Editorial Note
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1. Issues and Problems in Ethical Discourse on the Kingdom of God

If one attempts to consolidate the complex issues and problems associated with the concept of the kingdom of God, three major, overlapping historical focal points of the ethical discourse on the kingdom of God can be identified that are addressed by both older and newer ethical frameworks and moral perspectives:

1.1. The Kingdom of God and the Ethical Significance of Its Proclaimer, Jesus Christ

If the “kingdom of God” constitutes the central concept of Jesus’s proclamation, this raises the twofold question of what binding authority this proclamation, and closely connected with it the one who proclaims it (i.e., Jesus), holds for the church in a normative sense. This christological question, which remains of vital importance for Christians, cannot be separated from the question of the content of his proclamation and its ethical implications. Anyone who takes the proclamation of Christ seriously will also have to speak of the kingdom of God and ask about its ethical implications.

1.2. The Ethical Significance of the Kingdom of God for Defining the Relationship between Church and State/Society

Furthermore, the use of analogical language (i.e., the fact that “kingdom” is a political term) raises the question of the relationship between God and politics: What significance does the concept of the kingdom of God have for a theological ethics of the political particularly for the relationship between the church and the state/society? This raises the question that underlies the tradition of the so-called doctrine of the two kingdoms.

1.3. The Kingdom of God as the Object of God’s Ethically Significant Action in History

If the “kingdom of God” also embodies the very essence of hope for Christians, this in turn raises the question of the profound significance of eschatology in particular for ethics: What are we hoping for when we hope for the coming kingdom of God? What does God’s kingdom building action look like, and what significance does it have for human action? What is the aim of both? Is it about “salvation,” that is, something absolute, so to speak? Or is it “merely” about “well-being,” that is, something relative? Does the kingdom of God point to and project something like the goal, the end, or even the beginning of history? As Friedrich Schlegel  observes: “The revolutionary desire to realize the kingdom of God is […] the beginning of modern history.”¹Schlegel, Friedrich, Athenaum-Fragmente 222, cited from Honecker, Martin, Grundriß der Sozialethik, Berlin/Boston 1995, 33f., translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Der revolutionäre Wunsch, das Reich Gottes zu realisieren, ist […] der Anfang der modernen Geschichte.” The problem of history and its political form presents itself in an inescapable way: What does it mean to act socio-politically in the presence or expectation of the kingdom of God?

2. Three Lines of Development in the History of Theology and Ethics Regarding the Understanding of the Kingdom of God

The three sets of questions and issues identified above can be linked to typological lines of development in the history of theology and ethics, some of which overlap:

2.1. The Christological Line of Development of the Kingdom of God as the Kingdom of Christ

An important feature of the early Christian conception of the kingdom of God is the idea of autobasileia: “In evangelio est regnum dei Christus ipse”²Tertullian, Marc. 4.33. (In the gospel, the kingdom of God is Christ himself). Christ, as Origen  emphasizes, is the personification of the presence of the kingdom of God.³Origen, Matthew Tom. XIV,9 (Migne: Patrol. Gr. 13, 1197). This means, however, that in the context of his coming, the reign of God was understood early on as having already come and has not yet come. This did not, of course, preclude chiliastic hopes in the “early church” for the kingdom of God as a millennium following Christ’s return. The theme of discipleship, which referred to both the person and message of Jesus, continued to be emphasized in the centuries that followed – for example, in medieval mysticism (including Thomas à Kempis ), which also deeply influenced Luther . Discipleship addresses the question of human responsibility for the coming of the kingdom of God, or rather, of its power to affect believers. Thus, the experience of failure in discipleship led, among other things, to the development of a two-stage ethos, according to which Christ gave the “evangelical counsels” (consilia evangelica) only to those who wished to be “perfect,” e.g., ascetics or clerics who, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, committed themselves to chastity, poverty, and obedience (Matt 19:21). The Reformers strongly opposed this view, whereby Calvin , for instance, in his conception of the “vita christiana,” describes discipleship as self-denial and bearing the cross in trust in the self-assertion of God’s glory (gloria Dei), which makes the orientation toward the kingdom of God possible through the “meditatio futurae vitae” (contemplation of the future life).⁴Calvin, John, Inst. (1559), III,7–9.

