Robert Jenson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Robert William Jenson (1930-08-02)August 2, 1930 Eau Claire,Wisconsin, US |
| Died | September 5, 2017(2017-09-05) (aged 87) Princeton,New Jersey, US |
| Spouse(s) | Blanche Rockne (m. c. 1954) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Cur Deus Homo?[1] (1959) |
| Doctoral advisor | Peter Brunner [de][2] |
| Influences | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Theology |
| Sub-discipline | Systematic theology |
| School or tradition | Lutheranism |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral students | Colin Gunton |
| Notable works |
|
| Influenced | Roger E. Olson[9] |
Robert William Jenson (August 2, 1930 – September 5, 2017) was a leading AmericanLutheran andecumenical theologian. Prior to his retirement in 2007, he spent seven years as the director of theCenter for Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ. He was the co-founder of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and is known for his two-volumeSystematic Theology published between 1997 and 1999.[10]
Jenson was born on August 2, 1930, inEau Claire,Wisconsin.[2] He studied classics and philosophy atLuther College in the late 1940s, before beginning theological studies atLuther Seminary in 1951. Due to a car accident he missed most of his first-year seminary studies; he immersed himself in the works ofImmanuel Kant andSøren Kierkegaard during that year. Jenson began readinghistorical-critical scholars likeHermann Gunkel andSigmund Mowinckel, and as a result he became deeply interested in the biblical texts and in the theological significance of theOld Testament.
At Luther Seminary, Jenson was assistant to the renowned orthodoxLutheran theologian, Herman Preus. Preus infused Jenson with an admiration for the theology of post-ReformationLutheran scholasticism, and with a strong belief in an orthodox Lutheran understanding ofpredestination. Against the majority of the staff at Luther Seminary at that time, who believed that God elected individuals to salvation on the basis of "foreseen faith", Preus held that God had decreed the salvation of a definite number of the elect, without a decree of reprobation. Other influences at Luther Seminary included Edmund Smits, who introduced Jenson to the work ofAugustine of Hippo, and fellow studentGerhard Forde, who introduced him to the work ofRudolf Bultmann. While studying at seminary, Jenson also met and married Blanche Rockne, who became one of the major stimuli for his theological work (one of his later books includes a dedication to Blanche, "the mother of all my theology").[a]
After seminary, Jenson taught in the department of religion and philosophy atLuther College from 1955 to 1957, before moving toHeidelberg for doctoral studies in 1957–1958. Though he had planned to write his dissertation on Bultmann, his supervisor,Peter Brunner [de], advised him to work onKarl Barth's doctrine of election. Thus Jenson worked on Barth's theology at Heidelberg, and he also studied nineteenth-century German theology and philosophy, partly with the help of the new Heidelberg lecturer,Wolfhart Pannenberg. He also attended a seminar there withMartin Heidegger (and, during a later visit to Heidelberg, withHans-Georg Gadamer). Even more significantly, at Heidelberg he became friends with another young Lutheran scholar,Carl Braaten, who would later become his "chief theological companion"[12] and his most important theological collaborator.
Jenson's doctoral dissertation (revised and published in 1963 asAlpha and Omega) was completed inBasel, with Barth's approval, and so Jenson returned to Luther College, where he continued to study Barth while also developing an increasing interest in the philosophy ofG. W. F. Hegel. The faculty of the religion department was uncomfortable with Jenson'stheological liberalism, and his openness to biblical criticism and evolutionary biology was strongly condemned. When the college failed to force Jenson's retirement, several professors from the religion and biology departments resigned in protest. From 1960 to 1966, Jenson was thus left with the task of helping to rebuild an entire religion department, and he became especially involved in the development of a new philosophy department.[13] During these years, he also wroteA Religion Against Itself (1967), which sharply critiqued the American religious culture of the 1960s.
Jenson finally left Luther College to spend three years as Dean and Tutor of Lutheran Studies atMansfield College,Oxford University.[14] Here he was able to focus for the first time on teaching theology, and he was deeply influenced by his encounters withAnglicanism and withecumenical worship. The three years at Oxford marked a creative and productive period in Jenson's career. InThe Knowledge of Things Hoped For (1969), he sought to integrate the traditions of European hermeneutics and English analytical philosophy, while also drawing on patristic and medieval theologians such asOrigen andThomas Aquinas. And inGod after God (1969), he sought to go beyond the "death of God" theology by emphasizing the actualism and futurity of God's being. The proposal advanced inGod after God was in many respects parallel to the new "theology of hope" that was being developed at the time in Germany by young scholars likeJürgen Moltmann andWolfhart Pannenberg. At Oxford, Jenson also supervised the doctoral work ofColin Gunton, who went on to become one of Great Britain's most distinguished and influential systematic theologians.
From Oxford, Jenson returned to America in 1968 and took up a position at theLutheran Seminary inGettysburg. His work here focused in part on distinctively Lutheran themes, especially in the booksLutheranism (1976) andVisible Words (1978). He also began to engage deeply withpatristic thought (especially withGregory of Nyssa,Cyril of Alexandria, andMaximus the Confessor), which led him to develop a creative new proposal for trinitarian theology inThe Triune Identity (1982).
Further, as a result of his encounter with Anglicanism at Oxford, Jenson was appointed to the first round of Lutheran–Episcopal ecumenical dialogue in 1968. This was the beginning of his long involvement with theecumenical movement, which would deeply shape his later theology. WithGeorge Lindbeck, he became involved in the Roman Catholic–Lutheran dialogue; and in 1988, he spent time at the Institute for Ecumenical Research atStrasbourg. Throughout his career, Jenson's theology continued to move in an increasingly Catholic, conservative and ecumenical direction. He interacted extensively with the work of Catholic theologians likeJoseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) andHans Urs von Balthasar and with Eastern Orthodox theologians like Maximus the Confessor,John Zizioulas, andVladimir Lossky.
After two decades of teaching atLutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Jenson moved in 1988 to the religion department ofSt. Olaf College inNorthfield,Minnesota. He was joined in Northfield by his friendCarl Braaten, and together they founded the conservative Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology in 1991. The founding of this center marked a new period of intensive ecumenical involvement for Jenson: with Braaten, he organized numerous ecumenical conferences and began publishing the theological journalPro Ecclesia, where he remained a senior editor until his death.[15]
Jenson continued to teach at St. Olaf College until 1998, when he retired and took up a position as Senior Scholar for Research at the Center for Theological Inquiry inPrinceton,New Jersey. Before leaving St. Olaf College, he completed work on hismagnum opus, the two-volumeSystematic Theology (1997–1999), which has since been widely regarded as one of the most important and creative recent works ofsystematic theology. In a review of this work,Wolfhart Pannenberg described Jenson as "one of the most original and knowledgeable theologians of our time".[16]
Jenson died in his home in Princeton on September 5, 2017.[17]
