Theology of play

by Jürgen Moltmann

English (translation)
Original German

Genres: Theology, Faith, Christian Living, Plays

113 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Jürgen Moltmann is a German Reformed theologian. He is the 2000 recipient of the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

Moltmann's Theology of Hope is a theological perspective with an eschatological foundation and focuses on the hope that the resurrection brings. Through faith we are bound to Christ, and as such have the hope of the resurrected Christ ("Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3, NIV)), and knowledge of his return. For Moltmann, the hope of the Christian faith is hope in the resurrection of Christ crucified. Hope and faith depend on each other to remain true and substantial; and only with both may one find "not only a consolation in suffering, but also the protest of the divine promise against suffering."

However, because of this hope we hold, we may never exist harmoniously in a society such as ours which is based on sin. When following the Theology of Hope, a Christian should find hope in the future but also experience much discontentment with the way the world is now, corrupt and full of sin. Sin bases itself in hopelessness, which can take on two forms: presumption and despair. "Presumption is a premature, selfwilled anticipation of the fulfillment of what we hope for from God. Despair is the premature, arbitrary anticipation of the non-fulfillment of what we hope for from God."

In Moltmann's opinion, all should be seen from an eschatological perspective, looking toward the days when Christ will make all things new. "A proper theology would therefore have to be constructed in the light of its future goal. Eschatology should not be its end, but its beginning." This does not, as many fear, 'remove happiness from the present' by focusing all ones attention toward the hope for Christ's return. Moltmann addresses this concern as such: "Does this hope cheat man of the happiness of the present? How could it do so! For it is itself the happiness of the present." The importance of the current times is necessary for the Theology of Hope because it brings the future events to the here and now. This theological perspective of eschatology makes the hope of the future, the hope of today.

Hope strengthens faith and aids a believer into living a life of love, and directing them toward a new creation of all things. It creates in a believer a "passion for the possible" "For our knowledge and comprehension of reality, and our reflections on it, that means at least this: that in the medium of hope our theological concepts become not judgments which nail reality down to what it is, but anticipations which show reality its prospects and its future possibilities." This passion is one that is centered around the hope of the resurrected and the returning Christ, creating a change within a believer and drives the change that a believer seeks make on the world.

For Moltmann, creation and eschatology depend on one another. There exists an ongoing process of creation, continuing creation, alongside creation ex nihilo and the consummation of creation. The consummation of creation will consist of the eschatological transformation of this creation into the new creation. The apocalypse will include the purging of sin from our finite world so that a transformed humanity can participate in the new creation.

Reviews

[Wesley Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Moltmann's greatest works, I believe, and yet it remains among the most difficult to acquire (since it is, as of now, out of print). In following with the spirit of its subject this book is written with a playful and experimental (even curious) posture.It may, therefore, frustrate the extremely careful and scientific dogmatic theologians among us, but it exemplifies Moltmann's more doxological approach to theology--"We study theology properly because we are curious and find pleasure in the subject" (66). Thus, Theology of Play is as perplexing as it is profound and mysterious as it is illuminating.

Moltmann wants to see a paradigm shift--from work to play, from necessity and outcome to freedom and spontaneity, from adult notions of purpose and goal to childlike enjoyment of God for its own sake, from law to gospel. For Moltmann, the whole of the Christian life is at stake. For as the Christian life itself is awareness of God in Jesus Christ, and ultimately, delight in God "...to confuse the enjoyment of God and our existence with goals and purposes" (19) sacrifices the freedom of liberation that is the good news of Jesus Christ. "Life as rejoicing in liberation, as solidarity with those in bondage, as play with reconciled existence, and as pain at unreconciled existence demonstrates the Easter event in the world" (31). We are to learn from children and learn to play, to play without any "purpose" as such. Indeed the very question of purpose is the "question of the adult in the child who does't want to play anymore but needs goals in order to make something respectable of himself" (18). The Christian life, according to Moltmann, is not to be envisioned as a 'purpose driven life' but, perhaps, as a game of delight in the God who creates and redeems the world for nothing.

