The Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg

G. G. O'Collins

doi:10.1017/S0034412500002961

The Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008

G. G. O'Collins

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G. G. O'Collins: Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge

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One of the most interesting works on Christology to appear in recent years is Wolfhart Pannenberg's Grundzüge der Christologie. The reviewer in the Scottish Journal of Theology could speak of it as ‘a theological thriller’ and ‘very satisfying on account of its erudition, constant confrontation with Roman and Protestant, German and non-German theologians of the past and present’. Certainly we have here a Christology based on a striking knowledge of Scripture, the Councils, the Fathers and a large range of theologians and philosophers, both ancient and modern. Its originality consists perhaps most of all in the way it understands Christ's role as Revealer.

Type: Research Article
Information: Religious Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , October 1967 , pp. 369 - 376

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500002961 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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^{page 369 note 1} Gütersloh, 1964. Important themes of Pannenberg's Christology had already emerged in his Offenbarung als Geschichte (Göttingen, 1961) and such articles as ‘Heilsgeschehen und Geschichte’, Kerygma und Dogma 5 (1959), pp. 218–37, pp. 259–88 and ‘Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 60 (1963), pp. 90–121. Pannenberg is a professor of systematic theology in the Lutheran faculty of the University of Mainz.

^{page 369 note 2} 18 (1965), p. 488.

^{page 369 note 3} Grundzüge der Christologie (hereafter G.d.C.), p. 23.

^{page 370 note 1} G.d.C. p. 21f.

^{page 370 note 2} G.d.C. p. 22.

^{page 370 note 3} G.d.C. p. 32.

^{page 370 note 4} Schleiermacher constructs his Christology from the experience of redemption (G.d.C. p. 19). Bultmann reduces Christology to the question of the existential meaningfulness of Jesus for us as revealing a new possibility of existence (ibid. p. 32, n. 1 and p. 42). Tillich's approach is summed up by his dictum, ‘Christology is a function of soteriology’ (Ibid. p. 42).

^{page 370 note 5} G.C.d. pp. 41–2.

^{page 370 note 6} G.d.C. p. 42. It might have been more accurate to say that the soteriology emerges with the Christology. As will be seen from the outline of Pannenberg's argument, the claim of Christ to divine authority is also a claim to be soteriological agent, and the establishing of this claim through the resurrection is to be understood in the context of eschatological expectations which are also soteriological expectations.

^{page 370 note 7} G.d.C. p. 355.

^{page 370 note 8} G.d.C. p. 28.

^{page 371 note 1} Mark 8: 38 ( = Matt. 10: 32f. and Luke 9: 26). With Bultmann, Bornkamm, Tödt and others Pannenberg holds the Son of Man sayings to be authentic. If it was only after the resurrection that Jesus was identified with the Son of Man as the eschatological judge, this does not affect Pannenberg's argument (cf. G.d.C. pp. 53–7). Pannenberg does not reject other starting-points, e.g. the authority claim implied in the Sermon on the Mount, but prefers to begin from Mark 8: 38, where—as we shall see—the ‘proleptic’ nature of the claim fits more readily into the structure of his Christology.

^{page 371 note 2} G.d.C. pp. 52–3.

^{page 371 note 3} G.d.C. p. 79; cf. p. 52.

^{page 371 note 4} G.d.C. p. 79

^{page 371 note 5} ‘The early Christian announcement of the eschatological resurrection of Jesus—at a temporal interval from the general resurrection of the dead—is, to be sure, from the point of view of religious history a new element; it is precisely that too within the framework of the apocalyptic tradition’ (G.d.C. p. 93).

^{page 371 note 6} G.d.C. p. 79.

^{page 371 note 7} G.d.C. p. 105.

^{page 371 note 8} This notion is vital for Pannenberg's Christology (G.d.C. pp. 9, 105), theology of revelation (Offenbarung als Geschichte, pp. 103–6) and hermeneutics (‘Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 60 (1963), pp. 120–1).

^{page 371 note 9} ‘Only with reference to the universal context of all happening’ can the ‘conviction’ be justified that God is revealed in the Christ-event (‘Einsicht und Glaube. Antwort an Paul Althaus’, Theologische Literaturzeitung 88 (1963), c. 88.) ‘Only with a view to the whole of reality can a single event express something about the one God. This whole is, however, in the biblical sense, as the whole of history, accessible only through the anticipation of the end of all happening…for statements about God can be gained only with reference to the whole of all reality, which on its side comes into view only through anticipation of the end’ (G.d.C. p. 187).

^{page 372 note 1} ‘Kerygma und Geschichte’, Studien zur Theologie der alttestamentlichen Überlieferungen, ed. Rendtorff, R. and Koch, K. (Neukirchen, 1961), p. 139, n. 19;Google Scholar cf. Offenbarung als Geschichte, p. 104.

^{page 372 note 2} G.d.C. p. 128.