Johann Gerhard  systematized the concept of the kingdom of God into a doctrine of the kingdom of God during the era of Old Lutheran orthodoxy. He expounds on Christ’s royal office (munus regium) as a universal realm of rule that extends to:

1. the regnum naturae (kingdom of nature) or regnum potentiae (kingdom of power), which refers to the guidance of the world’s affairs, carried out as Christ’s universal rule;
2. the regnum gratiae (kingdom of grace), which refers to spiritual rule over the church that still functions as the ecclesia militans (church militant);
3. the regnum gloriae (kingdom of glory), which refers to the unbroken, eternal kingship of Christ in heaven, where the church now constitutes the ecclesia triumphans (church triumphant).⁵Cf. Schmidt, Heinrich, Die Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. Dargestellt und aus den Quellen belegt, ed. Horst Georg Pöhlmann, Gütersloh ⁹1979, 240–243.

In the twentieth century, this tripartiate division of Christ’s kingly reign was most prominently taken up and ethically refined by Karl Barth  in his “Tambacher Vortrag” (1919), in which he divided the three regna (realms) – namely creation, redemption, and fulfillment, not only dialectically into thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, but also assigns each a socially relevant task, namely 1. (relating to creation or thesis) that of “simple, practical cooperation within the framework of existing society.”⁶Barth, Karl, Der Christ in der Gesellschaft, in: idem, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten 1914–1921 (Karl Barth GA 48/III), in Verbindung mit Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt, ed. Hans-Anton Drewes, Zürich 2012, 546–598, 593, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “schlichte[n] sachliche[n] Mitarbeit im Rahmen der bestehenden Gesellschaft.” 2. (with regard to redemption or antithesis) that of “radical opposition to the foundations of society,”⁷Barth, Christ, 593, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “radikale[n] Opposition gegen die Grundlagen der Gesellschaft.” and 3. with regard to perfection or synthesis) that of allowing the history of God – which sets society in its proper perspective – to take effect, which Barth defines as “the power of affirmation and the greater power of negation.”⁸Barth, Christ, 595, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “[d]ie Kraft der Bejahung und die größere Kraft der Verneinung.”

In that Barth’s assertion (“We stand deeper in the ‘no’ than in the ‘yes.’”⁹Barth, Christ, 587, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Wir stehen tiefer im Nein als im Ja.” comes across as decidedly critical of authority, his interpretation of Christ’s kingly reign intersects with postcolonial theology, which highlights that the Christian legitimization of authority can “also be expressed in a glorification of divine government.”¹⁰Silber, Stefan, Postkoloniale Theologie. Eine Einführung, Tübingen 2021, 87, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “auch in einer Glorifizierung göttlicher Regierung ausdrücken.” Martin Luther King  hardly ever used the term “kingdom of God,” since it was “too closely tied, terminologically speaking, to pre-democratic structures of thought and rule”;¹¹Weiße, Wolfram, Reich Gottes (Ökumenische Studienhefte 6/Bensheimer Hefte 83), Göttingen 1997, 64, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “für ihn terminologisch zu sehr an vordemokratische Denk- und Herrschaftsstrukturen gebunden.” he preferred to speak of the “dream” as a synonym for the kingdom of God (as in the famous speech “I Have a Dream,” 1963).

2.2. The Political-Ethical Line of Development of the Two Kingdoms Doctrine

The eschatological tension between “already” and “not yet” was identified early on as constitutive of Christian existence in the interim period. Among the “Apostolic Fathers,” however, the future-transcendent character of the kingdom of God predominated, though this dominance became obsolete at the latest with Eusebian  imperial theology, according to which the reign of Emperor Constantine (Constantinian Reform) is to be understood as a present-immanent era of salvation for the church and the world. Against this backdrop, the fall of Rome (410) under the Visigoth Alaric  posed a precarious challenge which Augustine  addressed in his work “De civitate dei” (413–426). In a groundbreaking move, he abolished the identification of both the church and the kingdom of God as well as the state and the kingdom of God by clarifying that both the church and the state form a mixed community (corpus permixtum), in which both love of self (uti) and love of God (frui) prevail.¹²On the origin of the civitates, see Augustine, De civitate Dei, XI–XIV; on the development of the same, see ibid., XV–XVIII; on the end, see ibid., XIX–XXI. Both are part of the two great realms of authority (civitates): namely, (1) the civitas terrena, which is the community of the damned, characterized by love of self and contempt of God, and (2) the civitas dei, which is the community of the redeemed, knowing only love of God and self-denial. Augustine, who marked the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, provided the intellectual foundation for the subsequent history of theology with this nuanced model of political theology, not only in the tension between the empire and the sacerdotium, as reflected in the so-called “two swords theory” of the Middle Ages, according to which the pope wields both swords (i.e., spiritual and temporal power) but also Martin Luther’s  so-called “two kingdoms doctrine,”¹³See, in particular, Luther’s treatise “Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei” (1523), in: WA 11, 229–281. which paved the way for the modern era.