Find this book and read it!

[Sam Nesbitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this little hidden, imperfect gem of a book, the reader encounters the early Moltmann and his provocative proposals concerning work and play from a Protestant theological perspective. Being published in 1971, this work (primarily Moltmann’s essay and response essay) constitutes a brief albeit effective introduction to Moltmann’s theological project and method.

In his main essay (72 pages), Moltmann covers much ground and is seeking to accomplish multiple different goals. First, Moltmann critiques post-industrial, capitalistic notions and attitudes towards work, very much in a similar vein as the 20th century German Roman Catholic theologian, Josef Pieper. Moltmann desires to see Christians embrace the freedom they have in Christ in such a way that removes them from the constant need to relegate all time and energy to “purpose” (Moltmann does not use the term “utility”, but I think it would have been better if he had, especially compared to purpose). “Our existence is justified and made beautiful before we are able to do or fail to do anything” (22). When applied in a broader sense, “play as world symbol goes beyond the categories of doing, having, and achieving and leads us into the categories of being, of authentic human existence and demonstrative rejoicing in it. It emphasizes the creative against the productive and the aesthetic against the ethical. Earthbound labor finds relief in rejoicing, dancing, singing, and playing. This also does labor a lot of good” (23–24). In harmony with this is Moltmann’s critique of consumerism: “[Contemporary, post-industrial society] measures man’s social value solely by what he is able to produce, by his labor power, and by what he can afford to consume. Man derives his self-esteem and identity from what he has and what he can afford to have. He is aware of himself as a thing and experiences himself in the body he has, in money, house, children, social position, in the power and problems that are his. Instead of saying, ‘I cannot sleep,’ he says, ‘I don’t have the right sleeping pills.’ Instead of saying, ‘I love my wife,’ he says, ‘I have a happy marriage.’ So man is not an existing self but translates everything into categories of having or not having. Apart from what he does or does not have he is nothing, does not exist and is not known” (50–51).

Moltmann goes beyond the ethics of work and play, going so far as to say that “in the Christian way of thinking the so-called final purpose of history is the no purpose at all. It is the liberation of life which the law had made subject to purposes and achievements, to the all-quickening joy of God” (36). Again, as provocative as it sounds, it is crucial to remember that Moltmann is using a technical understanding of purpose here, namely in the sense of making utility the supreme, all-encompassing value in history. This is a place where Moltmann invokes the category of play: Creation-history should not be understood as a struggle towards achievement but rather as preplay towards rejoicing (35). “If there is no firm ground for the world, within which all things are nailed down by grounds and purposes, then the world is either a desert of absurdity or it has to be the game of the totally-other…. so sounds the metaphysical complaint of nihilism in the words of Nietzsche. But the wisdom of God is saying "I was daily his delight, rejoicing [playing] before him always” (Prov. 8:30). This is the wisdom of creation. It does not take the work and life either more seriously or more lightly than creation demands, a creation which is neither divine nor antidivine. Not Atlas carries the burden of the world on his shoulders, but the child is holding the globe in his hands” (16).

Further, Moltmann resists the necessity of theodicy (36). That is, he finds the constant desire to know Why? is more rooted in a worldview influenced by capital and industry — an ethic that can only find value in the pursuit of a great goal, the fulfillment of which rendering the pursuit of little to no value. The new creation and eschatological fulfillment of history will not occasion the final, exhaustive explanation for all the pain and suffering of the world, but rather occasion the boundless leaps of the once crippled, the song of the once voiceless, the laughter of the once downtrodden. Laughter in the face of death supersedes understanding the purposes of suffering in the eschaton, according to Moltmann.

