Table Of ContentThe Messianic Disruption
of Trinitarian Theology
The Messianic Disruption
of Trinitarian Theology
Kornel Zathureczky
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zathureczky, Kornel.
The Messianic disruption of Trinitarian theology / Kornel Zathureczky.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-3150-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7391-3150-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-3152-7 (electronic)
ISBN-10: 0-7391-3152-4 (electronic)
Trinity. 2. Jesus Christ—Messiahship. 3. Messiah—Judaism. 4. Moltmann,
Jürgen. 5. Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940. 6. Christianity and other
religions—Judaism. 7. Judaism—Relations—Christianity. I. Title.
BT111.3.Z38 2009
231'.044—dc22 2008049175
Printed in the United States of America
(cid:2)™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
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Contents
Introduction vii
1 The Loss of the Messianic 1
2 Messianic Possibilities 27
3 Messianic Epistemology 45
4 Messianic Pneumatology 75
5 Messianic History 97
6 Messianic Suffering 121
7 Messianic Optics: Elective Affinity between the Messianisms
of Walter Benjamin and Jürgen Moltmann 139
8 Trinitarian Discourse: Doxology Born of Remembrance 155
Bibliography 165
Index 175
About the Author 181
v
Introduction
Contemporary Christian theology in Europe is beset with multiple challenges.
The challenges are not quite the same for Eastern and for Western European
Christianity. The two Europes, however, are one in participating in the history
of effects of the Shoah. The Shoah is often reduced to the problem of guilt
that confronts the perpetrators of the greatest genocide on European soil. Al-
though the Shoah does raise the problem of guilt and responsibility, it seems
that its significance cannot be reduced to the mere recitation of the crimes
committed and to the question of responsibility defined negatively as guilt.
Responsibility, however, is a much broader concept than the question of guilt.
The Shoah has a particular history of effects, which exert their influence even
on those who cannot actually share in the guilt of a previous historical era. Yet
the descendants of the perpetrators are always and already affected by the his-
tory of effects of the tragedy of European Jewry. The challenge of Europe and
of European Christianity is to come to terms with this history of effects in a
way that not only deals with the question of responsibility as guilt, but of the
question of responsibility understood more positively, that is responsibility
toward the Other. Coming to terms with the Shoah, however, does not and
cannot mean that one ever moves beyond this event. That Shoah is an epochal
event means that it has not only altered the course of European history, but
that it has put into question the very meaning of the history of Europe defined
as the history of progress. The end of European history defined around the
idea of progress also means the end of an idea of Christianity defined around
the concept of fulfillment.
The idea of Europe as the fulfillment of the highest aspirations of hu-
mankind was born out of the idea of Christianity as the absolute religion, which
conclusively fulfilled the messianic expectations of the Jews. The disruption
vii
viii Introduction
brought about by the Shoah, however, confronts Christianity with a need to
confront poignant questions regarding its identity.
Can Christianity continue to define itself as the religion of fulfillment? Al-
though it unmistakably did so in the past, it can no longer afford to do so. If
Christianity is not the expression of the faith in the ultimate and conclusive
fulfillment of the messianic expectations of the Jews, how is it to be defined?
How does one make sense of the long history of Christian self-understanding,
which influenced the discourse of the tradition? Can one simply discount fun-
damental sources that shaped Christian tradition? Can Christianity renew it-
self after the catastrophe of the Shoah, a tragedy not only of the Jewish peo-
ple but just as much a tragedy of Christianity? Is there an alternative tradition
that has so far been neglected and suppressed and that should be retrieved
now?
The self-definition of Christianity as the ultimate religion that fulfills all
the expectations of humanity has been proven to be a bankrupt enterprise. The
infinite suffering the Jewish people endured in the heart of Christian Europe
once and for all invalidates all claims of Christianity as the absolute religion.
The purpose of this work is to retrieve a lost dimension of Christian dis-
course, namely its initial self-identification as a messianic faith. This means
a severe, for some, unduly harsh, critique of the Christian tradition. This cri-
tique, however, is born out of a serious engagement with the tradition and the
perception of possibilities that lie hidden within it. The outcome of this
hermeneutic of retrieval is to enrich Christian discourse about the Trinitarian
God, paradoxically, through the ambiguities and negativity of the messianic
idea.