In the context of the Peasants’ War, Luther distinguished between the kingdom of God (regnum dei) and the kingdom of the world (regnum terrena). This distinction corresponds to a second distinction in Luther’s thought, namely that between God’s spiritual and temporal rule. These forms of government refer functionally to the different types of God’s rule: in the spiritual government, God governs Christians through the Holy Spirit; here they do not need the sword or the law but have the Holy Spirit in their hearts and do more than the law requires of them. The temporal government, however, protects against the wicked and ensures external peace. According to Luther, as a private individual the Christian lives under God’s spiritual rule to fulfill the demands of the Sermon on the Mount; but as an official and a member of the civil authority (such as a judge or executioner), he must wield the sword under civil rule to maintain peace for the sake of his neighbor. According to Luther, God’s rule extends over both realms, such that, in his view, no realm may have its own “autonomy.” It was precisely this, however, that manifested itself in a problematic way in the history of his influence, namely in the wake of a dualistic reception of his understanding of the kingdom of God by the so-called “Neo-Lutheranism.”¹⁴Cf. Huber, Wolfgang, “Eigengesetzlichkeit” und “Lehre von den zwei Reichen”, in: idem, Folgen christlicher Freiheit. Ethik und Theorie der Kirche im Horizont der Barmer Theologischen Erklärung (NBST 4), Neukirchen-Vluyn ²1985, 53–70.

In contrast, Karl Barth  in particular raised strong objections during the so-called “Church Struggle” (Kirchenkampf), which found expression, for example, in the second and fifth theses of the “Barmer Theological Declaration” (1934). In his model of the “Christian community and civic community,” he distinguishes between the two, yet also relates them to one another in the sense of two concentric circles by orienting them toward Christ as their common center. In this respect, Barth’s model is precisely not a static-deductive one, but is a teleological-dynamic model for which the reference to the kingdom of God is constitutive. Because the Christian community and the civic community are both moving toward the coming kingdom of God, the Christian community – which, unlike the civic community, is aware of this coming – is both permitted and able to identify exemplary parallels or analogies between the kingdom of God and worldly conditions (which are both capable of and in need of being expressed through parables).¹⁵Cf. Barth, Karl, Rechtfertigung und Recht. Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde (ThSt 104), Zürich ⁴1989, 65ff. (paragraph 14). These analogies possess heuristic power for the formation of political-ethical judgment that takes place situationally and contextually.

2.3. The History-Oriented Teleological Line of Development

In modern times, God’s actions have largely been interpreted in terms of a history of progress. The prototype for this was Joachim of Fiore’s  Trinitarian doctrine of the three kingdoms, which culminates in the kingdom of the Holy Spirit.¹⁶Cf. Joachim of Fiore, Liber de Concordia Noui ac Veteris Testamenti I–IV, ed. E. Randolph Daniel, Philadelphia 1983, II trac. I ch. 4; IV ch. 33; V ch. 84 (easily accessible in: Ritter, Adolf Martin et al. [Eds.], KTGQ II: Mittelalter, Neukirchen-Vluyn ⁸2014, 136–138). In terms of the history of progress, the Reformed federal theology of Johannes Coccejus  can also be interpreted within the framework of early Protestant orthodoxy, according to which the history of salvation progresses in the sense of a doctrine of stages. In “Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts” (1780), which he saw as culminating in the age of the Spirit, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing  finally took up Joachim’s historical schema during the Enlightenment and interpreted it as the successive realization of practical reason, which finds its fulfillment in the epoch of the new, eternal gospel of rational truth, namely in a religion of practical humanity.¹⁷Cf. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, in: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Werke. Vol. 8: Theologiekritische Schriften III / Philosophische Schriften, ed. Herbert G. Göpfert, München 1979, 489–510, 508 (§ 85f.).