Second, and as is already apparent, Moltmann seeks to creatively use the conceptual metaphors of play and game to shed light on various elements of traditional theological teaching. One of the most helpful instances of this is seen when Moltmann connects games to the doctrine of creation. Just like when humans enter into a game, so when God creates all things, it is a free but still meaningful choice. Put differently, creation, just like a game, is unnecessary but still meaningful. Very important for Moltmann, however, is that play ought not to be absolutized as a controlling conceptual model for theology. This is most evident in Moltmann’s theology of the cross wherein play cannot be an adequate category; the cross is a no-laughing event wherein the Son of God embraces the suffering of the world in his abandonment by God the Father. Those familiar with Moltmann’s theology will immediately discern similar themes that will soon be further explored in The Crucified God which would be published the next year in 1972, and these themes are especially evident when Moltmann says “life and rejoicing in liberation, as solidarity with those in bondage, as play with reconciled existence, and as pain at unreconciled existence demonstrates the Easter event in the world” (31). Where play does come in full display, however, is in the resurrection, where freedom and celebration converge in the life of the resurrected Christ who has defeated death and is the beginnings of the new creation: “Easter opens up the boundary-crossing freedom to play the game of the new creation. This is possible and meaningful because there is a hell and a hopelessness, which Christ’s death has conquered once and for all and which of those who are liberated has been put into the past. The cross of Christ therefore does not belong to the game itself, but it makes possible the new game of freedom. He suffered that we may laugh again. He died that we may live as liberated human beings. He descended into the hell of the forsaken to open for us the heaven of freedom. He became a slave of the enslaved, a servant of those in servitude that these may become free lords of all things” (32). The resurrection is also the basis for Moltmann’s ethics and political theology: “So Easter freedom does not permit us to escape from the world or to forget about it. Rather it leads us critically to accept the world situation with its unacceptable moments and patiently bring about change in the world so that it may become a place of freedom for men” (32).

Another application of his theory of play to doctrine is seen in justification. Moltmann specifically attacks (one particular reception and interpretation of) Aristotle: “The Christian belief in the gospel of God, which overcomes the law, has destroyed the naive Aristotelian doctrine of virtue that at first seemed self-evident. If man is what he makes of himself, then his being human depends on what he does. But what he does is subject to the law. The law, in turn, demands of him a justice he can no longer produce once he has become unjust. So he becomes the slave of a law which holds up to him a humanity it refuses to grant and demands of him freedom without setting him free. So, if man is what he makes of himself, he is precisely not free when it comes to his own actions but dependent on them and subject to them. Basically, they are the ones which make him, not he them…. What man is in his ground precedes what he does and manifests itself in his actions. His deeds do not change him fundamentally. Fundamental change occurs only by God’s creative action upon him” (46). Although Moltmann articulates good and true features of justification (e.g., “Dogmatic tradition denotes the justification of the godless as the beginning of their glorification and their glorification as the fulfillment of their justification” (42)), it seems that Moltmann’s anti-utility polemic may be weighing too heavily on his interpretation of Aristotle. It is a creative formulation, no doubt, but the confluence of Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Protestant teaching on justification, and critique of post-industrial, capitalistic ethics makes for a more idiosyncratic point rather than a genuine critique of a widely held position. Moreover, Moltmann seems to interpret the traditional Reformed position as widely neo-nomian, which is not only a historical misreading, but also is juxtaposed with his own position, which seems to be more antinomian than not (38, 48–49).

The dialectic between crucifixion and resurrection marks the third major component of Moltmann’s theology, namely his method. Early Moltmann is widely seen as utilizing a dialectical method and it is very evident in this essay: work - play, ethics - aesthetics, dominion - glory, crucifixion - resurrection. The dialectic concerning ethics and aesthetics and glory and dominion is particularly insightful and a hidden gem within the essay as a whole: “If after this brief excursion into the biblical use of the language about glory we now return to the problem of the relation between ethics and aesthetics, we must note that these are inseparable both in our awareness of God and in the life of faith. We experience God’s dominion equally as his glory and as his beauty and as his sovereignty. His glory cannot be reduced to his dominion and his dominion cannot be reduced to his glory. One interprets the other and protects it from misunderstandings. The beautiful in God is what makes us rejoice in him. So, in corresponding to him and answering him, man’s obedience is joined together with his ‘new song.’ Without the free play of imagination and songs of praise the new obedience deteriorates into legalism. Christian living would become a matter of watching out for things one is not allowed to do. But without concrete obedience – which means without physical, social, and political changes – the lovely songs and celebrations of freedom become empty phrases” (43). In the words of William Dean, a reviewer of the work, “Without a dialectical balance between aesthetic and ethical experience, play is empty, God's glory obscures his dominion, and Christ's resurrection upstages his crucifixion.”

