two futures

Jurgen Moltmann once wrote … that in Latin there are two words for the future.

One is futurum. Futurum, he said, is the future we see stretching out in front us by our brainstorming, trend spotting, number crunching etc. It comes from our wrestling. He calls this the Future of Social Calculation.

But, he says, there’s another future that comes towards us from beyond us, over which we have no control. We can’t fashion its outline or calculate it. We grapple with this future by asking a question. “What kind of X (parish, diocese, state, country, family, etc., etc.) would we like to have in (fill in a date)?” In other words we in a sense “dream” this future. Moltmann says that this dreaming can be very powerful.

When a society starts dreaming of a different future to what it now has, it can produce tremendous energy. Sometimes all the tanks in the world can’t stop it. Walls can tumble. He calls this future the Future of Ethical Anticipation.

He then says that each is incomplete with out the other. Both are needed for future planning.

(Herbert O’Driscoll, email to Fr. John 11/23/09)

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