring the French May and, closest to home, the German APO, and their aftermath.

He took his entrance exam to proceed with his education, but went to war instead as an Air Force auxiliary in the German army. "The 'iron rations' in the way of reading matter which he took with him into the miseries of war were Goethe's poems and the works of Nietzsche." He was drafted into military service in 1943 at the age of 16, when he became a soldier in the German army. He worked in an anti-aircraft battery during the RAF bombing of his hometown of Hamburg, an attack that killed 40,000 people including a friend standing next to him. Ordered to the Klever Reichswald, a German forest at the front lines, he surrendered in 1945 in the dark to the first British soldier he met. For the next few years (1945–48), he was confined as a prisoner of war and moved from camp to camp.

Jürgen Moltmann (born 8 April 1926) is a German Reformed theologian who is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen and is known for his books such as the Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, God in Creation and other contributions to systematic theology. Jürgen Moltmann is the husband of Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, a notable feminist theologian. Jürgen Moltmann described his own theology as an extension of Karl Barth's theological works, especially the Church Dogmatics, and he has described his own work as Post-Barthian. He has received honorary doctorates from a number of institutions, such as Duke University (1973), the University of Louvain in Belgium (1995), the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Romania (1996), the Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan (2002), the Nicaraguan Evangelical University (2002), and the University of Pretoria in South Africa (2017). Moltmann was selected to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures in 1984–85, and was also the recipient of the 2000 University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

Moltmann was born in Hamburg on 8 April 1926. He described his German upbringing as thoroughly secular. His grandfather was a grand master of the Freemasons. At sixteen, Moltmann idolized Albert Einstein, and anticipated studying mathematics at university. The physics of relativity were "fascinating secrets open to knowledge"; theology as yet played no role in his life.