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Pannenberg's Doctrine of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Herbert Burhenn
Herbert Burhenn
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37401, USA
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Extract

With the appearance in English of some of his most recent essays, it has become apparent that Wolfhart Pannenberg is now focusing his efforts to develop a theological program on the doctrine of God. Pannenberg has attracted considerable attention in recent years by his willingness to depart at several points from the mainstream of modern Protestant theology—especially his separation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, his argument for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection, and his overriding concern with future rather than present eschatology. Whether it is possible for Pannenberg to make these departures and still put together a coherent and viable theological program is very much an open question at this point, I believe. But the importance of a satisfactory doctrine of God in his program should be obvious enough: Can Pannenberg give us an account of a God who raised Jesus from the dead and who will bring in his Kingdom without violating the concerns which have weighed so heavily upon theology since the Enlightenment—that God must not act in ways incompatible with what man has discovered about the natural world and with what he believes about his own freedom and responsibility?

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 28 , Issue 6 , December 1975 , pp. 535 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1975

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References

page 535 note 1 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, The Idea of God and Human Freedom, transl. Wilson, R. A. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973)Google Scholar. This book will henceforth be referred to as IGHF. The British edition is published under the title Basic Questions in Theology, Vol. III (London: S.G.M. Press, 1973).Google Scholar

page 536 note 1 In addition to the essays in The Idea of God and Human Freedom, I have in mind here those in Basic Questions in Theology, Vol. II, transl. Kehm, G. H. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), especially pp. 65–249Google Scholar. Henceforth, BQ, II. Pannenberg's christology has been published in English as Jesus—God and Man, transl. Wilkins, L. L. and Priebe, D. A. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968)Google Scholar. Henceforth, JGM.

page 536 note 2 Pannenberg, , The Apostles' Creed, transl. Kohl, M. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), pp. 27–43.Google Scholar

page 536 note 3 Pannenberg, , ‘The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature’, Theology, 75 (1972): 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 536 note 4 Pannenberg, , Basic Questions in Theology, Vol. I, transl. Kehm, G. H. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), pp. 203–204Google Scholar. Henceforth, BQ, I.

page 537 note 1 Pannenberg, , What Is Man?, transl. Priebe, D. A. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970). p. 5Google Scholar. The German edition was first published in 1962.

page 537 note 2 ibid., p. 12.

page 538 note 1 Pannenberg, , Theohgy and the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), p. 55Google Scholar. Henceforth, TKG.

page 539 note 1 cf. Pannenberg's claim that Jesus' pre-Easter sonship is confirmed retroactively (JGM, pp. 135, 308).

page 539 note 2 cf. Pannenberg's discussion of whether the incarnation involves a becoming in God (JGM, pp. 320–1).

page 541 note 1 Pannenberg, , ‘Response to the Discussion’, in Robinson, J. M. and Cobb, J. B. Jr., eds., Theology As History (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 252. Henceforth TAH.Google Scholar

page 541 note 2 Pannenberg, , ‘The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature’, pp. 13–21.Google Scholar

page 542 note 1 I have discussed elsewhere some of the problems connected with Pannenberg's treatment of the resurrection (‘Pannenberg's Argument for the Historicity of the Resurrection’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 40 (1972): 368–379).Google Scholar

page 543 note 1 Danto, Arthur, Analytical Philosophy of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 143.Google Scholar

page 544 note 1 ibid.

page 544 note 2 ibid., p. 16.

page 544 note 3 I have avoided speaking of a complete account of an event because there are many possible descriptions of an event which are not of interest to the historian.

page 544 note 4 For a discussion of the concept of ‘story-line’, see Fain, Haskell, Between Philosophy and History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 207–276.Google Scholar

page 546 note 1 In his postscript to Tupper, E. Frank, The Theology of Wolfharl Pannenberg (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973Google Scholar), Pannenberg includes what seems to be an indirect promise to undertake this endeavor: ‘But I have not yet published a detailed theology of history, which will have to deal to a great extent with the sin of man and with the judgment of God’ (p. 304).

page 547 note 1 See, for example, IGHF, pp. 103, 193.

page 548 note 1 Pannenberg's principal discussions of the Spirit appear in JGM, pp. 169–79; ‘The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature’; The Apostles' Creed, pp. 128–43; and ‘The Working of the Spirit in Creation and in the People of God’, in Pannenberg, et al. , Spirit, Faith, and Church (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), pp. 13–31.Google Scholar

page 548 note 2 Pannenberg, , ‘The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature’, p. 10.Google Scholar

page 549 note 1 ibid., p. 11.

page 549 note 2 ibid., p. 12.

page 549 note 3 ibid., p. 13.

page 549 note 4 ibid., p. 15.

page 549 note 5 William Hamilton criticises Pannenberg for adopting a theonomous view of history and for failing to take seriously ‘the world of modern unbelief’ (TAH, pp. 179, 185–6).