Abstract
At the conclusion of Jüngel: A Guide for the Perplexed, David Nelson asserts that ‘so much of what passes for theology today comes across as bureaucratic, sterile and deadly boring, straightjacketed as it is by the scientific demands of the academy’ (p. 128). One may or may not have had similar adjectives come to mind while reading Eberhard Jüngel’s theology! At various points throughout the book Nelson readily admits that this important figure in twentieth century theology is a ‘notoriously difficult theologian’ (p. 2), with some of his most significant work being ‘notoriously demanding’ (p. 71) and ‘idiosyncratic’ (p. 90). Yet throughout the course of the book, Nelson introduces readers to a lively and creative theologian, whose complex and demanding style will reward those who take the time to understand – and perhaps eventually to share – share his theoretical and practical concerns.
Nelson’s guide is divided into five chapters. After some helpful introductory and biographical details in chapter 1, the bulk of the book consists in three substantial chapters on Jüngel’s thought and work. Chapter 2 deals with Jüngel’s intellectual and theological influences. But rather than treat Jüngel as the uninteresting sum of these parts (e.g. Luther, Hegel, Heidegger, Barth, Bultmann), Nelson wisely chooses to chart the ‘world of discourse’ (p. 28) which Jüngel inhabited, and to which he remained devoted – for better or worse – throughout his career. Nine elements of this world of discourse are concisely presented, with each presentation aiding in the demystification of Jüngel’s thought.
This second chapter prepares the reader for the outline and analysis of Jüngel’s works that comes in chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 3 tackles four major monographs (Paulus und Jesus, God’s Being Is in Becoming, God as the Mystery of the World, and Justification), while chapter 4 explores eleven of Jüngel’s most significant theological essays. In both these chapters the reader is accompanied by a guide who skilfully points out the key themes and argumentative moves of the texts, and who offers various hermeneutical tools which may be used as aids in one’s own exploration of the terrain. The field notes on God as the Mystery of the World are particularly useful (pp. 70-7), serving to open up a rich text that is particularly inaccessible to first-time readers.
The conclusion of Nelson’s guide summarises the achievements, challenges, and prospects of Jüngel’s theology. Jüngel is characterised as a theologian who revels in the freedom of the quest for the gospel’s liberating truth, and who is in the business of retrieving the significance of the Reformation without recapitulating its thought. The guide is not without critical remarks. Chief of these is the lament that Jüngel did not trespass beyond the boundaries of the ‘world of discourse’ mapped out in chapter 2. As Jüngel’s career progressed, certain shifts in theological scholarship – particularly those originating in the anglophone world – simply passed him by, and so his theological witness remained ‘frustratingly narrow’ (p. 126). Nevertheless, Nelson is cautiously optimistic that Jüngel, whose concern for theology as a liberative discourse shines through in this guide, might find a hearing in contemporary anglophone theology. Nelson’s perceptive and engaging book will undoubtedly increase the chances of that happening.