More distinctive features of Moltmann’s theology are present in this work, such as the emphasis on co-suffering within the church community, the political and social endeavors that come with identifying with the risen Christ, and more. One particularly helpful point is his notion of “Augustinaian reversal”, which posits that “after men have been using God for such a long time to enjoy the world, or at least to survive in it, God certainly does not promptly have to disappear from a world in which he is no longer needed for that purpose [Moltmann has in mind here atheistic critiques of religious belief that are grounded in the technological developments of the modern age that have seemed to make the social role of belief in God superfluous]. If faith will only reflect on its true nature, we may come to a reversal of the things we enjoy and the things we use. Then man shall use the world to enjoy God” (63). In short, all things are pure for those who are pure (Titus 1:15).

Following this essay are three shorter essays written by American theologians Robert E. Neale, Sam Keen, and David L. Miller. Neale and Keen’s essays are both critical of Moltmann’s contention that play as a conceptual metaphor cannot apply to the cross. Neale and Keen both absolutize play as a controlling metaphor for all of theology. Neale goes so far as to define adventure as necessarily involving risk and chance of failure, and then applying this to God himself: “Because God was playing, he took a risk in each event, the outcome of which was unknown to him as well as to man. Moreover, since the adventure is not concluded yet, the outcome remains unknown – to God as well as to us. It is still possible that the divine adventure will not succeed just as other adventures have not succeeded. The death of Christ in the crucifixion could become a final death and the tentative resurrection could be annulled. This is an offensive speculation, not only because it is contrary to orthodox theology, but also because it is contrary to our work mentality. All that is important is the divine adventure itself. The ultimate Player is grateful that this adventure has begun and will end. God is not anxious about success and survival because he is a player rather than a worker. Therefore, we need not be anxious ourselves” (82). Besides the horrendous theology that needs no rebuttal because it deserves none is that Neale’s position is ironic: his absolutization of play and game is a product of the very ethic in which he so ardently argues against, namely the absolutization of work. This is especially seen in the fact that Neale admits that his formulation runs against orthodox theology, which developed for 1700 years prior to the industrial revolution.

Both Neale and Keen’s essays are also needlessly irreverent; both seem to be under the impression that in order to incorporate play into theology, one must forgo orthodox doctrine and make crass jokes about Jesus and erections. Keen’s contribution is more of a poem that addresses that application of play to theodicy. Miller’s essay is not crass like the two that precede his. Miller seeks to unpack the notion of “playing to lose” from a Christian perspective, grounding it in the crucifixion. Miller also discusses the difficulty of applying orienting myths to the contemporary industrial society that has more discontinuities than continuities with the ancient world from which many of our myths arose. Nonetheless, winning and losing are still familiar to humanity, and in a post-Nietzschean world, winning obtains all appeal. The dynamics of play can be inverted in the light of redemption, however, and Miller explains how “losing” can be connected to sacrifice, and therefore winning.