In the early nineteenth century, Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher  articulated a conception of the kingdom of God – or the kingdom of heaven – grounded in the ethics of the good, viewing it as the supreme good (to be understood both transcendentally and in terms of a historical-philosophical process), the practical realization of which his project aimed to achieve.¹⁸Cf. Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E., Über den Begriff des höchsten Gutes. Erste Abhandlung (1827), in: Akademievorträge I/11. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Berlin et al. 2002, 535–553; Zweite Abhandlung (1830), in: ibid., 657–677. In his own way, Albrecht Ritschl , with his “cultural Protestant” program, drew on Immanuel Kant’s  moral conception of the kingdom of God¹⁹Kant’s discourse on the kingdom of God within his “Religionsschrift” (B 205; A 195) of the kingdom of God as “the ideal of the moral epoch of the world, brought about by the introduction of the true universal religion and foreseen in faith, until its completion, […] toward which we can only look forward, that is, toward which we can strive – through continuous progress and drawing nearer to the highest good possible on earth  […].” (Ed. Weischedel VII, 802, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. Partially in italics there). German original: “Ideal der durch Einführung der wahren allgemeinen Religion bewirkten moralischen, im Glauben vorausgesehenen Weltepoche, bis zu ihrer Vollendung, […] auf die wir nur im kontinuierlichen Fortschreiten und Annäherung zum höchsten auf Erden möglichen Gut […] hinaussehen, d.i. dazu Anstalt machen können.” and defined the kingdom of God as the “general purpose of the church established through God’s revelation in Christ and […] the collective product thereof” and thus as “the spiritual and moral task of humanity gathered in the Christian church.” According to Ritschl, the otherworldliness of the kingdom of God “comes about in the world.”²⁰Ritschl, Albrecht, Unterricht in der christlichen Religion. Studienausgabe nach der 1. Aufl von 1875 nebst den Abweichungen der 2. und 3. Aufl., intr. and ed. by Christine Axt-Piscalar, Tübingen 2002, 13 (§ 5), 17 (§ 8), ebd, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “allgemeine[n] Zweck der durch Gottes Offenbarung in Christus gestifteten Gemeinde und […] das gemeinschaftliche Produkt derselben”; “die geistige und sittliche Aufgabe der in der christlichen Gemeinde versammelten Menschheit;” “in der Welt zustande.” This reflects a concept of the kingdom of God that is inherent in history and clearly reveals a moral optimism regarding progress. It was none other than Ritschl’s son-in-law Johannes Weiß , from the so-called history of religions school, who rejected his father-in-law’s understanding of the kingdom of God and pointed out that, according to Jesus’s proclamation, the establishment of the kingdom of God is “mediated exclusively through a supernatural intervention by God” and therefore “there can be no question of an immanent development of the kingdom of God within Jesus’s sphere of thought.”²¹Weiß, Johannes, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, Göttingen ²1900, 24, 49f., translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “ausschließlich durch einen übernatürlichen Eingriff Gottes vermittelt;” “von einer innerweltlichen Entwicklung des Reiches Gottes im Gedankenkreis Jesu die Rede nicht sein kann.”

This view resurfaced, for example, in the “Social Gospel Movement” led by Walter Rauschenbusch , who believed he recognized a realization of the kingdom of God in American civilization and, shortly before World War I, called for the Christianization of the economic sphere as well.²²Cf. Rauschenbusch, Walter, Die religiösen Grundlagen der sozialen Botschaft. Das Reich Gottes (1917), in: Browning, Peter D./Hofheinz, Marco (Eds.), Protestantische Ethik in den USA des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ein kommentierter Reader, Stuttgart 2023, 74–84. This movement formed a counterpart to European religious socialism exemplified by Leonhard Ragaz , whose understanding of the kingdom of God was likewise closely linked to the hope of overcoming capitalism. With its emphasis on the kingdom of God as a process of liberation, religious socialism foreshadowed a series of contextual approaches, such as Latin American liberation theology in its struggle against global poverty and oppression, as well as feminist theologies with their opposition to existing mechanisms of oppression, particularly against women. ²³Weiße (Reich, 55–97), for example, traces this line of development. Dorothee Sölle , for example, places the message of the kingdom of God firmly in the context of “empowerment”: “The power of God lives only in the empowerment of the participants, and any discourse on the kingdom, the power, and the glory is valid only to the extent that it also distributes what it names.”²⁴Sölle, Dorothee, Art. Mystik, in: Gössmann, Elisabeth et al. (Eds.), Wörterbuch der Feministischen Theologie, Gütersloh 1991, 302, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Die power Gottes lebt nur im empowerment der Partizipierenden, und jede Rede über das Reich, die Kraft und die Herrlichkeit gilt nur insoweit, als sie das, was sie nennt, auch austeilt.”

