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A New German Theological Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Daniel P. Fuller
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Extract

With the publication in 1961 of Offenbarung als Geschichte, the first supplementary volume of the German periodical Kerygma und Dogma, it has become evident that a new theological movement is gaining momentum amongst some of the younger theologians of Germany. Each of those writing for this booklet supports, from the vantage point of his own particular specialty, the thesis that revelation is mediated only through historical events: Wolfhart Pannenberg as a systematic theologian, Rolf Rendtorff as an Old Testament exegete, Ulrich Wilckens as a New Testament scholar, and Trutz Rendtorff as a Church historian. Since 1951 these and others who were then doctoral students at Heidelberg have been meeting regularly to formulate the basic ideology found in this booklet. Wolfhart Pannenberg has become the chief spokesman for this new movement, not because he was originally responsible for the basic approach to revelation as history, but because as one whose specialty is dogmatics, he provides the over-all synthesis for the historical and exegetical work of the others.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1966 , pp. 160 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1966

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References

page 160 note 1 Pannenberg, W., Rendtorff, R., Rendtorff, T., Wilckens, U., Offenbarung als Geschichte (Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, Göttingen), Kerygma und Dogma, Beiheft 1 (1961), 2nd edition (1963)Google Scholar. Henceforth cited in text and footnotes as OaG. Page numbers come from the second edition.

page 160 note 2 Pannenberg, OaG 132, credits Rolf Rendtorff with providing the basic seed thought that the Old Testament always views revelation as mediated to men through historical events. Rendtorff, in turn, was stimulated in this direction by the writings of W. Zimmerli.

page 160 note 3 loc. cit.

page 160 note 4 Pannenberg, W., ‘Heilsgeschehen und Geschichte’, Kerygma und Dogma, V (1959), p. 218Google Scholar. Henceforth cited as HuG. Part of this has already appeared in English in Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics, C. Westermann (ed.) (John Knox Press, Richmond, 1963), pp. 314–35.

page 161 note 1 Althaus, P., ‘Offenbarung als Geschichte und Glaube. Bemerkungen zu Wolfhart Pannenbergs Begriff der Offenbarung’, Theologische Literaturzeitung, 87 (May 1962), col. 323.Google Scholar

page 161 note 2 Steiger, L., ‘Offenbarungsgeschichte und theologische Vernunft. Zur Theologie W. Pannenbergs’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 59 (1962), p. 89.Google Scholar

page 162 note 1 Pannenberg, W., ‘Die Krise des Ethischen und die Theologie’, Theologische Literaturzeitung (1962), cols. 7–16, esp. col. 14.Google Scholar

page 162 note 2 Pannenberg, W., ‘Was ist eine dogmatische Aussage’, Kerygma und Dogma, 82 (1962), pp. 81–99.Google Scholar

page 162 note 3 The first two volumes of this series concern themselves, respectively, with Martin Heidegger with Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs.

page 163 note 1 Pannenberg, W., ‘Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte’, Zeitschrift für Theologic und Kirche, 60 (1963), pp. 90–121.Google Scholar

page 165 note 1 Steiger (op. cit., p. 102) charges that Pannenberg is guilty of asserting, without sufficient historical support, that despite certain mythical features in the Resurrection accounts, their assertion of the Resurrection itself must be accepted. To be sure, both in the 1959 and 1961 articles it is beyond the scope of Pannenberg to give a detailed account of his argument for the Resurrection. His purpose in these articles was simply to outline his hermeneutical strategy for gaining knowledge of the Resurrection. However, in more recent works Pannenberg has given a detailed exposition of the way historical reasoning leads to a knowledge of the Resurrection. His article, ‘Ist Jesus wirklich auferstanden ?’ Geistliche Woche für Südwestdeutschland der Evang. Akademie Mannheim vom 16. bis 23. Februar 1964, pp. 22–33, argues that the enemies of Jesus at Jerusalem would have been able immediately to silence the apostle's preaching, had the tomb of Jesus been occupied or unknown. However, the early Jewish polemic against Christianity always acknowledged that the tomb of Jesus was known and empty. Pannenberg's major book, Grundzüge der Christologie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1964), has a detailed argument for the Resurrection of Jesus from page 85 to 103. Here he sets forth his historical argument that the accounts of the Resurrection appearances, while containing many mythical embellishments, must have at their core the fact that Jesus did appear to His disciples. It would be improbable, declares Pannenberg, that ‘people adhering to Jewish tradition could have conceived of Jesus alone as being the beginning of the final eschatological event without being prompted to this by some special occasion’ (p. 93). While the disciples were no doubt greatly saddened at the death of Jesus, their confidence that He would rise again in the future would have given them an emotional equilibrium that did not need to be sustained by hallucinations. However, the fact that they did preach that Jesus had risen as the first fruits of the resurrection to come is, from the standpoint of Religionsgeschichute, a novum which demands that Jesus did rise and appear to His disciples.

page 169 note 1 Pannenberg, W., ‘Die Aufnahme des philosophischen Gottesbegriffes als dogmatisches Problem der frühchristlichen Theologie’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 70 (1959), pp- 1–45.Google Scholar

page 170 note 1 See note above.

page 170 note 2 Pannenberg, W., ‘Einsicht und Glaube’, Theologische Literaturzeitung, 88 (February 1963), cols. 81–91.Google Scholar

page 171 note 1 ibid., col. 89.