Grounded Hope in God: Epiphany and Promise

Various New Testament writings assume an important role for hope in God. The role of eschatology in those writings stems from a role for hope regarding what God will accomplish by way of redemption. The apostle Paul goes further to identify a widely neglected evidential ground for hope in God. This ground is in divine agapē toward humans in their experience, and it anchors, as supporting evidence, not only human hope in God but also divine promises for humans. In Paul's view, then, divine epiphany and divine promise belong together as constituents of grounded human hope in God. His view provides a needed corrective to Jürgen Moltmann's influential but unduly sharp contrast, in Theology of Hope and elsewhere, between a God of epiphany and a God of promise. It offers an important kind of experience-grounded hope in God neglected by Moltmann and others.