Moltmann’s three page response essay to Neale, Keen, and Miller is humorous and slightly embarrassing (that is, I feel embarrassed for the American theologians). Moltmann bluntly states that “in my opinion, the premises from which these relies have been written are not the same as my own – not in the least. We are perhaps not even talking about the same thing. This realization has nothing to do with the difference between American and European theologians. I am at a loss as to what to answer to these three American approaches to play. The authors and I live in the same one world, and yet in completely different inner spaces. A painful realization" (111). Moltmann then goes on to provide a bulleted list of eight points regarding theology of play, and in summary form,
1) to posit that one must play or not play is a false dichotomy; there is more space between play and work that is characterized by a genuine freedom than the Americans let on according to Moltmann;
2) do not absolutize play: “The Puritan of work easily changes into the Puritan of play and remains a Puritan…. Don’t turn play into a total ideology” (112);
3) if everything is play, nothing is play, and further, good play cannot be distinguished from bad play;
4) we still await the eschaton, and therefore suffering and pain are still present realities that ought not to be trivialized by being forced into an ideology of play;
5) this point essentially reiterates the previous but with an emphasis on the cross and Auschwitz; 6) this is one of the most interesting points in the entire book because it is one of the most direct and concrete ethical arguments from Moltmann and deserves full quotation: "Brethren, ‘remain true to the earth,’ and don’t believe those who invite you to gambling games. Play should liberate, not tranquilize, awaken, and not anesthetize. Liberating play is protest against the evil plays of the oppressor and the exploiter” (112–113). This clarifies certain aspects of his theology of play as whole, but at the same time brings to the table more questions on the exact relationship between play and social change; does Moltmann subject himself to the very “purpose” he disavows and critiques by saying that play should liberate and that liberating play is always a protest against social evils?
7) Moltmann explicitly attacks the crassness of Neale and Keen: “You need not become obscene. Only sexual hatred becomes obscene. Forget the Puritan in yourself and love without fear! The sex market is the modern slave market. Liberate the slaves and the slaveholders to full humanity” (112).
8) Moltmann admits that everyone has their own language games, and these different games often mean that the players miss each other “as in this book” (112). More important than playing these games is the freedom of the context in which the games are played, and more important that this context “is the Other whom we try to praise out of the depths, before whom we can rejoice and play, laugh, love, and dance, so that the chains fall away” (113).

In the end, this little book provides both a fascinating installment in the theology of play and introduction into Moltmann’s theology. Responsible reading, however, does require that the reader ensures familiarity with Moltmann’s theological project so as to best interpret what he is saying. In John Frame’s analysis, Moltmann is guilty of what Frame calls ‘conservative drift,’ which is the utilization of traditional theological terminology but investing it with new meanings. One must read Moltmann’s theology of play with a critical eye. Nonetheless, there are fruitful gleanings to be obtained in this work, predominantly from Moltmann’s essays.

[Matthew Engum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply fantastic. No one is free until one can play, uninhibited and without expectation.

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book which seems to be the standard articulation of a Lutheran/Protestant theology of play. Theology of play is a kind of subset of systematic theology which takes God's delight and the apparent purposelessness of creation as its starting point. If God created the world because He wanted to love, or in other words, because he was playing, then human playing (which is observable especially in children - see Matt. 19:14) is in some sense a representation of God and a participation in God. Theology itself is a kind of playing, according to Moltmann, because it serves no real "purpose" except to enjoy God, like we enjoy experiencing and reflecting upon art, music, dance, and games.

The glaring problem with this book is that it's not 100% Moltmann. For some strange reason, Harper Publishing decided to add some poems and short essays by American scholars as appendices. In an afterword, Moltmann basically states that he has no idea what the publisher was thinking or what the American scholars meant (though this was actually highly amusing).

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible reflection on the nature of play, freedom, and creation inherent in the Divine as well as a social critique of a world that seems to disinherit these values. The play between the various theologians and ideas paints a broad and yet still detailed picture of the role play can and should have in the lives of the faithful. One of my favorite theological reads, and I greatly enjoyed David L. Miller’s essay, “Playing the Game to Lose.” If you are someone struggling with balancing your faith and your role in society, I think this book can provide some excellent insight.

[Grant Klinefelter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the easiest read, but something I’ll keep mulling over. Fuller review coming.

[Mitch Mallary · Rating 3 out of 5]

To no fault of his own, Moltmann's theological reflections on play are rooted in a Lutheran reading of Pauline texts surrounding justification. This leaves those readers familiar with the (post)-new perspective on Paul wanting.