3. Contemporary Positions as a Continuation of the Three Lines of Development in the Understanding of the Kingdom of God

The three lines of development outlined above continue into the present day and shape current positions, some of which also overlap.

3.1. The Kingdom of God in Its Threefold Form as an Emergent Process

Building primarily on the christological line of development (2.1.), Michael Welker  has argued for supplementing the classical doctrine of the three offices – to which Johann Gerhard  and Karl Barth  among others also drew – with a doctrine of the three forms of the kingdom of God, speaking not only of the prophetic, kingly, and priestly office of Jesus Christ, but also of the prophetic, kingly, and priestly form of the kingdom of God. Welker describes this threefold form of the kingdom of God as an emergent process that gives rise to something new through new, complex properties and patterns that cannot be reduced to their simple components. Welker understands the kingdom of God as a world-transforming power that challenges people to “free, creative self-withdrawal as an irreducible qualitative change in concrete life contexts.”²⁵Welker, Michael, Gottes Offenbarung. Christologie, Neukirchen-Vluyn ²2012, 215, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “freier, schöpferischer Selbstzurücknahme als unverfügbare Qualitätsveränderung konkreter Lebenszusammenhänge.” This central thesis, which understands rule precisely not as the power of self-assertion, is elaborated in accordance with the three aspects of the kingdom of God and, in relation to Christ’s kingly, priestly, and prophetic presence among his own, is linked to each of the three virtues of “love, faith, and hope” (see 1 Cor 13:13). The emerging kingdom of God thus takes shape in three forms: as diaconal existence and Christian humanism (with a focus on the kingly presence of Christ), as worship with baptism and the Lord’s Supper (in light of the priestly presence of Christ), and finally as christological and biblically oriented proclamation in communities seeking truth and justice (in relation to the prophetic presence of Christ).

In his focus on Christology and pneumatology, Welker brings together the proclamation of the kingdom of God into very close alignment with its proclaimer and in revitalizing traditional, ecumenically widespread theoretical concepts. Welker’s work is impressive and certainly raises questions: on the one hand, does his schema (or schematism), as he claims, actually do justice to the diverse biblical evidence; on the other hand, does his reliance on the philosophical model of emergence obscure the theological guiding principle of the advent-like coming of God: “Emergent processes can draw upon possibilities of the future, but they ‘arise’ from the present and follow a development into the future. However, they are not determined ‘from the future’”²⁶Thomas, Günter, Reich Gottes. Die Geduld der Hoffnung nach dem Ende der großen Utopie, in: Link-Wieczorek, Ulrike (Ed.), Reich Gottes und Weltgestaltung. Überlegungen für eine Theologie im 21. Jahrhundert, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2013, 14–34, 22, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Emergente Prozesse können Möglichkeiten der Zukunft in Anspruch nehmen, ‘erwachsen’ aber der Gegenwart und folgen einer Entwicklung in die Zukunft. Sie werden aber nicht ‘aus der Zukunft’ bestimmt.” as is the case for the advent.