^{page 372 note 3} G.d.C. p. 131. Pannenberg acknowledges his debt to Karl Barth for having elaborated the notion that Jesus' union in being with God is the implicate of God's self-revelation through Jesus. But here, as elsewhere, Pannenberg differs considerably from Barth, e.g. in his insistence that it is only ‘on the basis of his resurrection from the dead’ that ‘Jesus is the revelation of God’ (G.d.C. p. 145). He criticises Barth for setting the virgin birth on the same level as the resurrection (G.d.C. pp. 148–50).

^{page 372 note 4} G.d.C. p. 150.

^{page 372 note 5} G.d.C. p. 152.

^{page 372 note 6} G.d.C. p. 153.

^{page 372 note 7} G.d.C. p. 150.

^{page 372 note 8} G.d.C. pp. 295 ff.

^{page 373 note 1} G.d.C. pp. 294–5.

^{page 373 note 2} G.d.C. p. 314.

^{page 373 note 3} G.d.C. p. 331.

^{page 373 note 4} G.d.C. p. 334.

^{page 373 note 5} G.d.C. pp. 325–6.

^{page 373 note 6} G.d.C. p. 310.

^{page 373 note 7} G.d.C. pp. 333 f.

^{page 373 note 8} G.d.C. p. 317. Pannenberg adds that ‘the grounding of Jesus' union with God in the retroactive force of his resurrection makes the hiddenness of this union during Jesus' earthly life understandable and thus keeps room open for the genuine humanity of this life’ (p. 333).

^{page 373 note 9} G.d.C. p. 317.

^{page 373 note 10} G.d.C. p. 333.

^{page 373 note 11} G.d.C. p. 337.

^{page 373 note 12} Pannenberg recognises how ‘thorny’ the question of Jesus' self-consciousness has proved (G.d.C. p. 337), but insists that Christology cannot avoid it. Even if self-consciousness is not to be identified with personality, the ‘being-with-oneself of man takes place in his self-consciousness in a very complicated way and on many levels’ and so any investigation of a person cannot avoid the issue of his self-consciousness (G.d.C. pp. 336 f.).

^{page 374 note 1} ‘Chalkedon—Endeoder Anfang?’, Das Konzil vonChalkedon III, 1954, p. 22 (cited G.d.C. p. 337).

^{page 374 note 2} G.d.C. p. 345.

^{page 374 note 3} G.d.C. p. 341.

^{page 374 note 4} G.d.C. p. 343.

^{page 374 note 5} G.d.C. p. 343.

^{page 374 note 6} G.d.C. p. 348.

^{page 374 note 7} G.d.C. p. 347.

^{page 374 note 8} G.d.C. p. 348.

^{page 374 note 9} G.d.C. p. 350.

^{page 374 note 10} G.d.C. p. 351.

^{page 374 note 11} G.d.C. pp. 357–8. By understanding what it is to be a person in relative terms and not in terms of spiritual individuality, Pannenberg hopes to avoid ‘the old Antiochene objection’ which still lingers on in such writers as Schleiermacher, Harnack and Althaus, that ‘the lack of personality (Unpersönlichkeit) of Jesus' human nature diminishes his true human existence’ (G.d.C. p. 353).

^{page 375 note 1} Pannenberg's treatment of the resurrection as an objective happening gives the lie to the argument of Professor Ronald Gregor Smith, viz that anyone who does this must ‘separate off the resurrection from the life and death of Christ’ and view ‘the life and death … as a meaningless catastrophe, which is then overwhelmed, so to speak, by an act of force majeure on the part of God, namely the resurrection’ (Secular Christianity [London, 1966], p. 99).

^{page 375 note 2} Pannenberg does not argue that Jesus claimed divine authority on the grounds of his coming resurrection.

^{page 375 note 3} ‘The deeds of Jesus…could not unambiguously show whether Jesus is in person the one on whom salvation or judgment is definitively decided. Now that was the claim of Jesus, viz that with relation to him success or failure in the future judgement of the Son of Man is decided. This claim of Jesus could be proved true only when the general resurrection of the dead follows and the judgement of the Son of Man as a matter of fact passes its verdicts on the basis of men's relation to Jesus’ (G.d.C. p. 59).

^{page 375 note 4} G.d.C. p. 63.

^{page 375 note 5} G.d.C. p. 61.

^{page 375 note 6} G.d.C. p. 187.

^{page 375 note 7} Scottish Journal of Theology, 18 (1965), p. 489.

^{page 376 note 1} It is important to recall that for Pannenberg there is no direct revelation; there is only God's indirect self-revelation through his deeds in history (cf., e.g., Offenbarung als Geschichte p. 91).

^{page 376 note 2} Offenbarung als Geschichte p. 95.

^{page 376 note 3} Cf., e.g., I Cor. 15. 21–28.

^{page 376 note 4} G.d.C. p. 348.

^{page 376 note 5} I would like to thank the Rev. M. F. Wiles, the Rev. S. W. Sykes and A Louth for some very helpful discussion and criticism of this article. Since the article was written a second edition of Grundzüge der Christologie has appeared (Gütersloh, 1966). New Frontiers in Theology III Theology as History, ed. Robinson, James M. and Cobb, John B. (New York, 1976)Google Scholar, which is concerned with Pannenberg's theology, lists practically all his writings and the literature discussing his views up to mid 1966.

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