3.2. The Kingdom of God in “Public Theology” as a “Theology of Hope”

Building primarily on the political-ethical approach (2.2.), a theological paradigm has emerged under the umbrella term “public theology” that broadly explores the social significance of the concept of the “kingdom of God.” Public theology, as advocated by Wolfgang Huber  and Heinrich Bedford-Strohm , for example, seeks to meet the public’s need for guidance in modern civil societies, but does not wish to satisfy this need at the expense of a foundation in biblical tradition, which would amount to a “self-secularization of the church.”²⁷Huber, Wolfgang, Kirche in der Zeitenwende. Gesellschaftlicher Wandel und Erneuerung der Kirche, Gütersloh 1998, 10 et al., translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Selbstsäkularisierung der Kirche.” Huber identifies the kingdom of God as a “goal-oriented perspective,” insofar as ethical and legal improvement arises from “the hope for the future justice of the kingdom of God.”²⁸Huber, Wolfgang, Gerechtigkeit und Recht. Grundlinien christlicher Rechtsethik, Gütersloh ³2006, 214, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “der Hoffnung auf die zukünftige Gerechtigkeit des Reiches Gottes.” Bedford-Strohm explicitly describes “public theology” as “theology of hope”²⁹Bedford-Strohm, Heinrich, Öffentliche Theologie als Theologie der Hoffnung, in: Link-Wieczorek, Ulrike (Ed.), Reich Gottes und Weltgestaltung. Überlegungen für eine Theologie im 21. Jahrhundert, 75–83. (Jürgen Moltmann ) and emphasizes that the kingdom of God opens up a perspective of hope that normatively guides the formation of a more just and solidarity-based society without becoming identical with it. In doing so, he underscores the motivating power of the horizon of the kingdom of God, which commits Christian actors to actively shaping social conditions and, in particular, to solidarity with the weak and marginalized in the sense of a “preferential option for the poor.”³⁰Bedford-Strohm, Heinrich, Öffentliche Theologe in der Zivilgesellschaft, in: Höhne, Florian/Oorschot, Frederike van (Eds.), Grundtexte Öffentliche Theologie, Leipzig 2015, 211–226, 220, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “vorrangigen Option für die Armen.”

Here, “public theology” certainly intersects with various forms of liberartion theology. For example, Dorothee Sölle  emphasizes “Theologically, there is much to learn and discover from them [i.e., the poor; M.H], but above all, they have grasped an aspect of the kingdom of God differently and more deeply than we have, namely joy. Perhaps we can learn the most from their celebrations, their songs, their self-sacrifice so that we might once again become a church that expresses the nearness of God to people as joy.”³¹Sölle, Dorothee, Gott Denken. Einführung in die Theologie, Stuttgart 1990, 199, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Es gibt theologisch bei ihnen [scil. den Armen; M. H.] zu lernen und zu entdecken, aber vor allem haben sie einen Zug eines Reiches Gottes anders und tiefer als wir erfasst, das ist die Freude. Vielleicht können wir am meisten aus ihren Festen, ihren Liedern, ihrer Lebenshingabe lernen, um vielleicht einmal wieder Kirche zu werden, die die Nähe Gottes zu den Menschen ausdrückt als Freude.” Of course, it is also a matter of debate among proponents of “public theology” whether this approach adequately takes into account the orientation toward the kingdom of God. Shortly before his death, for example, Jürgen Moltmann  criticized the increasingly ecclesiological  orientation of “public theology”: “Public theology cannot have the church as its center, but only the universal kingdom and glory of God […]. The church is a historical precursor and a particular anticipation of the universal divine future of humanity and the earth. […] Without an eschatology of the kingdom of God, there can be no ‘public theology’ of the church!”³²Moltmann, Jürgen, Politische Theologie und öffentliche Theologie, in: Evangelische Theologie 79 (4/2019), 287–290, 289f., translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Öffentliche Theologie kann nicht die Kirche zum Zentrum haben, sondern nur das universale Reich und die Herrlichkeit Gottes […]. Die Kirche ist ein geschichtlicher Vorläufer und eine partikulare Antizipation der universalen göttlichen Zukunft der Menschheit und der Erde. […] Ohne eine Eschatologie des Reiches Gottes keine ‘öffentliche Theologie’ der Kirche!”

3.3. The Kingdom of God in Contemporary Concepts of an Ethics of Goods

Building primarily on the teleological tradition (2.3.), various contemporary theologians, including those in the tradition of Schleiermacher , are developing a distinctly ethics of goods perspective by invoking the kingdom of God as the highest good, thereby addressing the question of the desirable goal of human action. An example of an argument from an ethics of goods perspective can be found in the work of Wolfhart Pannenberg , according to whom, in line with Schleiermacher, the highest good consists in the community with God within the kingdom of God. It is “the place of the fulfillment of human community through true justice and the state of peace founded upon it.”³³Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Grundlagen der Ethik. Philosophisch-theologische Perspektiven, Göttingen ²2003, 72, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “der Ort der Vollendung der Gemeinschaft der Menschen durch wahrhafte Gerechtigkeit und durch den darauf begründeten Friedenszustand.” Pannenberg, however, attributes a justifying function for moral action to the kingdom of God only at the individual level, not at the structural societal level. At that level, he regards it rather as suspect of hubris. Only individual behavior, he argues, is inspired and motivated by the nearness of the kingdom of God, since only the individual is capable of benevolence or love and thus of participating in God’s reign.³⁴Cf. Pannenberg, Grundlagen, 75.91.

Eilert Herms develops a different type of argumentation in the ethics of goods, understanding the “process structure of the realization of the good”³⁵Herms, Eilert, Das Wirklichwerden des Guten: Das Kommen des Reiches Gottes. Zum Verhältnis von Güterlehre und ontologischem Fundament der Ethik, in: Härle, Wilfried/Preul, Reiner (Eds.), Reich Gottes (Marburger Jahrbuch Theologie XI), Marburg 1999, 85–102, 101, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Prozessstruktur des Wirklichwerdens des Guten.” as a “theory of the coming of the kingdom of God.”³⁶Herms, Wirklichwerden, 102, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “Theorie des Kommens des Reiches Gottes.” Herms describes this process structure in dogmatic terms, or more precisely in terms of creation theology. He understands it as the conditio humana, from which, goals toward which one acts are derived. Herms does not think from the perspective of the coming of the kingdom of God, but rather from the perspective of creation theology, from the question of the ontological foundation of ethics (i.e., a determination of human beings presupposed as a fundamental given), from which the doctrine of goods is developed as a doctrine of the perfected good. Just as Pannenberg’s  individual moral orientation toward the kingdom of God raises questions about its ontological foundation, the same applies to the basic premise assumed by Herms. Such anthropological premises are likely to be questionable as a viable foundation for an ethics, especially a social ethics.

4. Concluding Remarks

In light of the various types and positions outlined above, one wonders whether and under what conditions an ethics from a Christian perspective can incorporate the message of the kingdom of God, “that respect both the diversity within Christianity and the actual pluralism in modern societies without becoming arbitrary; that embrace the longing for God’s kingdom without naively overlooking the reality of sin; and that are able to give due consideration to human subjectivity without succumbing to hubris.”³⁷Meireis, Torsten, “Trachtet zuerst nach dem Reich Gottes”. Güterethik im Rahmen einer dreigliedrigen Ethik des Guten, in: Reuter, Hans-Richard/Meireis, Torsten (Eds.), Das Gute und die Güter. Studien zur Güterethik (Entwürfe zur christlichen Gesellschaftswissenschaft 19), Münster 2007, 42–71, 64, translation by Jacob N. Cerone. German original: “die sowohl die Pluralität innerhalb der Christenheit wie den faktischen Pluralismus in modernen Gemeinwesen respektieren, ohne beliebig zu werden, die die Sehnsucht nach Gottes Reich aufnehmen, ohne die Realität der Sünde schwärmerisch zu verkennen, und die menschliche Subjektivität zur Geltung zu bringen vermögen, ohne in Hybris zu verfallen.” Everywhere, the difficulties of ethical processing became apparent, difficulties that certainly stem in no small part from the subject itself, namely the kingdom of God, which, as something coming in the advent, cannot be fully grasped and whose dynamics, moreover, cannot be “pinpointed.”³⁸Cf. Frey, Christofer, Wege zu einer evangelischen Ethik. Eine Grundlegung, Gütersloh 2014, 397; Ulrich, Hans G., Gottes Reich. Der widerständige Trost der Verheißung, in: Maurer, Ernstpeter (Ed.), Grundlinien der Dogmatik, Rheinbach 2005, 287–301, 291. One can likely only encounter it appropriately in human action by not neglecting either of these things, namely to wait and to hurry, as Christoph Blumhardt  emphasizes in concert with, among others, Karl Barth  and Jürgen Moltmann . This formula of “waiting and hastening,” found in 2 Pet 3:13ff., aptly expresses the tension within the Christian faith brought about by the coming of the kingdom of God, which unites both the patient waiting for God’s action and the hastening toward his coming kingdom.